From 21-22 January 2010, Compass INSPIRE Expert, Roger Longhorn, was a keynote speaker at two workshops conducted in Ankara, Turkey, hosted by the Turkish Satellite Corporation (Turksat), who hold the contract to implement more than 100 e-Government projects for the Turkish government. Creating the national SDI (Spatial Data Infrastructure) is one of these projects, and is being undertaken by the TurksatGlobe division within Turksat. The SDI Feasibility Study phase of this work is now underway, led by Dr. Hayati Tastan, of TurksatGlobe.

The first day of the workshop saw presentations from numerous distinguished and high-level government representatives, all recognizing the importance of SDI to the future of Turkey. Around 40 high-level representatives of numerous departments attended this half-day session, during with Turksat staff introduced the SDI Feasibility Study project, its goals and timetable. Many questions were fielded by the team, following Mr. Longhorn’s presentation on SDI developments in other parts of the world, and for INSPIRE particularly, which initiative is of very great importance to the Turkish government.

Day two was a full day session, at which some of the earlier presentations from day one were made, as well as an extended session from Mr. Longhorn, on a range of policy, legal and technical issues relating to SDI creation. Dr. Tastan introduced an extensive on-line data collection form that TurksatGlobe project staff will launch on 26 January, to gather background on a range of topics pertinent to implementing an SDI in Turkey. More than 120 Points of Contact attended the meeting, which concluded with an extensive and far-ranging Question & Answer period.

Participants from both days expressed their thanks for the presentations and their continued great interest in development of the Turkish SDI, while realizing that very much work lies ahead.