The 5th International Symposium on Digital Earth, organized by the International Society for Digital Earth, was successfully convened in the University of California, Berkeley, USA on 5th to 9th June, 2007. It is another very thriving conference since the launch of the first International Symposium on Digital Earth held in Beijing in 1999. 390 delegates from 28 countries representing different governments, academic agencies, industries, NGO and private organizations, attended this conference, and the president of the Executive Committee of the International Society for Digital Earth, Prof. Lu Yongxiang, delivered a congratulatory letter wishing this conference a great success.

The symposium started on 5th June, the World Environment Day, which indicates that environmental problems become the focus of this meeting. The inauguration started by the salutatory from Mr. Are-Jostein Norheim, Consul General of Royal Norwegian Consulate General in San Francisco, on behalf of Norway, the host nation the sponsor of the World Environment Day in 2007. After that, Mr. Jan-Gunnar Winther, the Director of Norwegian Polar Institute, gave a live online presentation on the topic â€? “Metling Ice â€? A hot Topic?â€? ; Mr. John Garamendi, the Lt. Governor, State of California welcomed all participants on behalf of the host state and emphasized the significant role of digital earth in global climate change research; Prof. Xu Guanhua, the former Minister of Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology and the honorary president of Chinese National Committee of International Society for Digital Earth, addressed to the audiences and introduced the development of relevant areas related to digital earth in China; Mr. Tom Kalil, from the Office of the vice Chancellor of the University California Berkeley delivered a warm welcome and introduced the application status of the network and space information technology at the University. Finally, Dr. Tim Foresman, the local organizer of the symposium, reviewed the development of digital earth and introduced the evolution of previous symposia and summit of Digital Earth and the International Society for Digital Earth. 

Seven special invited reports were presented at the conference on the first day. Dr. Edgar Mitchell, the astronaut to the 14th Apollo Lunar Landing Program，reviewed the lunar landing activities of human kinds, especially his own experiences. Ambassador John McDonald narrated his rich 16-year experience servicing for the economic and social affairs in U.N. to expatiate that human beings would be able to turn brilliant ideas into realities to benefit human being ourselves through their efforts. Dr. Doug Englebart, the inventor of computer mouse and the trailblazer of interactive computer, presented a report titled Technology for Change, which mainly introduced one idea that human beings can solve complicated and unexpected incidents through network cooperation and collective wisdom. Approximate 100 students from New Zealand and America in the Youth Insight Collaboratory introduced and interviewed famous scientists focusing on the Earth that we are depending on and its future together. In the afternoon, Mr. James H. Kunstler gave a report named Challenges for the Long Emergency and Dr. Elisabet Sahtouris presented a report titled Sustainable Solutions for a Hotter Planet. Both of the two reports concentrated on the environmental and energy resources problems that challenge the Earth that human beings survive on. What should be mentioned is the report titled Google Earth: A Commitment to Community presented by Mr. Michael T. Jones, the Technical CEO of Google Earth. He introduced how Google Earth served the public by citing 200 million clicking and downloading rate and the astonishingly rising rate to top five according to the population of the country. Besides, Mr. David Maguire, the vice-president of ESRI gave a report titled One Earth, Multiple Globles: Exploring the Earth with GIS, exploring the role of GIS in the virtual geographic world.

The second day of the conference focuses on the relationship between the virtual earth representation and the realistic society. Mr. Peter Worden, the NASA Ames research institute director, was specially invited to give a report on Global Challenges and Earth Observation to introduce NASA Worldwind products and how to make use of earth observation data to serve the public, especially in response to global climate change. In addition, there were also some interesting reports, such as Global Changes for Climate and Environment, International Polar Year 2007-08: the Big Picture and spatial reports on the application of virtual earth and special-geo information system in the research fields of North and South Polar, mangrove, Amazon Forest, Sudan Darfur risk and so on. Reports in the afternoon cover six subjects, including 20 reports, such as the application of geo-spatial technology in retrieving the biodiversity, the application of digital earth in education, visualization and so on. Dr. Vincent Tao from Microsoft presented a report with the title Empowering the Digital Earth Community through Virtual Earth, emphasizing the value of the application of Virtual Earth in the work of government departments.

On the third day, the application of digital earth technology on a local, national and global scale became the key core. Former governor of Wyoming state introduced the latest progress of spatial information technology in the government management model to the indigenous people living areas. Mr. James Rattling Leaf reported the catalogue management of cultural heritage using GIS and spatial remote sensing images. In the afternoon, reports mainly focused on the developing situation of digital earth in different countries, the intercrossing and fussing of different disciplines, international polar year, the application of digital earth in the environment and sustainable development, digital earth and health, and the application of GIS in the sustainable development. Prof. Guo Huadong introduced the digital earth prototype system of Chinese Academy of Sciences and the work needed to be conducted in the near future. Prof. Li Deren introduced the function of Visioncruser TM system developed by Huhan University in digital earth. Dr. Gabor Remetey introduced National Agendas for Digital Earth Progress, etc. There are many other interesting presentations on day 3, but could not be listed here one by one.

