NEWS
On November 18th, 2022, the 1st ISDE International Lectures was successfully held online, marking the initiation of the lecture series of ISDE. With the theme of “Digital Earth: Past, Present and Future Perspectives”, the 1st Lectures were launched at the occasion of three-year publication of the monography- Manual of Digital Earth and the celebration of its nearly one million downloads. Three Editors-in-Chief of Manual of Digital Earth, who are also world-known experts in the field of Digital Earth were invited to give lectures.
Prof. Huadong Guo, Honorary President of International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE) and Director General of International Research Center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals (CBAS) gave a lecture on “Digital Earth in Facilitating of SDGs”. He briefed UN’s Strategic Framework, 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and UN Technology Facilitation Mechanism. And then he introduced the work of CASEarth, the Digital Earth Platform in the SDGs evaluation and the contribution of CBAS in support of UN’s SDGs. Prof. Guo believed that Digital Earth as a powerful tool to understand and link complex interactions between human activity and earth systems will help to drive SDGs.
Prof. Michael F. Goodchild, Emeritus Professor at Geography Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara made a video lecture on “Digital Earth as a Digital Twin”. He talked about what Digital Twin is, especially its definitions and purpose, and reviewed the perspectives on Digital Earth, including challenges. Then, he talked about the uncertainty and ethical issues of Digital Twins. Prof. Goodchild pointed out that “there is abundant and rapidly growing interest across industry and academia”, “the imperfect nature of all digital twins raises issues… of no standards” and “there are strong links between digital twins and Digital Earth”.
Dr. Alessandro Annoni, President of ISDE gave a lecture on “The Impact of Digital Transformation on Digital Earth”. He looked back at the principles of Digital Earth and talked about why Digital Transformation is important for Digital Earth by articulating its impacts on Digital Earth through three key enablers: digital channels, digital analytics and digital business model(s). Then he pointed out three Digital Earth perspectives, including Innovation, Integration, and Inclusivity. Dr. Annoni concluded that it is inevitable that “Digital Earth vision should adapt to the societal changes, but its main underlined principles should not change over time: Ecosystem nature and openness (i.e. viability and evolvability), Usability (i.e. user-centric, and transparency), Public good for the sustainable development of society (i.e. application driven)”.
Dr. Alessandro Annoni delivered welcoming remarks at the beginning of the event. The event was moderated by Prof. Milan Konečný, from Masaryk University, the Czech Republic. More than 3,700 participants worldwide watched the Lectures through Zoom, ISDE Bilibili platform and other academic streaming platforms.
The ISDE International Lectures are organized by the International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE) and supported by the International Research Center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals (CBAS). It is a series of online events which feature invited lectures by well-known international experts in the field of Digital Earth. The event will invite speakers to give lectures every two months. The purpose of the events is to bring international scholars in the relevant research fields of Digital Earth together to exchange academic perspectives, share research results, and disseminate the most cutting-edge and authoritative concept of Digital Earth.
