Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College

A-B Tech Geographic Information Systems(GIS) Day

9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Nov. 9

first floor of the Balsam Building on the Asheville campus

A-B Tech will host GIS Day 2007 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Nov. 9 on the first floor of the Balsam Building on the Asheville campus.

The open house event celebrates Geographic Information Systems activities in the Asheville area. Local GIS users and vendors will demonstrate how GIS is used in the community every day through navigation systems in cars and in GPS tracking devices in cell phones. Events include lectures, software demonstrations, map galleries, and activities.

“GIS Day is an international event. A-B Tech is very excited to partner with others in hosting this GIS event. Just as most jobs require computer knowledge, in the future knowledge of GIS technology will be a required skill for most positions,” said Pamela Silvers, A-B Tech’s Business Computers Technologies chair.

The event will include demonstrations of the County and City GIS web sites as well as sessions from local, state and federal agencies and private companies. It will showcase the wide variety of ways GIS is utilized by local organizations.

“Since first getting involved with GIS in 1995, I have seen tremendous growth in the usage of this powerful technology,” said Pete Kennedy, GIS Instructor at A-B Tech. “From a start in specialized areas such as resource management and planning, GIS has now grown to be an information technology whose usage includes such diverse areas as real estate, social sciences and emergency response services to name a few.”

Partnering with A-B Tech for this event is Buncombe County, City of Asheville Environmental Systems Research Institute, Federal Geographic Data Committee, GeoMaxim, National Climatic Data Center, N.C. Center for Geographic Information and Analysis, Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI), Neil Thomas of Resource Data Inc., and UNC Asheville - National Environmental Modeling and Analysis Center (NEMAC).

For more information, contact: Pete Kennedy at 254-1921 Ext. 289 or pkennedy@abtech.edu or Pamela Silvers at 254-1921 Ext. 249 or psilvers@abtech.edu.

GIS in Action: Recently Google Maps demonstrated GIS in action with the fires in California, showing evacuation centers and current fires.

Schedule of Events

Room 110 is the place to start.

Download the GIS Day schedule