On the fourth day of the symposium, effects of technology on the social development were talked about. Dr. Doug Engelbart, the inventor of computer mouse technology presented a report Technology for Collaboration and Infrastructure; Mr. John Graham introduced the application of super computer in visualization; Dr. Tetsuya Sato who is in charge of the Japanese earth simulator talked about the challenge that super computers in the world that is facing with; Mr. Greg Withee emphasized the role of earth observation system in the construction of digital earth in his report Global Earth Observation System of Systems: Critical Content for a Digital Earth. The thematic topic in the afternoon is Virtual Globes for Science and Technology. Several experts, Bill Gail (Microsoft Visual Earth), Chuck Stein (Geofusion), David Maguire (ESRI), Rony Ledany (Skyline Software), Pat Hogan (NASA) and Brian McClendon (Google Earth), from international organizations which are famous for their research and developing on the virtual and visualization of the earth, talked with the participants about the function of these systems in digital earth idea and their future.

On the fifth day, Dr. Mike Liehold from the Future Institute of United States gave a report with the title Digital earth Exchange as a Digital Commons. The combination of technology and the thinking of human beings is very necessary for the development of digital earth. One of the subjects of the 5th ISDE is to talk about how to spread digital earth knowledge around the world and make good use of it to benefit the public, the society and the whole earth. Finally, the Youth Insight Collaboratory expressed their understanding of the digital earth and their vision of the development of information technology in the future. By then, the 5th ISDE successfully closed.

The 5th ISDE started the first International Digital Earth 3D Visualization Challenge. Six Grand Challenge Winners on ' Servir-VIZ ' , ' Grifinor ' , ' The 3D Commenting Tool ' , ' Idiom Media watch on climate Change ' , ' UNEP Altas of our Changing Environment ' and ' Tomorrow Calling ' from America, Australia and Britain were awarded certificates on the awards ceremony at the dinner on 7th June. Besides, Mr. Roger F. Tomlinson, the founder of geographic information system, was awarded Lifelong Honorary Awards. Ms. Bonnie Devarco and Ms. Joyce Lynn Foresman were awarded honorary certificates for their contribution to the 5th ISDE.

The symposium got many sponsors including Google Earth, ESRI, NASA, Microsoft, SPOT Image, Imaging Notes, Bioneers, The Buckminister Fuller Institute, Taylor & Francis, and so on, their support enabled the successful meeting and many social events, all these gave participants a memorable symposium they had with Digital Earth in their minds.  

Pre-Symposium meetings were held in the Hotel Durant in Berkeley on 4th June. The International Editorial Board Meeting of International Journal of Digital Earth (IJDE) was held by International Society for Digital Earth, in collaboration with the famous British publisher-Taylor & Francis in the morning. Prof. John van Genderen presided the meeting. As the Editor-in-Chief of IJDE, Prof. Guo Huadong introduced the launch of the new journal- International Journal of Digital Earth, the aims and scope of the journal, the status of inaugural issue of the journal and the proposal for subsequent issues in Vol.1 (2008) and Vol.2 (2009). Ms. Rachel Sangster from Taylor & Francis proposed the publishing plan of IJDE and requirements for the journal, aiming to run the new journal an internationally influential journal and a SCI journal within two or three years. The editorial board members at the meeting provided quite treasured suggestions for a successful future of IJDE.

In the afternoon of the pre-symposium day, the 2nd Executive Committee Meeting of International Society for Digital Earth was opened, chaired by two Vice Presidents of ISDE, Dr. Marc D’Iorio and Dr. Milan Konecny. Mr. Tim Foresman, the Symposium Director of the 5th ISDE, presented a work report; Prof. Guo Huadong introduced the International Journal of Digital Earth; Dr. Wang Changlin from the Secretariat of International Society for Digital Earth presented the re-constructed webpages of the Society. The Executive Committee considered the proposals for hosting Digital Earth Summit in 2008 by representatives from New Zealand and Germany, and finally approved the German proposal for “Digital Earth Summit on Geoinformatics: Tools for Global Change Research� in November, 2008. Besides, representatives from Hungary, Israel and China proposed to host the 6th ISDE in 2009. Through the feasibility analysis of the presentation of applicants, aims and meaning of the symposium and conditions of hosting the symposium, China was offered the most of votes for hosting the Symposium in the end.

It is very pleased to see that digital earth community has been growing in the last 8 years. With the development of International Society for Digital Earth and the publishing the International Journal of Digital Earth, we believe that digital earth must be further developed and get much wider recognition and support along with the coming 6th ISDE in Beijing in 2009, the year for the tenth anniversary of International Symposium on Digital earth..

ISDE Secretariat