The program committee for this year’s Geospatial Information Technology Association (GITA) Geospatial Infrastructure Solutions (GIS) Conference (April 19-22, Tampa, FL) urged attendees to create the conference. Instead of the standard program tracks that have served past committees, the approach was to provide less structure in the Call for Papers process in order to foster new presenters and participants by allowing for broader input.
I spoke yesterday to Kecia Pierce of Intergraph, the Conference Committee Chair for this year’s event, about some of the topics that resulted from this process. She related strong interest in infrastructure design, regulatory compliance and more user implementation case studies. These new topics are in addition to some topics that have emerged since the event was re-branded as an infrastructure conference one year ago. Following is a short list of some high-level areas of interest.
- sustainability of infrastructure (SCADA and Smart Grid tie into this)
- renewable energy
- compliance and security
- interdependency/collaboration
- asset management
- business intelligence
- field force
- emergency response
- engineering content
- aging workforce
Pierce emphasized the role of volunteers in pulling together the event, indicating that the overall objective of the event is to share information and experiences to help each other out in these trying times. People are more closely scrutinizing how to spend money, looking for solutions that save time and effort in the face of a smaller workforce. But the investment in technologies to combat an aging workforce, and to bring more efficient transmission and distribution online will continue.
Among the program highlights are two special sessions. The first is a revisit of an interoperability session that took place four years ago when GITA was last in Tampa. The new session will visit how far interoperability has come in four years, with the Open Geospatial Consortium coordinating another live interoperability demonstration. The second is a plenary session regarding the state of geospatial education. All perspectives of training and coursework will be represented as the panel explores how we train individuals, and the skills that the industry demands.
The 40-page program was mailed this week. It details the 11 knowledge immersion seminars, user forums, networking socials and the exhibit floor. You can also search the program for seminar and sessions online.
I’m excited to be leading a seminar on Sunday morning titled, “Geospatial Contributions for Sustainability.” The session will highlight Smart Grid deployment at Xcel Energy, the use of GIS for carbon footprint calculations by ESRI, the utility of GIS for siting renewable energy sources, and the role digital city modeling plays for more efficient cities. Be sure to check out the description and please consider signing up.
