00:01Welcome back.

00:03Welcome back, everybody. Thank you.

00:07We’re going to start this afternoon with something very special.

00:11In the last several decades, we’ve given a lifetime achievement award in GIS.

00:17This has gone to people like Roger Tomlinson, Duane Marble, Ian McCarg, Don Cook, Michael Goodchild...

00:28...many interesting people who’ve laid the footprints down for us to follow and build.

00:34They also not only led their particular field but they were interesting people, and we let them talk a little bit.

00:41Today, I’m very pleased to be able to honor an old friend of mine, Carlos Salman, with this honor.

00:49Carlos is an interesting guy, as you will see, one of the most creative people I have ever met on the planet.

00:56He went to school at ITC as a photogrammetrist and mapping person from his native country, Mexico...

01:04...came back and went to work for the government...

01:09...and had a passion for bringing modern mapping tools to Mexico in the ’70s.

01:14And he worked hard. And he got into bureaucracy and got fed up, and he left after contributing a lot...

01:25...started his own mapping company to map Mexico because he couldn’t get it done in government.

01:31He now owns the largest mapping company in South America.

01:35On his own, he mapped all of Mexico with his own topographic maps and provided them to everyone there.

01:44He also is a curious fellow, married to a wonderful architect and he’s creative.

01:51So he came across talavera. This is a kind of mosaic, originally brought from the Middle East to Mexico...

02:01...and it was a dying art, and he found a little factory, a few leftover artisans, and started it up again.

02:09And then, as some of you might remember, made maps of tiles and brought them here from Mexico...

02:16...huge displays of all the ancient maps of the world.

02:20And then he noticed that there wasn’t enough trees in cities in Mexico, so he started a nursery...

02:27...something I love, and planted millions and millions of trees across Mexico, and many, many other stories.

02:35I love this man. Please join me in welcoming and honoring Carlos Salman.

02:41Carlos!

02:48Thank you.

02:51You give it to me before the speech?

02:53Before the speech? Okay, I’ll give it to you later.

02:55Later!

02:56Later. Okay, later! My cues are wrong. Carlos.

03:00Yeah. I am very happy to be here.

03:04What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday. Our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow.

03:12Our life is a creation of our mind. I am just a mapmaker from Mexico.

03:18I don’t have great theories. I only have dreams.

03:22But my dreams are long-lasting. I am a persistent dreamer.

03:28I started in mechanical engineering at the MIT, not the one in Boston, the Madero Institute of Technology in Mexico.

03:38After graduating in 1971, I had the good fortune to get a job at the National Mapping Agency of Mexico.

03:47It was called Cetinal. The mission of Cetinal was to build a resource inventory of Mexico...

03:55...so the Mexican society could become aware how rich our territory was.

04:01Two million square kilometers, 11,000 kilometers of coast, everything that you want, you have it there, biodiversity.

04:13Engineer Juan [unintelligible] de la Para, the founder of Cetinal, used to tell us that we need to apply...

04:22...la visión de águila y la sabiduría del serpiente to get our job done; the vision of the eagle and the wisdom of the snake.

04:32I was impressed by his passion.

04:35The ambitious Cetinal program project involved topographic, geological land use, potential land use...

04:43...and sold maps at 1 to 50,000 scales and maps for the soil aptitude for urban development.

04:52Photogrammetry means to measure with light.

04:57In the ancient Mexican cultures, the spirit of the eagle...the eagle is the representation of the spirit of the sun.

05:05And it was the light of the sun that imprinted the vision of Mexico that we were capturing with the aerial photography at Cetinal.

05:15I was so happy to become a photogrammetrist.

05:18In 1974, my boss sent me to the ITC in the Netherlands to study a postgraduate diploma.

05:26I visited the Dutch cadastre and learned how important for the development of my country...

05:32...is to have a good and accurate and updated cadastral system and land registration.

05:38I thought we needed to apply that concepts in Mexico.

05:42Back in Mexico, I draw a diagram that shows the integration between the resource inventory we were doing and the cadastral.

05:54I was...I asked my bosses to be sent to the states to try to apply this knowledge. They sent me to Zacatecas.

06:04In Zacatecas, we did field surveys to complete the cadastral.

06:10And then we overlaid the cadastral map and the potential land-use map.

06:16What I saw was terrible.

06:19The land for these farmers were very small parcels, the soil was very poor...

06:25...so we were condemning them to poverty for generations to come.

06:31Also, they didn’t understand maps. But they were in such a terrible condition that I was enraged.

06:38I was very rebellious, so I told to my mentors how disenchanted I was with that situation.

06:48I had very good mentors.

06:50They listened to me very careful and told me, “Carlos, you put about your life to try to change the conditions...

06:59...that make Mexico so unfair and so poor, even if we have a lot of resources, but it will be a long journey.

