Conferencing is one enabling endeavour that connects people working in the same sphere of activity, be it technology or business. Especially for geospatial industry, it is a dais to showcase latest technology know-how and application; a place for academic debate and discussion; a forum to voice policy issues; and a hub of big business deals and networking. April saw a diverse array of conferences happening around the world. Geospatial World was at some of them and witnessed mixed reactions and varied experiences, both from the organisers and participants.
On one end of the conference spectrum, events like GITA Annual Geospatial Solutions Conferences (April 10- 13 Grapevine (Dallas), USA) have run their courses both in terms of content and numbers. This conference has attracted about 3500 delegates at the turn of the millennium and at the height of geospatial deployment in utilities in North America. But changing technology trends and innovation in utility space saw decline in participation and the feedback from the attendees and the exhibitors at this year's edition was that the 'dwindling numbers were disappointing'. This trend at GITA has thrown up several pertinent questions and the organisers are addressing the issues in right measure by candidly re-assessing their work; re-orienting and affiliating with like-minded organisations; co-locating their future events; and by readying to make the change and create an all-new impact.
Academic deliberations often take centre-stage, especially in a sunrise sector like geospatial technology and industry. The ISPRS Working Group VI/4 – ISRS International Workshop (April 7-8, Dehradun, India) deliberated and stressed that capacity building is much more than education or training. It is hands-on skills development on a continuous basis. It brought together academicians of international repute, multilateral organisations and government department to discuss various aspects of geospatial education and research.
At the other end of conference spectrum, we see two conferences in two different regions – Where 2.0 (April 19-21, Santa Clara, CA, USA) and Map Middle East 2011 (April 17-19, Doha, State of Qatar). Both these events have showcased the latest in their domain and region and were swelling with enthusiastic participants and industry partners.
Doha has proved to be the right destination for Map Middle East this year as the emerging island nation is gearing up to host FIFA World Cup in 2022. The conference was a melting pot for technology enthusiasts, government departments implementing the latest and the industry with its solutions on a platter. In the USA, Where 2.0 took geospatial technology a step closer to the individual by deliberating on the latest apps and map techniques and their utility in daily living. It provided a new dimension to sober technology events by tailor-making it with equal quantities of knowledge/latest know-how and the lighter and funside of it. The conference proved to be a good experience for developers to understand the trends in location technology and for start-up companies to capitalise on the power of location.
Here's a report on the assorted flavours of geospatial events around the world in April.
Map Middle East 2011 showcases g-practices
GIS Development, in association with Centre for GIS, Ministry of Municipality & Urban Planning, State of Qatar, hosted 7th edition of Map Middle East Conference and Exhibition. H. E. Shk. Abdul Rahman Bin Khalifa Al Thani, Minister of Municipality & Urban Planning, State of Qatar, inaugurated the event. At the outset, Eng. Ali Abdulla Al Abdulla, Assistant Undersecretary for Planning Affairs, Ministry of Municipality & Urban Planning, State of Qatar, said, "Since the inception of GIS twenty years ago, Qatar has adopted five elements that led to its success: establishing the Centre for GIS (CGIS), common standards, data sharing, inter-agency coordination and nationwide digital mapping programme. Qatar has made ground-breaking strides in utilising GIS country-wide and its practices have been sought after by several countries." Geospatial data sharing is a must for a successful SDI, observed Dr. Eng. Mohamed Abd El- Wahab Hamouda, head of planning division, CGIS. Enumerating the benefits and barriers of data sharing, he stressed that data sharing is limited because of lack of awareness about the potential of this technology.
Ed Parsons, Geospatial Technologist, Google, observed that information has become generic now and the biggest change in the last 20 years is its transformation to the digital format. He stressed that users are now in the centre of the map because map makers care a lot now whether the map is customised as per users' need or not. He identified for 'Ws' determining modern mapping: where, when, who and what. Ed Parsons concluded that this is the era of smartphones which are capable of dealing with all these 'Ws.'
