Conference on Open and Free Geographical Information Systems

On March 12, the first conference on open and free Geographical Information Systems, open spatial data and open methods in remote sensing was held. The event took place at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” and was attended by over 150 scientists, students, GIS specialists and enthusiasts. The opening of the event was made by Prof. Kliment Naydenov, Dean of the Faculty of Geology and Geography, Prof. Dimitar Zhelev, Deputy. dean of GGF, Dr. Naydenov, deputy. minister in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.
The program was rich and interesting and included representatives of the state administration, the science and educational sector, guest speakers from Switzerland, Italy and Australia.
One of the main organizers of the event and key speaker was Mr. Lyubomir Filipov, manager of GAP Consult OOD, Master of GIS and Cartography from SU, consultant in a number of national and international projects in over 30 countries, with organizations such as the European Commission, the World Bank , UN, JICA, OSCE, UNFPA and many others.
The focus of his presentation was free spatial data in Bulgaria and current GIS applications of the company’s projects around the world, with interesting examples of adding value to free data, training materials and interesting projects from Ethiopia, Pakistan, West and Central Africa. The company has been contributing for years with freely available data, GIS training materials, translation of basic software products into Bulgarian.
The useful and interesting conversations continued in the cocktail and subsequent informal social part.