07:08It will take you 40 to 50 years, and you will have many defeats and some successes.”

07:22And to address the issue that the farmers don’t understand our maps, you need to understand.

07:29Maps are like messages.

07:33With messages, not only matters what you say but what the other people understand...

07:40...and what the other people understand...

07:42...it depends on who he is and what filters he has built in his conscience, in his possible conscience.

07:50Our mission is not...it involves maps understood, not maps produced. Maps could be useless.

08:02They told me that 34 years ago. My mentors also advised me to get a real life, not just a work life.

08:15So they sent me to the university to give lectures to the students of the urban planning master course.

08:23And they encouraged me, try to get a girlfriend there. You know?

08:30The worst sin a man can commit is not to be happy.

08:35So I have always been obedient to my mentors, so nine months later, I married Gloria...

08:45...a student of that training course, nine months later, my daughter Paula was born.

08:53This girl came very fast. Then two years later, I had...Fabiola arrives.

09:01I became a family man.

09:03And I know that women of any age are wiser and stronger and smarter than men.

09:17In 1977, I wrote a paper proposing the transfer of Cetinal technology to state governments.

09:24I believe it that if we build state information systems at a provincial level...

09:31...we were going to make better part to help, to have better policies for water and land management.

09:40The paper was very well received by my bosses, but something terrible was about to happen with the Cetinal mapping agency.

09:49There were political changes at the minister level.

09:53A new minister, ill advised by international monetary fund economists, started to ask questions.

10:02How much do you spend on these maps? At what price do you sell it? What is the profit?

10:08We tried to explain to him that a national resource inventory is like an x-ray of your lungs or your brain.

10:19You will not make a fast-cash profit from it, but it could save your life.

10:27They didn’t listen, and they decided to stop the resource inventory.

10:34International monetary fund economists’ favorite song is downsize.

10:40Downsizing is like losing weight; it could be good if you apply it to the fat...

10:46...but it’s terrible if you try to lose weight taking out your eyes or your brains.

11:00Mapping and GIS are like the eyes and the brains of a country. You need both to have a shared vision.

11:10A shared vision with the resources can be used not to produce the richest map in the planet like in Mexico...

11:18...but to share all the resources such that the children could have enough nutrition.

11:24I faced a hard choice. I liked to work for the government.

11:29But then I needed to stop dreaming or go to the private sector and hope for the best.

11:34I decided to embrace hope, and in 1980 we founded a company with two employees, my wife and me...

11:43...that with a mission to implement land information system in the state governments.

11:48We grew in eight years from 2 to 200 employees and I thought we were going to be able to do something in 20 years...

11:59...not 40 or 50 like my mentors had told me.

12:03But then, in 1988, I met Jack Dangermond in Baltimore, and all my problems started.

12:12Esri was showing ArcInfo 3.x in 1988, and they were showing how to do geographic analysis with computers.

12:21We didn’t use computers. We just overlaid the maps.

12:27I listened to Jack very passionately speaking about landscape planning with GIS.

12:34I stopped to talk with him about the difference in mapping and urban systems in Mexico and the United States.

12:42In United States, you first make the streets, put the utilities, networks and then put the houses.

12:49In Mexico, we put the houses, and then later maybe we will put the streets and the utilities.

12:57So, in United States, you make maps of what is there.

13:02In Mexico, we need to make maps of what is not there but it should be, maps of the needs of the people.

13:09Then Jack told me, “Don’t worry. Next version of ArcInfo, we’ll make the maps of what is not there.”

13:21In the user conference, I found a group of people that thought that they could change the world with GIS.

13:30They appeared, it appears that they don’t know that changing, making dreams happen, is the most difficult task a man can undertake.

13:39So, like I am a experienced demon, I say I should join them.

13:45I decided to join them and since I became the Mexican distributor of Esri 22 years ago...

13:53...I have made many friends from every continent, including the small pueblito, or town, of Tierras Rojas, California.

14:06I have been a witness of the evolution of the most powerful GIS platform in the world.

14:13Many years of suggestion, insight, and complaint from all of this network are put into ArcGIS 10.

14:26So in 1999, many rivers flooded Mexico as almost every year.

14:34Flooding is good because it makes the soil more fertile, but it was a problem that we put the cities too close to the rivers.

14:44So the clean water, the rains, it was polluted with sewage and flood the cities...

14:52...setting back the lives of many people because they have to pay again all the commodities they had.

15:00So this makes me desperate. I am a desperate man because this is a disaster of our own making.

15:10We could not blame the river. Don’t blame the water. We did it wrong.

15:16Mexico deviates, is between, is dry or is flooded.

15:22You know, and these fields flooded, so if we keep the water, we shouldn’t be dry.

15:28But we are very crazy to manage the water, so we need to learn from the Dutch.

15:35To change the situation, we need 16 of these.

