The power of GIS enables organizations, both private and public to take advantage of their geographic data. It is an essential tool that can help shape the world around us.
GIS describes the category of software that provides users the ability to consume geographic data in order to analyze and view that data geographically. From plotting an address to see where in the city it is, to tracking real time flood stage data from remote sensors to provide real–time view of conditions on the ground during a flooding event, the software used is GIS.
However, the technology is not restricted to only these functionalities. GIS is advancing rapidly. The 19th Esri India User Conference 2018 aims at addressing this aspect.
So GIS helps us to live smarter and better life. With continuous technological advancements, a new generation of GIS has arrived. With the world getting more and more interconnected, there is a massive trend which has affected every sector in a big way that is digital transformation. We are increasingly moving towards achieving interconnection of workflows, leveraging technology to interconnect knowledge and engage every one.
Agreeing to this, Agendra Kumar, President, Esri India says it is important to leverage location intelligence for better decision making. He also emphasises that the fields which will see the maximum impact of GIS are drone, Cloud and artificial Intelligence.
Giving an example of the infrastructure sector Agendra says, “In the near future to cater to the mobility requirement, twenty times more roads are required by 2031. Having a huge opportunity, a lot of solutions are going to come in the roads and highways and river and ports sectors,” says Agendra.
Bringing the change
What we need is more collaboration and action to create a more sustainable world. Dean Angelides, Corporate Director, International/Alliances/Partners, Esri says, The Science of Where is creating the perfect framework for What’s Next.”
“What’s Next is the ability to leverage the power of geography to take apt decisions,” Angelides adds.
Integrating and leveraging location to create valuable insights and creating visual communication are essential factors for digital transformation. What is triggering this process all the more is Web GIS, which is basically based on leveraging Web services. It helps us to work more in real-time.
What’s Next
Geography and GIS are becoming all pervasive. The next level of GIS allows geography to be used as an integrating force, thus leading to new innovative solutions.
For example ArcGIS Jupyter Notebook platform, based on Java script API, can be used for disaster management. Like the platform was recently used to analyse Kerela floods.
Another example is of an innovative solution is ArcGIS Hub. A unique combination of location intelligence and spatial analytics, the innovative product helps communities to direct their open data toward deeper citizen engagement, with apps, data, events, and meaningful collaboration focused on specific civic initiatives. This technology lets citizens, businesses, academic institutions, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) take advantage of their governments’ spatial analytics capabilities to collaborate on data-driven policy initiatives.
So, What’s Next is all about using GIS by taking advantage of location intelligence to bring more collaboration and inter-connectivity that can trigger digital transformation.
