1st Webinar of QGIS User Group North Macedonia

On December 15, 2024, a webinar was held under the organization of the user group QGIS Macedonia, on the topic “Opportunities for Using the QGIS Software Package in Various Sectors.” The following presentations were featured at the webinar: 

    Use of Remote Sensing for Land Classification as a Base for QGIS by Dr. Gordana Kaplan, Professor at the Technical University in Eskişehir, Turkey

    Application of QGIS in Spatial Planning and the Emergency Sector by Mr. Marko Ivanišević, PhD candidate and assistant at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, University of Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina

    Examples of QGIS Use in Agriculture by Tatjana Nikolić, Assistant at the Biotechnical Faculty, University of Montenegro in Podgorica.

The presented topics were modern and engaging, offering a fresh perspective on the possibilities of using the QGIS software and its plugins in combination with remote sensing data and methods (such as satellite imagery, CORINE, LUCAS, Google Earth Engine, etc.). Additionally, the presenters highlighted the ways and extent to which the open-source GIS software is used within their respective institutions and countries.

Following the three half-hour presentations, a discussion was held among the webinar participants, particularly focusing on the future of QGIS and its role in the era of artificial intelligence. From the presentations and discussions, it became clear that the adoption of QGIS has significantly increased in recent years, often at the expense of commercial GIS software packages. This is largely due to QGIS's continuous updates and improvements, its wide range of plugins, and its open-source nature, which allows users to modify the software according to their needs.

The event was attended by around 40 participants from various professional backgrounds, including students from the Institute of Geography at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, members of QGIS Macedonia, and others.

As the main organizer of the event, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to our esteemed guest speakers—Dr. Gordana Kaplan from Turkey, Mr. Marko Ivanišević from Bosnia and Herzegovina (Republika Srpska), and Tatjana Nikolić from Montenegro—who graciously accepted the invitation to participate in the webinar. They delivered modern, useful, and informative presentations that captured and held the audience's attention until the very end of the event. I hope that this collaboration will not only continue but also expand further. I would also like to thank all the attendees who took the time to follow the two-hour event.

A special thank-you goes to Prof. Dr. Bashkim Idrizi, who dedicatedly contributed to the organization of the webinar.

I hope that many more similar thematic workshops will follow soon, with an even broader audience and relevant presentations covering various practical applications and advancements in the field of QGIS.

Ivica Milevski