Elaborating on the business prospects, Mathias Motz, Sales Manager – Airborne Sensors, EMEA, Leica Geosystems, said, "A large part of our profitability comes not only from data acquisition but a complete solution that delivers ready-made data or information to the end-customers." Dr Abu-Bakr Hassan Abdelzaher, Head of Data Center, Qatar Petroleum said, "Traditionally, oil and gas companies have used GIS to decide where to drill a well, route a pipeline and build a plant or a refinery. But now, they use GIS to get solutions throughout the petroleum life cycle from exploration to production operations."
Dr Gottfried Konecny, Emeritus Professor, Institute of Photogrammetry & Geoinformation, University of Hannover, Germany, demonstrated changing mapping trends. Addressing the third plenary, Dean Angelides, Corporate Director, International Operations, Esri, opined that many technologies are converging and making geospatial technologies more relevant for end-users. He stressed on the integration of social media and crowd sourcing with examples like earthquake in Japan. Stefano Morisi, Vice President (EMEA), Bentley Systems Inc., stressed that water is a USD 400 billion global industry. Future water networks are more complex and sophisticated and enterprise asset management system will be the suitable solution in this context.
Dr. Khalid A. Rahman Al-Haidan, Director of GIS Directorate, Central Informatics Organization (CIO), Kingdom of Bahrain, said "In national interest, GIS Directorate has developed GIS applications for more than 10 ministries towards manifesting Bahrain's Economic Vision of 2030 of sustainable geospatial development for the future benefit and progress of Bahraini citizens and the economy."
Seminars showcase the latest
Regional SDI is an enabling platform, observed Mohammed Afroz, Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs, Saudi Arabia. Elaborating Qatar Area Referencing System (QARS) project, Dr. Eng. Hamouda said that comprehensive database resulting from the QARS project has opened the door for a wide range of applications. On the other hand, Capt Aref Ibrahim, Ministry of Interior, State of Qatar, demonstrated the functionality of an incident management system.
Rasmus Lindeneg Johansen from COWI, talked about Doha 3D city model. According to Johansen, the model covers an area of approximately 650 sq km (excluding Rass Laffan and Measieed oil plants). All data are available in visualisation platform "GeoAxel" for online streaming. 3D data are available through the Centre for GIS (CGIS) to Qatari authorities and agencies. Jignesh Pattani, Engineering and Topographic Data Center, Qatar Petroleum, presented a short animated film, 3D Modelling: A Tale of Two Worlds and demonstrated that GIS and plant design systems are still struggling to find a way to project their individual coordinate systems, former around the globe and latter, on an engineering virtual world. At the end of the event, four exhibitors were chosen and presented the best exhibitors awards. Public Works Authority (ASHGHAL), Ministry of Interiors, CGIS were from the State of Qatar, and Sokkia Topcon was from the UAE.
Map Middle East 2011 concluded with the note that this is just a beginning to the future where we can build trust and share information as the quote in its logo suggests 'Enabling G-Lateral Ties'.
Mainstreaming location at Where 2.0
The seventh edition of Where 2.0 witnessed several young technologists and entrepreneurs congregating to discuss the technology and business direction of 'location.' The conference predicted that 'location' is soon going to be the oxygen for a lot of services and indicated that the location space is full of start-ups and small companies and it is witness to a string of acquisitions and leading to consolidation in the industry.
Discussing the future of location, Dennis Crowley, co-founder of Foursquare, said as apps are becoming mainstream and with GPS being available on mobiles, location of people is now known in real time. The challenge to technologists is to be able to tell people where they need to go and that is of utmost interest.
Patrick Meier of Ushahidi, a platform for live and collaborative mapping, introduced the activities of Ushahidi in providing comprehensive maps during crisis and emergency situations in Africa. Marissa Mayer of Google introduced Google Map Mapker, which allows citizens to be cartographers by allowing them to make modifications to the maps and add points of interest. Justin Shafer, Product Manager – Places and Events, Facebook, traced the journey of Facebook which started with the social element but is extending the graph with location and time. Underscoring that GIS is more than just a dot on the map, Jack Dangermond, President Esri said that increased sensor networks, technology developments in cloud, matured science behind the software, and more open data policies are allowing the world to have better and more dynamic map data and is creating a greater consciousness about geography. He informed that Esri has been working on intelligent Web maps – for integrating services like data, maps and models. He concluded saying that the future of GIS will be strong – providing a platform for maps and apps.
