‘Geospatial: The 4th Industrial Revolution’ is the powerful yet daunting theme of the GEO Business 2018 Conference, taking place on 23rd May 2018 at the Business Design Centre in London.
Simon Navin from Ordnance Survey comments, ‘there is no denying that we are in the middle of a technological revolution that is altering the way we live, move, work, and communicate with one another. Due to its velocity, scope and systems the transformational impact is unlike anything humans have experienced before. This new era is rapidly becoming known as the 4th industrial revolution and the conference will celebrate, challenge and develop the role that geospatial has to play in maximising the digital economy as part of this revolution.’
The highly anticipated keynote from William Priest, the Director of the newly launched Geospatial Commission, will provide an overview of the Commissions’ objectives following the Autumn 2017 statement. Mark Enzer from Mott MacDonald will discuss the high hopes for Digital Transformation in the built environment to improve both the delivery of new assets as well as the performance of existing ones. He will touch on the growing concept of the Digital Twin. David Wood, as Head of Geography at Government Science and Engineering, will touch on growing the geography profession in government and the work he has done to develop a strategy to grow, professionalise and champion the role of the Geographer.
Senior Representatives from ESRI, Ordnance Survey, Google and HM Land Registry Participate in Panel Debate
Key areas of discussion around the future for geospatial will take place in the form of a panel debate featuring industry heavy weights Charles Kennelly the CTO of Esri UK, Miranda Sharp who heads up Smart City Practice at Ordnance Survey, Andrew Trigg the Head of Data at HM Land Registry and Ed Parsons, Geospatial Technologist at Google. Facilitator Abi Page from AGI laid out the focus of the debate. “This session promises to deliver lively participation both from the panel and the floor. We want answers to difficult questions like how is geospatial enabling the growth of existing and emerging industries? What is the future of the “traditional” geospatial industry as this revolution continues and how can the UK maximise value from data linked to location?”
The conference aims to demonstrate how geospatial technologies and solutions are enabling change in society through community based projects, delivering new insights and information for the public good. Kicking off the session, from the official GEO Business charity Map Action is Alan Mills who will detail how aerial imagery can be used to improve the efficiency of aid delivery and disaster relief.
Self-professed Head Geek at Geeks for social change, Dr Kim Foale faces the challenge of creating genuinely socially engaged and impactful technological interventions to reduce social isolation by using three distinct worlds of knowledge — neighbourhood assets, academia, and technology. Closing out this session is Zulf Choudhary from Sparta Digital who will present on Augmented Reality and Geo location impacts. Geo-location like maps has been critical for thousands of years, but now there is new set of tools to both engage and excite users, tools like AR, Google Maps, GIS and GNSS.
The early part of the afternoon will focus on how geospatial is helping to grow digital businesses on a global scale with real life success stories. Who better to talk about real life success stories than Laura Alderson who helped establish Ordnance Survey’s Geovation Accelerator programme and is now contributing actively to the set-up of the Geospatial Commission. She is looking at how we can unlock economic growth from our national geospatial assets. A key driver for this will be in enabling greater support for start-up digital businesses. One of their real life success stories is Flock, a London based “insurtech”, pioneering the use of real-time data to calculate insurance risks for drone flights. Ed Leon Klinger will discuss their mobile application that provides pay-as-you-fly insurance – geospatial data has been critical to their success.
The final session focuses on how businesses can grow through new data capture technologies. The Director for the National Centre for Earth Observation, John Remedios, poses the question, ‘Are your climate mission and analytics ready?’ Whilst James Bruegger aptly follows by giving an insight into Seraphim Capital’s year as a space investor. The session concludes with industry leading player Plowman Craven giving a view on how technology and innovation have constantly changed their business through new data capture methods and technology.
Show Director Caroline Hobden summarises the GEO Business event: “In addition to hosting yet another cutting edge conference, the GEO Business team has launched a brand new free seminar programme designed to demonstrate the remarkable impact geospatial technologies and solutions are having on our global business environment. With over 75 presentations within 23 sessions covering various technologies and industry sectors from BIM, Laser Scanning and UAV’s to Heritage, Railways, Utilities and many more, there is something for everyone. As always, in amongst the presentations, 96 popular hands-on commercial workshops and popular social events, lying at the very heart of the show is the 200 company strong exhibition”. – This year” says Hobden, “the show sold out months in advance. It promises to be a very busy couple of days.”
