12th International Symposium on Digital Earth

The International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE) is a world-leading non-governmental international organization devoted to the development of Digital Earth technologies and to exploring the vision of Digital Earth in our changing world. ISDE is a participating organization of the Group on Earth Observations, and an affiliated member of the International Science Council. ISDE is calling for bids to organize and host the 12^th International Symposium on Digital Earth in 2021, and hereby invites all interested organizations to submit letters of intent and/or bid proposals to host the event. ISDE encourages our members, as well as other organizations or institutions, to consider this hosting opportunity, and also to disseminate this information to organizations that might be interested. The final closing date for all bids is August 31, 2019.

The International Symposium on Digital Earth, a conference series held by the ISDE biennially in even-numbered years, provides an academic platform for state-of-the-art discussion and in-depth dissemination of all the broad research fields related to Digital Earth. The ISDE symposia are widely recognized as the most significant conferences for scientific exchange in these research fields, including Earth observation technology, geospatial information science, geo-data intensive research, virtual reality and visualization of the Earth, Big Earth Data, the digital economy, citizen sensors, Digital Earth and UN SDGs. The symposium is an excellent opportunity for scientists, decision-makers, engineers and educators to consider the latest theories, principles and frameworks in Digital Earth. In the past, the Digital Earth symposia have been high-quality venues for promoting an expanded consensus on the Digital Earth concept, and for fostering the international development of Digital Earth.

Over the past 20 years, the symposia have been held in China (1999, 2009), Canada (2001, 2015), the Czech Republic (2003), Japan (2005), the United States (2007), Malaysia (2013) and Australia (2011, 2017). The 11^th International Digital Earth Symposium will be held in Florence, Italy on September 24-27, 2019.

Bid proposals are required to provide complete information on the following:

Information about the Host Organization

· Name and introduction

· Contact information (contact person and title, address, telephone, email, web site, etc.)

· Governmental/organizational supporting documentation

· Members, staff and structure of the Local Organizing Committee

Symposium Planning

· Proposed dates and location(s)

· Facilities and venue(s)

· Expected number of delegates

· Symposium Theme and Program

· Projected financial arrangements (financial guarantees, budget, registration fees, sponsorship fees, etc.)

· All requested information contained in the above mentioned must be included for any bid to be considered. If additional information or clarification is required, please contact the ISDE Secretariat.

· Guidelines for bidding are available at ‘Activities-Bidding to host Symposium & Summit’ on the ISDE website (www.digitalearth-isde.org).

Selection Process

Call for bid proposals	March 2019
Expressions of Interest to bid	June 30, 2019
Final bid proposals due	August 31, 2019
Bidding presentation and bid decision	September 27, 2019
MOU signed	TBD

After the award of the symposium to the successful bidder, the host organization will sign a negotiated memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Secretariat of the ISDE. The announcement of the symposium host will be made via the ISDE website and mailing list.

The bid, including all supporting documentation, should be sent by email to:

Professor Changlin Wang

Executive Director

International Society for Digital Earth

Room A708, No. 9 Dengzhuang South Road

Haidian District, Beijing 100094, China.

Tel: 0086-10-82178196

email: [email protected]