In October 2007, the LOC signed the gold sponsor agreement with China Siwei Surveying and Mapping Technology Corporation. Two months later, Spot Image, Intergraph Corporation and DigitalGlobe Inc. became the gold sponsors of the Congress one after the other. And the newest gold sponsor is Vexcel Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Microsoft, signed the agreement in January 2008. Topcon Corporation turned into a Bronze Sponsor for the Congress in December 2007.
Company introduction of the new sponsors:
China Siwei Surveying and Mapping Technology Corporation (CSMTC) was founded by State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping in 1992, and restructured with China Satellite Communications Corporation in the end of 2003. At present, CSMTC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Satellite Communications Corporation. The main businesses of CSMTC include electronic navigation maps, aerial photography, aerial remote sensing and mapping project; CSMTC possesses the rights of international project contract and labor service cooperation as well as the right to operate export and import trade. CSMTC now has two holding companies: Siwei Aerial Remote Sensing Co., Ltd and NavInfo Co., Ltd. NavInfo is the leader in Chinese navigable map industry, as a holding company of CSMTC. NavInfo, the first map producer of National supports dynamic traffic information release and navigation application, controls the most advanced technology in digital map production and has more than ten years' experiences of producing navigable map. The market share of NavInfo in in-vehicle navigation is over 70% four years in a row. NavInfo also is a leader in the industry of consumer electronics, LBS and internet location service. Siwei Aerial Remote Sensing Co., Ltd was established jointly by CSMTC and China National Aero-Technology Import & Export Corporation in July, 2001. The main business is to complete the task of national basic aerial photography plan of State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping , also provides the industries of city planning of all levels, land management, land resources survey, agriculture and forestry, water, energy and transportation with various scales of black and white, color and color infrared aerial photography service. The market share of Siwei Aerial Remote Sensing Co., Ltd is about 30%-40% in national basic aerial photography.
Spot Image is the first European supplier of satellite data to have been awarded ISO 9001:2000 certification. This includes the design, production and sales of geographic information products, systems and services based on satellite data.
Intergraph Corporation was founded in 1969 and its headquarters is located in Huntsville, Alabama, USA. Intergraph technology creates intelligent maps, manage assets and infrastructure, builds and operates better plants and ships, and dispatches emergency services to those in need.
In September of 2001 EarthWatch, founded in 1993, became DigitalGlobe Inc. - a change in name and focus to better reflect the goals of the company. DigitalGlobe products provide the solutions to customer's project needs. DigitalGlobe intends to assemble a multi-source digital archive of spatial data that provides customers access to up-to-date earth information.
Vexcel Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Microsoft, is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, USA. Vexcel provides end-to-end geospatial solutions and systems to the US Public Sector and the globe business community that include Virtual Earth, Photosynth, SharePoint and Groove Collaboration technologies, advanced radar technologies, remote sensing data management systems, remote sensing software, EO and SAr sensor systems, data exploitation services.
Topcon Corporation, the world famous developer and manufacturer of optical, mechanical and electronic products, has been introducing a series of high-precision ophthalmic, medical, surveying and industrial instruments for a wide range of applications since it’s established 76 years ago. Now TOPCON is making major efforts to promote new land surveying, such as satellite-based GNSS (GPS, GLONASS and GALILEO) system, as well as system softwares to store and compute the data generated by the Total Station based on WIN-CE. In addition, it has expanded the business into photogrammetry and laser scanning data collecting systems.
