In addition to full-day URISA Certified Workshops, peer presentations and invited speakers and panelists, URISA is also hosting a working group during the conference to develop the final tier of the Geospatial Technology Competency Model for the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). This tier will establish the competencies needed for GIS managers.

Conference Chair, Geney Terry, GISP noted that the educational content of the conference will “cover professional development, tools to measure the success of GIS like ROI and maturity models, state of the art technologies, geospatial industry trends, sharing of leadership experience, and cross-jurisdictional collaboration. Several sessions will be conducted more like a training class and you will have information in your hands that you can take back to work and implement immediately. One area of the GIS profession that the conference has not focused on extensively in the past is the developer community, both application and web. That's changing this year. We've included several sessions, both daytime breakout sessions and evening events, that will provide opportunities for developers to learn, collaborate, and network. These sessions cover industry standard software and open source applications.”

URISA Certified Workshops, this year offered at no additional cost with your conference registration, will be presented on November 1. Attendees may choose one workshop to attend (note that some of the workshops are already nearing capacity):

* Business Intelligence and Data Integration for the GIS Professional

* Cartography and Map Design

* 3D Geospatial: Project Implementation Methods and Best Practices

* Open Source GIS

* GIS Strategic Planning

* Public Data, Public Access, Privacy and Security

Featured Sessions include:

One Government and Data Sharing – Vincent Hoong, Executive Director of the Singapore Land Authority will discuss in the Opening Keynote how they use a 'one government' approach to motivate agencies to work together and how they've developed a policy framework to successfully guide data sharing.

Thought Leaders Panel - Executives from a variety of national and international corporations that use GIS to solve their own problems will tell you why they decided to use GIS, and how they convinced their organizations to invest in geospatial data and technology.

Geospatially Enabling Decision-making – Find out how the Kansas Legislature is integrating geospatial data and location into the process of making laws. You'll gain ideas about how to geospatially enable your own state or provincial legislatures, county commissions, municipal councils, tribal councils, or any deliberative body.

Recognize the 2011 GIS Hall of Fame inductees, Exemplary Systems in Government and URISA Service Award winners during the Awards Breakfast; network at the GISP and Young Professional receptions; and expand your professional community at the various social events during the conference. Sponsors/Exhibitors are a focus for the conference, with the general sessions and meals taking place in the same ballroom as the exhibition.

GIS-Pro 2011 will take place at the new JW Marriott Indianapolis which has already garnered customer satisfaction awards since opening in February. Discounted rooms are being offered for only $139 (including internet access), but the offer is only valid until October 7.

Visit the conference website at http://www.gis-pro.org for complete program and registration details and follow the conference on twitter (#gispro2011).