The focus of the proposal is to provide critical information to both encourage and justify consideration of the site by the AdCom Committee. The proposal will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

• Organizing team – capabilities, involvement with the Society, experience with IGARSS and/or other conferences. The leadership of IGARSS is very important and must be comprised of experienced and dedicated volunteers.
• Venue – suitability, cost, and appeal (critical)
• Host city – access, cost, appeal
• Availability of adequate, suitable hotels for participants
• Other relevant factors, as determined by the AdCom

For more information, please consult the call for proposals.

The focus of the proposal is to provide critical information to both encourage and justify consideration of the site by the AdCom Committee. The proposal will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

• Organizing team – capabilities, involvement with the Society, experience with IGARSS and/or other conferences. The leadership of IGARSS is very important and must be comprised of experienced and dedicated volunteers.
• Venue – suitability, cost, and appeal (critical)
• Host city – access, cost, appeal
• Availability of adequate, suitable hotels for participants
• Other relevant factors, as determined by the AdCom

The following information is required for the pre-proposal, which should not exceed 20 pages, min 11 pt font, including appendices. There is no fixed template or format.

1. Proposed Year: 2016

2. Proposed Dates:
IGARSS is typically scheduled in the period from late June to early August due to weather and convenience for northern hemisphere academic participants. This is not a requirement, but inevitable tradeoffs associated with other dates should be considered carefully if alternatives are proposed. National and religious holidays and dates of other IEEE conferences which involve remote sensing or signal processing should be avoided so as to maximize attendance.

3. Name of Proposed City, Country, Venue

4. Proposing Team

Names of Proposing Team Members and their affiliations.

The General Chair(s) must be a member(s) of the IEEE GRSS Society; the Chair has considerable latitude in the organization of the Committee. The General Chair persons, the Technical Program Chair, and the Finance Chair should be identified at the time of submission of the bid. Members of the LOC need not be located in the same city as IGARSS. They may even be from different countries, as the electronic age, coupled with the use of a central conference management company, now makes it possible to plan for conferences in abstentia.

The General Chair should take care in selection of the members of the Local Organizing Committee for the conference. Each volunteer should be aware of any potential conflict of interest in voting or making decisions and notify the General Chair if there is any such potential conflict of interest. Please indicate whether any of the organizing committee members have conference or meeting planning experience, particularly with IEEE conferences. The final LOC will include:

General Chair:
Technical Program Chair:
Finance:
Local Arrangements Chair:
Publicity Chair:
Publication Chair:
Exhibits Chair:
Other Team Members:

5. Justification for the site selection.

a) Statement outlining the advantages of conducting IGARSS in the specific location. Important issues include suitability of space, access by delegates, cost, and appeal to delegates.

b) Description of the proposed hotel or conference center venue. Considerations should include:

• IGARSS attendance is now typically between 1400 and 2000. Proposed venues must be able to handle a minimum of 10 parallel sessions. A suitable range of room sizes should be available for oral sessions (min seating of 100 to max seating of 350).
• An appropriate venue must be proposed for the plenary session, which may be attended by about 1000 delegates).
• Easy access to appropriate space for the poster sessions and the exhibit area is also required.
• Appropriate facilities for tutorials on Sunday prior to the conference.
• Accessible rooms for supporting staff and meetings which may occur during the conference.
• Off-site hotel (if the proposed venue is not a hotel) that is suitable for the AdCom meeting the prior weekend and various committee meetings (possibly lunch or dinner meetings) during the week.
• The venue must be affordable to participants. Current rates must be provided for use of the proposed conference site. Site negotiations will be conducted by the professional staff of the GRSS conference management company after the venue is selected.

c) The site being proposed must be convenient to hotels offering a broad range of rates. Affordable accommodation for students is also highly recommended. Provide current rates of properties around the conference site.

d) Information relative to travel to the venue. Is the proposed site near major airports? Is the airport located within a reasonable distance of the venue? Provide information on the airport relative to the venue and current airfare costs from major cities in Asia, Europe, North America and South America. Also provide information on local transportation.

e) Information on unique aspects of this location for attendees. What are the technical advantages to this location? What are the cultural and leisure activities available?

c) Statement of the professional interest in the local area related to the broad field of geosciences and remote sensing.

d) Preliminary analysis of the amount of corporate/government/organizational support available for this venue, including the potential for sponsorship and grants, as well as assisting with conference activities.

e) Indication of any other technical communities that might attend and enrich the conference with their participation. A joint conference with another society can also be proposed. Information relative to this should be provided in the proposal.

f) Additional descriptive and visual materials which provide additional information on about the venue. We have found that development and shipping of extensive packets of material to be time consuming to prepare, costly to ship, and not to be particularly useful in the preliminary decision. Such material can be incorporated in the presentation of the finalists in July, if the AdCom decides to make the final selection at that time. Inclusion of a URL that provides visual information on the venue may be effective, but is not required.

Further details can be found in www.inpe.br/geobia2012

Key information:

·Event: 4th International Conference on GEographic Object Based Image Analysis – GEOBIA 2012

·Date: *_May 7^th – 9^th , 2012_*

·Venue: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

·website: www.inpe.br/geobia2012 <http://www.inpe.br/geobia2012>

·contact person: Raul Queiroz Feitosa (geobia2012@dpi.inpe.br

<mailto:geobia2012@dpi.inpe.br>)

Yours sincerely

Raul Queiroz Feitosa

Chairman of GEOBIA 2012

Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro