Faculty of Environmental Studies at the University of Waterloo becomes a JMap Strategic Partner

Montreal, 1 February 2005 -- The Faculty of Environmental Studies of the University of Waterloo, a leading institution for the study of Geomatics in Canada, has entered an agreement with KHEOPS Technologies for its software JMap for distributed geospatial teaching and research in the Faculty. In particular, JMap is to be used as part of a new project on Internet mapping as a basis for collaborative decision making in the urban planning process. This project is funded by GEOIDE through its pan-Canadian network of centres of excellence in Geomatics.

Dr Brent Hall, Associate Dean (Computing) in the Faculty of Environmental Studies and one of the principals of the GEOIDE project, said: "The number of teams and individuals involved in the various stages of decision making when evaluating options for new urban developments is diverse. Participants usually meet in different settings and possess varying levels of comfort with technology and with maps."

"With new Internet-enabled interactive mapping tools, participants can communicate their views using a variety of multimedia devices to assist in the decision process. We are looking at several ways to implement collaborative tools and to experiment with different forms of participation in this context, including both Open Source and proprietary technologies." Hall said. "Because Java development is very well suited for Web collaboration tools, we decided to use the most advanced development environment built in Java for dynamic and interactive mapping. JMap was the clear choice, and in this context we are delighted to be able to partner with KHEOPS, which is a Canadian owned company."

About the University of Waterloo's Faculty of Environmental Studies

The Faculty of Environmental Studies is Canada's oldest and one of the largest such Faculties. It offers a variety of programs in Planning and Geography from undergraduate to Doctoral level and in Environment and Resource Studies to the Masters level. The Faculty also offers a specialist Diploma of Excellence in Geographic Information Systems (www.fes.uwaterloo.ca/gis) and has many graduates working throughout the Geomatics industry in Canada and abroad.

About KHEOPS:

KHEOPS Technologies (KHEOPS) has been a leader in GIS software development since 1995. KHEOPS' flagship product is an online spatial solution called JMap. JMap allows organizations to publish highly interactive geographic applications through enterprise networks, public networks, and mobile networks. JMap is fully compatible with all commercial relational databases, reads common GIS data formats without conversion, runs on Linux, Windows and UNIX, and is fully extensible with a Java software development kit.

Contact University of Waterloo

Dr. Brent Hall
Associate Dean, Computing, F.E.S.
gbhall@fes.uwaterloo.ca
(519)888-4567, ext. 2399

Martin van Nierop
University of Waterloo Media Relations
vanierop@uwaterloo.ca
(519) 888-4881

Contact KHEOPS:

Fran?ois Blanc
Director of Marketing
KHEOPS Technologies
fblanc@kheops-tech.com
(416) 781-2367