[Wanted] Session ideas for the Esri UC 2012

[Jawoo]

Dear colleagues,

Following big success of popular CGIAR-organized sessions at the 2011 Esri International User Conference (UC) in last July, we're trying to suggest ideas on the sessions for next year's UC (yes, already!). 

Fyi, sessions we organized for the previous UC were:

• Climate Change and Agriculture: Assessing Impact and Adaptation Options (http://goo.gl/FhZTq)
  
• Intercomparison of Spatial Datasets from Different Sources: Implication on Agricultural Research (http://goo.gl/ieLdx)
  
• High Resolution Imagery for Smallholders: the Backbone of Next Generation Agricultural Information Systems (http://goo.gl/azNxw)
  
• Facing reality in developing countries: Working with research partners with limited resources (http://goo.gl/02dQc)
  
• Spatial downscaling/disaggregation of datasets for food security analysis (http://goo.gl/ZXsiR)
  

Each session had 3-4 presentations and technical/practical discussion followed. Few ideas that I've collected so far with nearby colleagues (all session titles are tentative):

• Mapping projects (Visualizing where we work, with whom, and how - and technical/political issues around this)
• Mapping soil properties and processes (Spatial analysis on soil erosion, soil quality and productivity, spatial interpolation, etc)
• Mapping multi-dimensional regional-scale crop modeling results (Challenges in visualizing grid-based crop modeling results and case studies)
  
• Mapping poverty in high-resolution (Recent advances in high-resolution rural/urban poverty mapping projects)
  
• Cloud in developing world (Use of cloud-based technologies in developing world - status, potential, and case studies)
• ...

In addition, if there is enough update it won't be bad to repeat the same topic we did this year (e.g., climate change work - many of us do this all the time!). 

It would be great if we can get some firm consensus on the session ideas by the end of this week (sorry for the rush - as usual) so that we can start discussion with Esri as early as possible.

And, lastly, although we (CGIAR-CSI) proposes the sessions presenters are not limited to those in CGIAR centers at all. Anyone with relevant stories and especially working in the international agricultural development areas (international organizations, NGO's, aid agencies, etc) will be more than welcome to participate!

Cheers,

Jawoo

PS. Although there were two types of sessions at the conference (oral presentations and panel discussion), the difference between the two were not clear - and at the end all the panel sessions were like presentation-based sessions (we've got so much to show-and-tell, not just to tell). For the type of work we want to present, I think it'd be more appropriate to go with the oral presentation only for next year (but open to suggestion too!).