IN FOCUS: Bringing the World Together
Through Global Activities
By Joanne Van Voorhis
Through its Global Activities (GA) initiative, GRSS is reaching across borders, building connections, and fostering collaboration to solve some of the most pressing scientific and environmental challenges of our time. The Society is actively growing its footprint in areas like Africa, the Asia-Pacific region, China, Latin America, the Middle East, and beyond. With the help of regional liaisons, GRSS is supporting the creation of local chapters and helping remote sensing communities around the world thrive.
Global Solutions for Global Problems
Global challenges require global solutions, and GRSS knows that working together on an international basis is key,” says Dr. Feng Xu, Director of Global Activities for the IEEE GRSS. Accordingly, GRSS’s Global Activities initiative is focused on growing a collaborative community of scientists, engineers, and innovators around the world. “We are striving to expand our relationships in areas of the world where GRSS has traditionally had a limited presence,” Xu adds. Through a network of dedicated regional liaisons, GRSS supports local efforts to grow our global community – from forming new chapters to hosting workshops, conferences, and training sessions.
International Impact
We know that today’s environmental challenges don’t recognize borders. GRSS is committed to supporting science, engineering, and technology that operates on a global scale, and is also fostering relationships with global organizations with similar collaborative goals such as Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and like-minded national societies. “We want to work with our natural allies in our efforts to promote shared knowledge, build capacity, and address global challenges with a unified purpose,” says Xu.
Dr. Xu was first drawn to addressing international challenges because he enjoys working with members from different regions with different cultural backgrounds. “GRSS is by nature a global endeavor because we work with remote sensing and earth observation all around the world,” he explains. “I believe Global Activities is an important and unique facet of GRSS, and one I am proud to be part of.”
Working Collaboratively on Short and Long-Range Goals
Remote sensing and earth observation naturally require support from the ground – and that means having a good understanding of local communities and environments in order to define needs and solve problems in GRSS-related scientific and technological research. Accordingly, Xu is working collaboratively with others on the GA team to identify the respective impact of GRSS member services in different regions. In particular, he is working to identify where scientific and technological research activities are relatively inactive, and then will develop different member services models as required…for example,sharing knowledge and technical training may be more important in some regions than scientific publishing and career development.
“As a team, we have been continuously discussing the long-term strategy for Global Activities,” says Xu. “We are developing different strategies for well-developed regions, fast-growing regions, and regions with high potential.” Global Activities will measure the success of their efforts in three ways: growing members globally, expanding member services geographically, and fostering collaborations with regional societies and institutions. “For example, we have recently been approached by the largest remote sensing community in Indonesia, ISRS (Indonesian Society for Remote Sensing), regarding building a strategic partnership between GRSS and ISRS, including joint promotion of membership, joint sponsorship of conferences, and so on. Such measures are well aligned with the GA mission of expanding our member services to ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) regions where remote sensing technologies could play a critical role,” Xu explains.
Encouraging Face-to-Face Interaction
Dr. Xu is also focused on finding ways to keep members engaged and connected. He believes that members get to know each other best through face-to-face communication. “Global Activities will be very active at GRSS conferences such as IGARSS and regional GARSS as well as joint-sponsored events,” Xu explains. In-person connections at international and regional conferences offer GRSS members unique opportunities to engage in real-time dialogue, build trust, and share ideas beyond the limits of formal presentations. “It’s those spontaneous conversations that often spark creative problem-solving, and strengthen our professional networks,” Xu adds.
Join the Global Conversation
In the next few years, Dr. Xu and the GA team will focus on expanding member services to the southern hemisphere, in particular, in Asia-Pacific, Africa and South America regions. “We know there will be challenges, but we are looking at some creative ways to get involved with the local communities,” explains Xu.
Would you like to get involved? Do you have an idea for a chapter in your region? Do you want to connect GRSS to address local challenges, host a workshop, or launch a new initiative? Whether you’re a researcher, educator, government officials, or student, there’s a place for you in our growing global network, and our regional liaisons are looking forward to hearing from you! Visit the GRSS Global Activities website and get in touch with your GA Liason.