Of camps and workshops: As a run-up to Where 2.0, a series of interesting workshops attracted the crowds. Where 2.0 also brought together marketers and technologists for a marketing boot camp. It focused on location-based marketing campaigns and the new technologies available to help marketers take advantage of location data and services. Fast-paced and high energy presentations marked the Ignite Where 2.0. A panel on the trends in location identified that social context for location is catching up. The panel predicted that in 10 years, all apps will be location enabled.
GITA 2011 explores intelligent infra issues
GITA 2011 Geospatial Solutions Conference brought together users and vendors working in utility segment to interact and discuss the issues pertaining to building intelligent infrastructures. The executive vision session discussed ways of bringing geospatial technology and people together for organisational excellence. Peter Batty of Ubisense Consulting dealt with the technology development and how the new level of simplicity and ease of use brought in by Google, Microsoft and others is changing the way geospatial technology is looked at. Though their ideas were initially focussed on the consumer space, increasingly their technologies are getting applicable to traditional geospatial applications. Pointing out that the geospatial data is changing its nature and is becoming more multi-media oriented, he said that communities have to figure out ways to integrate new technologies with the existing ones. Discussing the workforce challenges in utility segment, Geoff Zeiss, Director of Technology, Autodesk, traced the worldwide trends in the growth of mega cities and the need for building sustainable infrastructure. He said the convergence of model based design, geospatial technology, 3D visualisation and physical analysis and simulation is changing how we design and build and making intelligent modelling possible. He said aging workforce is the biggest challenge to most advanced economies and the problem is exacerbated in the utility industry, where the average age of utility workers in many advanced economies is over 50.
Mark Carpenter, CTO, Oncor, addressed a broad range of challenges facing a utility in today's environment of cost containment, rapid evolution of technology, workforce issues and regulatory requirements. The occasion marked the presentation of awards to recognise the special achievements of organisations actively utilising geospatial technologies. The city of Brampton, Ontario bagged the Innovator Award of the Year award for transforming internal and external websites to citizen service platform (CSP), allowing the staff to self maintain content and enabling citizen access to current and relevant information. The excellence award was bagged by Denver Regional Council of Governments for developing a regional solar map, a website that lets users easily locate their properties and explore the benefits of solar PV installation. The Industry Trends and Analysis Group, the highlight of GITA conferences, in its current edition, dealt with developing interdependent technologies for interdependent solutions. The breakout sessions specific to verticals – electric, water, transportation, public service and gas – discussed issues pertinent to their sectors under various categories including sensors, sensor systems, integration and big data and analysis. The Group deliberated on the challenges and opportunities in each of the vertical segments.
Initiatives galore in building capacities
The Indian Society of Remote Sensing (ISRS) and Indian Institute of Remote Sensing (IIRS) organised the ISPRS WG VI/4 – ISRS International Workshop with the theme 'Multinational Geomatics Capacity Building – Achievements and Challenges'.
"We should domesticate the technology, technology should not domesticate us," observed Dr. V. Jayaraman, Director, National Remote Sensing Centre, ISRO, during his inaugural address. He said the issue of capacity building need to be addressed in the light of challenges posed by rapid technological advancements. Capacity building is more than education or training and incorporates hands-on skills development on a continuous basis. Prof. Martin Molenaar, President, ISPRS TC VI on education & outreach and Faculty of Geo-Information Science (ITC), Twente University, The Netherlands, raised the issue of internationalisation of education in his workshop keynote paper.
The first technical session of the workshop highlighted initiatives in geomatics training and education at international level. Focus of the workshop then shifted on geomatics training and education in India. These included Andhra Pradesh State Remote Sensing Applications Centre’s initiatives in capacity building in dissemination of space technology with special emphasis on agriculture development, mining and shrimp farming; issues and challenges pertaining to geo-informatics education in private institutions in India and geomatics training initiatives for government officers in Karnataka at micro and macro levels across the state like water resource management and policing.
Distance and e-learning can contribute significantly towards capacity building in geomatics. Several speakers shared initiatives in this direction. One of the sessions focussed on promoting the profession among young people. The workshop also discussed the role of FOSS4G tools in improving standards in capacity building; geospatial application using FOSS technology and the need and urgency of open source tools in the present geomatics education.
