Greater Noida: The India Expo Center and Mart in Greater Noida is playing host to two of South Asia’s most coveted geospatial technology conferences, GeoSmart India and GeoIntelligence Asia. The second plenary session at GeoSmart India 2016 was moderated by Dr. Shailesh Nayak, Distinguished Professor, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India.
Mladen Stojic, President, Hexagon Geospatial, spoke about how the map of the future is fresh; provides answers; is portable; makes sense; and is not a map. “The map is not the end; it’s a means to the end,” he said. Stojic then detailed the features of the Hexagon Smart M.App, a Cloud application, which is a culmination of content, workflow, analytics and experience. “It’s not a static map; it’s alive, dynamic and fresh.”
Stojic also pointed out how the company is working closely with the government organizations in the United States, especially the NGA, and has been selected to build the next-generation geospatial information processing units. “Companies like DigitalGlobe and Planet Labs are generating a lot of content. But this data depreciates with time, so we need to pull up and tap this content before that happens,” he said.
Mentioning that Hexagon’s new office building in Hyderabad was house to 1,200 employees, Stojic also stressed that India is an important market for the company.
Next, Dr Kumar Navulur, Senior Director – Strategic Programs, DigitalGlobe, talked about how location intelligence can be enabled with satellite technologies. “We are launching a constellation of small satellites. Combined with our existing satellites, this would enable to cover areas of the earth sometimes as frequently as every half an hour,” he detailed. “Whatever happens somewhere in the world will manifest itself in the terms of context — that context can be local, national or international.”
Navulur also explained that DigitalGlobe is striving to create a living digital inventory of the planet. “This is about taking rich data and making it accessible, so that the technology is not the focus anymore. We need to focus on consumer experience instead.” Further, Kumar detailed the company’s upcoming projects like Engage Africa and creating a mosaic of the entire globe using sub-meter resolution imagery.
The session concluded with Dr VK Dhadwal, Director, National Remote Sensing Center, briefing the audience about his organization’s campus activities and earth observation missions.
Source: Our Correspondent
