Aurora, Colo., Oct. 26, 2006—The Geospatial Information & Technology Association (GITA) is pleased to announce that Howard Rheingold, a celebrated futurist and the founding executive editor of HotWired—the first commercial Webzine—will keynote at GITA’s Annual Conference 30 scheduled for March 4-7, 2007, in San Antonio, Texas.

 Throughout the past 20 years, Rheingold has made accurate forecasts about technology and society through syndicated columns, best-selling books, and groundbreaking online enterprises. The New York Times, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, and Boston Globe acclaimed his most recent book, “Smart Mobs,” and The New York Times Magazine named it one of the “Big Ideas” of 2002. The book focuses on the convergence of mobile phone, PC, and wireless Internet, which is changing how people do just about everything.

 Rheingold’s first book, “The Virtual Community,” came out in the early 1990s and examined the social uses of cyberspace and forecasted the Internet explosion. He also founded Electric Minds, one of Time magazine’s “ten best Web sites of 1996.”

 “I am thrilled to have Howard Rheingold as keynote speaker for GITA 2007 as I have been following his writing on the subject of computing and interactive communities for decades,” said Mar Ann Stewart, Annual Conference 30 conference chair. “His recent book, ‘Smart Mobs,’ holds valuable insights for the integration of location-based technology into the daily lives of literally billions of consumers. One of my principal reasons for active participation in GITA is to get new business ideas from my colleagues, and I believe Rheingold’s thoughts will provide stimulating new ideas for many aspects of a geospatial business.”

 Howard has appeared on Today, Good Morning America, ABC Primetime Live, CNN, CBS News, NBC News, MacNeill-Lehrer Report, NPR’s Fresh Air, and Marketplace. He is a non-resident Fellow at the Annenberg Center for Communications and a visiting professor at De Montfort University. Currently, he is teaching a digital journalism course at Stanford and a participatory media class at Berkeley, and he is working on a new book on cooperation.

 Online registration for Annual Conference 30 is now open. Registration fees start at $379. Exhibits-only passes are $25. Full details about the conference and Rheingold's full biography are available at the GITA Web site, located at www.gita.org/annual, or by contacting GITA headquarters at 303-337-0513; e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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The mission of the Geospatial Information & Technology Association (GITA) is to provide excellence in education, information exchange, and applied research on the use and benefits of geospatial information and technology in business, utility, and government applications worldwide. Visit GITA on the Web at www.gita.org.