For the May intake of the UNIGIS professional certificate course, 13 out of 16 new students met in Salzburg to get to know each other and together start into an intensive year of studying. With the exception of this introductory workshop UNIGIS professional is completely based on online distance learning: the programme consists of seven core modules plus electives with a total workload of 60 ECTS. The curriculum covers spatial data acquisition, modeling, management and visualisation as well as spatial analysis and application software development. A great variety of real world exercises and assignments ensure the practical applicability of the learned concepts. The UNIGIS Salzburg team enjoyed the good atmosphere of the workshop and wishes a good start into the first module!