The GSDI Association is delighted to announce that Professor Jacqueline McGlade is the recipient of the GSDI Global Citizen Award for 2013. Prof. McGlade will receive the award at the Global Geospatial Conference 2013 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 4-8 November 2013, the combined GSDI 14 World Conference and AfricaGIS 2013 Conference, being held at the UN Conference Centre of UNECA.
McGlade joins our two previous Global Citizen Award winners, Jack Dangermond, President of Esri, and Gilberto Câmara, former Director of Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research.
The GSDI Association’s Global Citizen Award recognizes globally an individual who has provided exemplary thought leadership and substantive worldwide contributions in:
• Promoting informed and responsible use of geographic information and geospatial technologies for the benefit of society; and/or
• Fostering spatial data infrastructure developments that support sustainable social, economic, and environmental systems integrated from local to global scales.
Prof. McGlade completed her mandate as Executive Director of the European Environment Agency (EEA) in June 2013, following ten very active and productive years of service. Since 2003, Jacquie presided over a significant increase in the coverage and extent of data and information processed and analysed by the EEA and a doubling of resources for the agency. During this time, membership reached 32 countries and the EEA participated in more than 60 countries globally.
A strong advocate of new technologies to improve information gathering, including crowdsourcing, and providing citizen access to environmental information, Prof. McGlade was also instrumental in establishing the Shared Environmental Information System (SEIS) in the European Union. SEIS brings together key aspects of national and international research for environmental planning, monitoring and reporting, including information from the EU’s Copernicus Earth observation programme.
Prof. McGlade’s vision of a Europe that encourages dialogue with citizens underpinned the EEA’s launch of Eye on Earth in 2008, offering dynamic maps of air and water quality, which was recognised in the 2012 Rio+20 summit declaration as a key public information platform on the environment. Under Jacquie’s leadership, the Eye on Earth Alliance and Network have become a global public information service, bringing together knowledge communities around the world to share data and information. This global initiative aims to leverage the power of regional networks and governments plus expertise from researchers, leading thinkers and citizen scientists from around the world, to build sustainable solutions for the future.
In her new role as Senior Advisor to the Executive Director, United Nations Environment Programme, Jacquie has special responsibilities for UNEP-Live and Eye on Earth.
Prof. McGlade is recognised as an outstanding and visionary communicator, commenting on some of the most pressing issues faced by Europe and the world. Be sure to attend the conference to hear Jacquie’s thoughts on the future, which are guaranteed to be timulating.
