March 2013, Geneva, Switzerland - The Executive Director of UNITAR has appointed Dr. Einar Bjorgo of Norway as UNOSAT Manager after a selection process involving internal and external candidates. Bjorgo, who was serving as Senior Officer at UNITAR had been in charge of UNOSAT operations under the previous management.

24 January 2013, Geneva, Switzerland - Mozambique is being affected by flooding that may match in intensity the catastrophic emergency in 2000 that cost the life of 800 people and brought havoc and loss to the country.

29 May 2012, Geneva, Switzerland - The 12th edition of the celebrated Summer Course on International Humanitarian Law will take place on 25 June-6 July 2012, in both Sanremo (Italy) and Geneva, announced the International Institute for Humanitarian Law (IIHL). As in previous years, the course will feature a UNOSAT module on the use of geospatial information and satellite analysis in the application of humanitarian law during conflict and crises.

Within its Geneva-based training offer, UNOSAT has completed in February 2012 a professional training for 6 Officers of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). UNOSAT training modules on rapid mapping and satellite analysis are well known both in Geneva and in several countries, but this was the first time that Human Rights Officers were hosted in the UNOSAT training facility based at CERN.

February 2012, Geneva, Switzerland - The new application, called “CyberMappr”, has been developed within the Citizen Cyberscience Centre (CCC), created by UNITAR, CERN and University of Geneva as an incubator of new tools involving citizen-to-citizen cyberscience. CyberMappr uses the internet to connect volunteers to each other and to a group of expert analysts at UNOSAT with one common mission.

This year saw the first successful roll out of the new improved version of the well-known GIS training course offered by the Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre that now includes tailored UNOSAT modules on post-disaster impact and damage analysis in emergency response mapping. The course is held once a year in Bangkok around October and lasts two weeks. The UNOSAT module is held on three consecutive days during the course.

18 October 2011, Geneva, Switzerland.  In keeping with its strategic commitment towards community mapping, UNOSAT has joined resources with Google to make online crisis maps available for the current Thailand floods and the ongoing complex emergency and drought in the Horn of Africa.

In September 2018, UNOSAT delivered a successful training course on Geographic Information System (GIS) Capacity Development for Territorial Planning and Monitoring. This face-to-face training was held at UNOSAT premises in Geneva, Switzerland, where trainees were hosted at campus and provided with theory and hands-on activities.

27 September 2011, Geneva, Switzerland – Only one month into its new Data-in-hand strategy, UNOSAT production has reached unprecedented timeliness approaching real-time analysis in the areas of humanitarian rapid mapping.

The use of specialized software is an important component of advanced geographic information and satellite derived analysis; both need reliable technology for geographic information systems (GIS) and geodatabase management. Geographic information systems integrate hardware, software and data for capturing, managing, analyzing, and displaying all forms of geographically referenced information.