Editorial

Dear colleagues,

When the time of ISPRS Congress becomes closer, I recall the year of 1987 and 1988 when I was so busy with the organisation of Kyoto ISPRS Congress as the Congress Director. I can share the stories of the hardship with the past Congress directors; Prof. Gottfried Konecny, Mr. Lawrence Fritz and Prof. Karl Klaus. What I can say to Prof. Klaas Beek, the current Congress Director who would be tackling so many unforecastable matters about the Congress, is that "You will know what was unknown". These differences, I don�t like to say "errors" nor "mistakes", will surely result in "professional experience" as a Congress Director. The problem is that there would not be any person who wants to organise the ISPRS Congress again. After the Kyoto Congress held in 1988, I became an almost professional "conference business man" who can easily organise any scale of conferences including the financial plan.

In November 1999, the Asian Association on Remote Sensing (AARS), a regional member of ISPRS is going to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Asian Conference on Remote Sensing (ACRS) in Hong Kong, China. I have been the organiser of the ACRSs. for these twenty years with the scale of 300 to 500 participants. As compared to the ISPRS Congress with about more then 2,000 participants, such scale of the ACRSs is easy for me to organise with the healthy balance of the budget.

I am very pleased to report the readers that I have just finished my task as a local organiser of the International Workshop on Mobile Mapping Technology, that was held in Bangkok, Thailand, 21-23 April 1999. Beyond my expectation, the participants were almost 200 including 79 foreign participants in such an economic crisis in Thailand. The topic was also hot in terms of "technology driven" as well as "task driven". I appreciate the ISPRS Council members (five out of the six members) for their participation following the ISPRS Council Meeting held in Bangkok. Particularly I sympathise with Prof. Klaas Beek, the Congress Director who tried to encourage more participants to join the incoming Amsterdam Congress, because I was doing the same thing twelve years ago. In this regard, I do hope that the Amsterdam will be successful with the support of the ISPRS colleagues.

Finally taking this opportunity, I would like to inform you that I will leave the Asian Institute of Technology for the following address after my five year contract, in the beginning of May 1999.

Yours sincerely,
Shunji Murai
First Vice-President, ISPRS
murai@ait.ac.th