As a result of COVID-19, most GIS conferences around the world have been either cancelled, postponed or transitioned to a virtual format. The benefit of the virtual format is that attending is either free, or the fee is heavily reduced, so you can attend many GIS conferences around the world from the comfort of your home. Unfortunately, many of them do remain in the dark as to how they will host it virtually, and on their final costs.
Three 2020 conferences that are confirmed as completely free are the Esri Education Summit on August 6-7, EuroCarto on September 21-25, and SPIE (The International Society for Optics and Photonics) from September 21-24. Registration is not yet available for EuroCarto or SPIE, however you can register for the Esri conference here. A cheap to attend conference (costing only $10) is IGARSS (the IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium) from September 26th to October 2nd. If you are interested in participating in a free virtual mapathon, check out the Missing Maps London event.
Several events that either have fees to attend or have not yet announced their full plans include the Harris Geospatial Virtual EAS ENVI Analytics Symposium, August 25-27 (cost break-down found here), the UCL 3D GeoInfo 2020 and BIM GIS Integration Workshop from September 7-11 (costs found here), The Fifth International Conference on Smart City Applications from October 7-9 (fees found here), the 23rd ICE Workshop on Map Generalisation and Multiple Representation from November 5-6 (registration not yet available), and the Commercial UAV EXPO Europe from December 1-3 (pay structure and registration not yet announced, but more information can be found here).
We hope that attending these mapping and GIS conferences gives you a way to stay busy and involved during these strange times! Remain focused on learning and the world will heal itself soon.
Jake Zatz
Social Media Guru
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