Mysore/Mysuru: The Division of Geoinformatics, Faculty of Natural Sciences (FNS), JSS Academy of Higher Education & Research (JSS AHER), Mysuru, to commemorate World GIS Day (celebrated worldwide on Nov. 18), conducted a webinar on ‘Mapping the Future with GIS’ with keynote addresses by Dr. K. Balasubramani and Peejush Pani.

This webinar was conceived and convened by Sawant Sushant, Co-ordinator, Division of Geoinformatics, with support from Dr. M. Ravikumar, Division of Geoinformatics, JSS AHER.

The explosion of geospatial technology in the last 20 years has introduced an idea of global event that shows how geography and the real-world applications of GIS are making a difference in business, Government and society. The webinar had 248 participants including students and faculties from various institutes across the country and many participants from Nepal, Bangladesh and African countries.

Dr. K.A. Raveesha, Professor and Head, Department of Water and Health, spoke about the importance and applications of GIS in a variety of fields including disaster management.

He highlighted the contribution of the Division of Geoinformatics in health sciences with special reference to understanding the epidemiological aspects of disease spread including COVID-19.

The first keynote address was delivered by Dr. K. Bala-subramani, Professor, School of Earth Sciences, Central University of Tamil Nadu. He highlighted the essential skills of GIS – Geospatial intelligence, Remote sensing and Photogrammetry, Structured Query Language (SQL), programming language and leadership and project management skills to become successful in the GIS field. He explained the basic concepts of GIS and introduced recent trends and techniques to be learnt by the GIS students to attain excellence in the field.

The second keynote address was delivered by Peejush Pani, Researcher in the Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth (RADI), Chinese Academy of Sciences posted in Beijing.

He emphasised the application of GIS & Remote Sensing in the study of water resource management and water-induced disasters. He also explained how geospatial technology is getting better day by day by incorporating new techniques like Big Data Analytics, Web GIS, Cloud GIS and Machine Learning.

This was followed by an interactive session moderated by Sawant Sushant and the speakers answered questions posed by the participants. The webinar concluded with vote of thanks by Dr. M. Ravikumar.