"Real world and virtual world are related together generating information by location", Josef Strobl spoke at the Digital Earth forum organized by the Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, Chinese Academy of Sciences and the International Society for Digital Earth in Beijing, on January 21, 2013.

"The overall concept of digital earth is generally understood as being inclusive, reaching out to citizens, facilitating participation, and providing interfaces between the real world, its virtual representations, and people”，he said. "Geo-media" and "spatial citizens" are main characteristics which are changing the way of information generating for digital earth. It is considered the visualization of information from different media source is concerned with digital content based on geographic attribute in terms of place, position and location etc. Digital Earth education can provide handy geospatial courses and learning for more understanding and involvement in the new digital world.

Professor Josef Strobl is life individual member of the ISDE, academician of Austrian Academy of Sciences, head of the interfaculty department of geoinformatics of the University of Salzburg. He undertakes coordinating institution of the EU Digital Earth education network. The digital-earth.eu project, under the umbrella of EU Digital Agenda 2020, examines the use of geographic media in schools and teacher education.