limited to government personnel, industry and academia were early observers attending IDEW workshops to discuss topics such as, visualization, information fusion, standards and interoperability, advanced computational algorithms, digital libraries and museums. In March 2000, at a special IDEW meeting hosted by Oracle Corporation in Herndon, Virginia, industry representatives demonstrated several promising 3-D visualization prototypes. Within two years, these were captivating international audiences, including Kofi Annan and Colin Powell, in government, business, science, and mass media who began to purchase the early commercial geo-browsers. Just as the spectacular Apollo photography of Earthrise provided an inspiring Earth-centric image for new generations to appreciate the fragility of our biosphere, the 3-D Digital Earths began inspiring growing numbers of people to the possibility of better understanding and possibly saving our planet. Introduction of satellite data into commercially accessible spatial toolboxes significantly advanced the capacity to map, monitor, and manage our planet's resources and provide a unifying perspective on the Digital Earth vision. After Al Gore lost the 2000 presidential election, the incoming administration considered the programmatic moniker Digital Earth a political liability. Digital Earth was relegated to a minority status within the FGDC, used primarily to define 3-D visualization reference models. China In 1999, with the Chinese government's full backing, the inaugural International Symposium on Digital Earth in Beijing provided a venue for the extensive international support for implementing the Gore Digital Earth vision introduced a year earlier. Hundreds of digital earth cities created by governments and universities resulted. In China, Digital Earth became a metaphor for modernization and automation with computers, leading to its incorporation into a five-year modernization plan. Originating from China's satellite remote sensing community, Digital Earth prowess spread to a range of applications including flood predictions, dust cloud modeling, environmental assessments, and city planning. China has been omnipresent at all international Digital Earth conferences since and has recently founded the International Society for Digital Earth, one of the first NGOs created by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 2009, the International Symposium on Digital Earth returned to Beijing for its 6th meeting. United Nations In 2000, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) advanced the Digital Earth to enhance decision-makers' access to information for then Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the United Nations Security Council. UNEP promoted use of web-based geospatial technologies with the ability to access the world's environmental information, in association with economic and social policy issues. A reorganization of