PLENARY - I Building Geospatial Capacities in Africa Chairperson Dr. Nozizwe Makgalemele DDG Land Affairs Department of Land Affairs, South Africa Speakers Josef Strobl Director UNIGIS University of Salzburg, Austria Prof. Josef Strobl is director of the Centre for Geoinformatics at University of Salzburg and serves as head of the Department of Geographic Information Science, Austrian Academy of Sciences. He holds degrees in Geography from Vienna University and has been teaching GIS and related subjects at various universities since 1985. Current research is focused on digital terrain modelling, spatial analysis and remote sensing methodology and applications, distributed GIS on the Internet and dynamic process modelling. Pontsho Maruping General Manager (Chief Director) Space Science and Technology, Department of Science and Technology, South Africa Pontsho Maruping is currently the General Manager of Space Science and Technology at the South African, Department of Science and Technology (DST). The Space Science and Technology Programme provides leadership in respect of long-term and cross-cutting space research, and human capital development in the National System of Innovation. Kate Lance International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) The Netherlands Kate Lance holds a Master’s degree in Forestry from Yale University and is currently working on her PhD at the International Institute for Geo-information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) and Wageningen University, Centre for Geo-Information in The Netherlands. The focus of her research is on cross-agency coordination of government geospatial information systems. The research builds upon Kate’s practical experience in over 20 countries, in which she collaborated with GIS specialists from national statistics institutes, national mapping agencies, and ministries of environment and agriculture in addressing socio-technical issues related to spatial data infrastructure (SDI) development. She continues to Co-Chair the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Association (GSDI) Legal and Economic Committee and is Editor of the monthly SDI-Africa newsletter published by GSDI. Gavin Lloyd President South African Geomatics Institute, South Africa Gavin Lloyd is a private practicing land surveyor, managing the practice Lloyd and Hill from offices in Rondebosch, Cape Town. He graduated from the University of Cape Town in 1976 and has since kept a close contact with this leading geomatics university. His 29 years of professional experience since 1978 have included 4 years with ESKOM (the National Electricity Supplier), 8 years as Project Surveyor for a Nuclear Accelerator project near Cape Town, 3 years full time on South Africa’s first off-shore oil project (Mossgas) and 5 years with a large Cape Town Partnership before establishing his own practice in 1997.