Geospatial World has announced the winners of the 2022 Geospatial World Excellence and Innovation Awards today.
The Geospatial World Excellence Awards are dedicated to recognizing exemplary usage of geospatial tools and solutions in various fields across the globe.
Winners of the Geospatial World Excellence Awards 2022 are:
Excellence in Public Health
Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center (CRC) for developing a COVID-19 Dashboard – providing reliable data, information, and real-time updates to global users – driving the explosion of map-based information and real-time health data, while enabling innovation and more rapid response through open data.
Excellence in Public Safety
Penang Women’s Development Corporation, Malaysia for mobile application “Penang Stops Violence” that helps victims of domestic violence to obtain First Support Point information. The location-based app allows users to contact support directly via phone or visit the nearest First Support Point location displayed on the app.
Excellence in Urban Planning
Ministry of Lands & Natural Resources and Ministry of Local Government, Zambia for creating a detailed property-level base map of Lusaka using aerial imagery and state-of-the-art Machine Learning technology to improve urban planning. The new base map was generated in one tenth of the time that manual techniques would have taken.
Excellence in Land Administration
Department of Land Resources, Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India for Digital India Land Records and Modernization Programme (DILRMP), one of the largest initiatives to computerize and digitize 3.28 million sq km of land records, making all land parcels in India to be geo-referenced and available in a single platform.
Excellence in Agriculture & Food Security
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) for Hand-in-Hand Geospatial Platform (HiH GP) that utilizes geospatial modeling and analytics of more than a million geospatial, biophysical and socio-economic layers to identify opportunities to raise the incomes and reduce the inequities and vulnerabilities of rural populations.
Excellence in Water Security
UN Assistance Mission for Iraq & UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs for Iraq Water Security Dashboard, an interactive tool that displays open-source Earth Observation data to evaluate relationships between water scarcity and conflict in Iraq, providing actionable intelligence for strengthening security in a nation afflicted by chronic water scarcity.
Excellence in Retail
Procter & Gamble for combining external and internal data sources with advanced AI algorithms in a Neighborhood Analytics platform, generating Location Intelligence to better optimize P&G distribution, merchandising, targeted sampling and marketing.
Excellence in Utility
Grand Bahama Utility Company (GBCU) & ASTERRA for using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite-based infrastructure intelligence to detect leaks within the underground water pipeline network post-hurricane Dorian, saving over 220 million gallons of water per year.
Excellence in Construction & Engineering
Skanska UK Construction Limited for Skanska GeoBIM, a novel, geospatial solution focusing on integration of geospatial and BIM at a data and process level, enabling the realization of geospatial Digital Twin throughout infrastructure project lifecycle.
Excellence in Content Platform
Federal Office of Topography swisstopo – Swiss Geological Survey for swissgeol.ch portal, making 3D geological data accessible to all on the Internet in a low-threshold way. The portal also includes underground navigation option, allowing the visualization of 3D objects below the terrain.
The Geospatial World Innovation Awards recognize disruptive innovations that drive wider adoption of geospatial technology in the mainstream industry.
Winners of the Geospatial World Innovation Awards 2022 are:
Innovation in Location Intelligence
NextNav for launching the first vertical location service operating at scale, delivering real-time situational awareness to first responders; improves user experiences with 3D location in mobile games and apps; and opens up new urban markets to consumer applications.
Innovation in Aerial Mapping
Vexcel Imaging for the UltraCam Osprey 4.1 large format aerial camera, which allows collection of photogrammetry-grade nadir and oblique images simultaneously, enabling unprecedented flight collection efficiency at industry-leading image and data quality.
Innovation in Seafloor Mapping
Planblue for developing the first underwater satellites to map the seafloor in high detail to promote sustainable use of ocean’s resources. The innovation allows for data-driven decisions to help mitigate climate change, tackle (plastic waste) pollution, fight biodiversity loss, and more.
Innovation in SAR-Optical Data Fusion
Thetaspace for CloudlessEO, an algorithm to extract geometric and spectral information from SAR satellite data using Deep Learning technology. This process generates highly accurate synthetic optical data to replace pixels obscured by clouds or shadows in optical satellite imagery.
Innovation in AI for HD Vector Maps
Ecopia AI for leveraging advanced Artificial Intelligence to convert high-resolution imagery into HD Vector Maps that are 95% accurate, at a lower price, and in significantly less time than human annotation – embedded into critical applications around the world.
The Awards were drawn from open nominations and selected by a panel of jury featuring eminent members of the geospatial community: Alessandro Annoni, President, International Society for Digital Earth; Serena Coetzee, Professor, Department of Geography, Geoinformatics and Meteorology, University of Pretoria; Geoff Zeiss, Principal, Between the Poles; and
Josef Strobl, Professor & Head of Geoinformatics Department, University of Salzburg.
About Geospatial World Awards: Initiated in 2007, Geospatial World Awards are an internationally-acclaimed premium awards recognizing exemplary practices and innovations in the global geospatial industry. With the ceremony taking place at Geospatial World Forum every year, the awards have recognized over 150+ organizations till date.
About Geospatial World Forum: Geospatial World Forum (GWF) is the premium geospatial industry platform that connects professionals and leaders representing the entire geospatial ecosystem. Its collaborative and interactive nature has made GWF a ‘conference of conferences’, offering unique, unmissable experience to geospatial professionals worldwide.
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Meenal Dhande
Associate Editor & Product Manager – Europe
