The International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing organizes its Congresses in quadrennial periods in different countries. XXIII ISPRS Congress to be held in Prague, Czech Republic.
The ISPRS Congress in 2008 was held in Beijing just shortly before the Olympic Games. Prague is hardly going to host the Olympic Games in the near future, however, it has succeeded as the candidate for the congress and therefore has the privilege to host the XXIII ISPRS Congress, which will be followed again by the Olympic Games on a different continent this year.
The period of deadlines of the XXIII ISPRS Congress is already over. Authors from the entire world have submitted nearly 2000 Full Papers or Abstracts for the review. After the reviewing process, 1817 submissions were accepted – less than half of them for oral presentations. 627 reviewers made 3550 reviews in 6 weeks. It is an excellent example of a rather admirable cooperation across the world.
It was a concert of many experts who invested a lot of their free time in the procedure and made all the reviews. The ISPRS 3-level hierarchy: Council – Technical Commission Presidents – Working Group Chairs very well demonstrated how this structure helped to organize this process in such a short period of time. And what is the result? We can look forward to a congress with papers of very good quality.
Submitted papers will be presented mostly during the eight parallel sessions. Interactive sessions will form discussion meetings every day between Wednesday (13 July) and Monday (18 July). Keynote speakers at the Opening Ceremony and nine Plenary speakers during three Plenary Sessions will share their experience, views and ideas, which can show us different aspects of our themes, different opinions and may become a starting point for our future work.
The Congress is going to have a technical exhibition with tens of exhibitors already confirmed . Top exhibitors like Leica, Google, Airbus, Vexcel, Microsoft, Riegl and many others will be awaiting Congress participants. The XXIII ISPRS Congress starts on Tuesday (12 July) and ends on Tuesday (19 July). One week is a short time in human life; however, one week can also make a big impression if it is exceptional, maybe even in many different aspects. Therefore, each ISPRS Congress has had exceptional events – Opening Ceremony, Icebreaking Party, Gala Dinner, Technical Tours, Optional Tours.
The Opening Ceremony is a meeting featuring official and scientific speeches, awards that will be presented to outstanding individuals in the ISPRS world and a cultural program presenting the organizing country of the Congress. The Congress participants can also choose from other social events such as Black Theatre, Concert in the Bethlehem Chapel – a venue of high historical importance for the Czech nation. The local Congress Organizers also offer participants excursions called Technical Tours – usually in the city of the Congress. Nevertheless, we have also prepared two-day tours to Austria (BEV in Vienna and Vexcel Microsoft in Graz), to Germany (DLR in Munich) and to Poland (Krakow University and Polish Academy of Science).
All these international tours are organized after the Congress and enable participants to visit the neighboring countries as well. Optional tours are prepared within the Congress week for a half or full day.
As in ISPRS, young scientists play an important role in the pre-Congress and Congress program. The Summer School for students, whose submissions were accepted to the Congress, will be held in Telč, a beautiful historical city in the southeastern part of the Czech Republic. They will have their own ice-breaking party on Friday and the soccer match tradition founded in 2012 in Melbourne will continue in Prague as well. The Youth Forum, scientific sessions are going to be organized under the Student Consortium leadership on Sunday.
The ISPRS awards comprise also awards for the young generation – The Best Paper of a Young Author is one of them. Eight authors, each from one of eight Technical Commissions will receive this award during the Congress Gala Dinner. Youth Forum will present awards to two authors of the best papers. Prague and the Congress offer a lot of options not only for scientists, but also for their families – accompanying persons can choose from the selection of optional tours.
We also offer the participants a Congress App – a tool that facilitates orientation in the venue area as well as in the Congress program and a tool for creating a private program for each user of the app, an abstract book, proceedings, a tool for communication among participants and a tool to win a ticket for the Gala Dinner.