Welcome to the second issue of GeoTech Quarterly. We’re glad to have you back! It is becoming quite an exciting task for us to get this newsletter ready for publication. We can’t wait for each new issue.

We launched the web site of GeoTech Quarterly at the same time we sent out the printed version, and some of our readers visited the site even before receiving their printed copies. On the first day of launch alone, the GeoTech Quarterly web site received more than 100 page views. GeoTech Quarterly has been distributed not only in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, but also in the Middle East (Bahrain, Qatar, Lebanon), Europe (Netherlands, United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, Turkey), Africa (Libya, Egypt), the United States and Canada. We received so many requests that we had to print more copies of GeoTech Quarterly. This was evidence of the success and appreciation of GeoTech Quarterly. As the editor-in-chief of this newsletter, I would like to thank you very much once more for your encouraging and supporting comments.

It has been a very active quarter for the GeoTech Group. In addition to the success of GeoTech Quarterly, we have successfully participated in several very important events during the last quarter. There were four different events where we found opportunity to demonstrate our skills, capabilities and the technology we have developed and used. You may see details of our experiences and notes about these events in this issue of GeoTech Quarterly.

Between April 23-28, it was Riyadh’s turn to host GITEX, which is the largest IT exhibition in the Middle East. Our booth was reserved within Jeraisy Group’s booth and we were thrilled to host more than 800 visitors during this 4-day event. Our booth was one of the most exciting! We were able to show real-time 3D fly-through software, web-based GIS implementations, our equipment, our expertise and so much more. We had the opportunity to introduce GeoTech Group to IT professionals and to the market.

Between May 8-10, Remote Sensing-Arabia organized the International Conference on Advanced Remote Sensing for Earth Observation; Systems, Techniques, and Applications in Riyadh. This was a scientific conference where we received many comments, suggestions and support from the visitors. Our corner was, again, among the most visited.

Right after this scientific event, GeoInformation Day took place. GeoInformation Day, indeed, was initiated, sponsored and organized by GeoTech Group. However, as our President Prof. Kamil Eren has stated, we want this activity to last longer than one-day and be accepted by the whole Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as Saudi Arabia’s GeoInformation Day.

Dr. Kamil Eren also participated in the “Eighth United Nations Regional Cartographic Conference for the Americas,” and presented a paper entitled “The Issues Related to Geo-databases and Geoinformation in Developing Countries” between June 27 and July 1, 2005. There were 36 papers presented in the conference covering strategy, policy, economic and institutional issues; SDI: global issues, regional and national issues; spatial data collection, management and dissemination; best practices and applications.

We actually had to postpone some of the articles in this issue because of the extensive content we have. We hope you will find a better GeoTech Quarterly in this and future issues.

Best wishes.

The Editor