15:39One is large-scale, accurate maps. Accurate maps and updated. Then the cadastral layer.

15:50Then the public record should be tied to the cadastral layer, and then we need the resource inventory that we stopped 30 years ago.

16:00That is the reason I am desperate. But even these four things are useless if the community doesn’t use it.

16:08We are not making maps for ourselves. We need to transfer this information.

16:12We need maps in the brains of the people. So we need the community using the maps.

16:19And another thing, you know, another thing we need is a consensus building engine.

16:26Because the cities fought for this party or this party, for the rich, for the poor, for the old, for the young.

16:34So we should not discuss the data, we should discuss the solution.

16:41Since the maps were not available, six have decided to map old Mexico 20,000 scale in vector formats and at 10,000 in orthophotos and to 5,000 and 1,000.

16:57We call it Proyecto Mexico.

17:00We did a cartographic structure, sent the surveyors to establish a rock-solid network, take aerial photography.

17:09We didn’t have any contract to do it. We didn’t know how we were going to finance it or sell it.

17:19We didn’t even know if we were going to complete it.

17:22We just started to do it with no other light, no guide except the one burning in our hearts.

17:32Ten years later, maps of old Mexico at 20,000 scale have been completed and are already been updated.

17:40With maps, you always need updating.

17:44And we have produced thousands and thousands of maps at different scales, from 1,000 to 5,000.

17:50But, as my mentors told me, maps are useless unless the people apply them.

17:57And what we need...and that is our new challenge.

18:01If we want to change Mexico, how is the status of Mexico?

18:05Imagine an orchestra that they sing five different floors and we don’t have a partitur.

18:13Every guy, the orchestra is split in five floors, everyone wants to play a different song.

18:20There is no director. It’s chaos.

18:23We need optimization of the government process and orchestration of them. And that is a big challenge we have.

18:33I love maps, new and old. Photogrammetry is a science, but cartography is an art as much as a science.

18:42I realize that many antique maps that were produced hundreds of years ago...

18:47...were destroyed or were not used and were hidden in libraries.

18:52We decided to start...this is Amsterdam. We decided to start a small tile shop with a technique called talavera a puebla...

19:01...that these an evolution of the Islamic techniques and Mesopotamia techniques...

19:07...and then to Spain and then to Mexico in the 16th century.

19:11It has been very enriching experience to do these maps.

19:18Eradicating poverty and injustice in Mexico will take many years.

19:24So our motto is, if Mexico is going to be poor, at least make it beautiful.

19:32So 14 years ago, we bought a piece of land that was at audit and decided to transform it.

19:39We started a nursery. I have a friend from California that was a nursery boy.

19:46His name is Jack. The family of Jack had a nursery. So he gave me some tips about where to buy seeds and things like that.

19:54We make children to adult trees, we give trees to the schools...

19:59...and we have collections and pines and try to have some shelter for the species that are endangered.

20:07To be here today and be part of your network, it makes me very happy and very grateful to Laura and Jack...

20:15...and all my hardworking Esri friends, Proyecta Mexico, Talavera de la Luz...

20:22...and the flowering trees here are the results of many people. The merit is of all of them.

20:30So we make this map with the faces of the children of the [unintelligible] workers at Cetinal.

20:38It's nice way to remember why we need to work harder.

20:44I am, as you could imagine, very grateful to the mentors I had at Cetinal for the teachings...

20:51...but especially for sending me to university where I found my wife, Gloria.

20:58Meeting her is the best thing that ever happened to me.

21:03Everything that happens, happens because life wants to teach you something.

21:17It's your duty to find out what it wants to teach you.

21:22So when Jack told me about this award or this thing of lifetime, I was very nervous.

21:28I asked myself, do I look so old, or what?

21:35And then, for months, I was thinking what life is trying to teach me with this thing.

21:40Lifetime is an intimidating concept.

21:44Then I realized that lifetimes are just a collection of days, so I will tell you a Sanskrit poem...

21:55...as I recall it in Spanish but translated to English...

22:00...Take care of today because is life, the true life of life, and today, time spans you will get the excitement of action...

22:13...the power of thought, the opportunity to improve yourself, because yesterday is only a memory and tomorrow only a vision...

22:24...but today we live, makes every yesterday a memory of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope.

22:34Take care of today, therefore.

22:38So I will finish with a one-minute video that I brought to you with my wish.

22:47Please, try to be happy. Thank you very much.

22:58[Begin video]

23:55[End video]

23:59That was good! Thank you, Carlos. Congratulations. You’re a great guy. Isn’t he wonderful?

24:10Thank you, Carlos. Good luck to you.

24:11Thank you very much.

24:12You bet. Thank you.

24:14Good luck with your next presentation.

24:15Ah, yes, my next presentation. Thank you, again. Good.

24:27You can see why I’m very fond of this man. He’s a wonderful person.