The Geospatial World Forum kicked off today in Hyderabad, India. This is the third bi-annual event in a series, although the word mapping has been replaced with the word geospatial for this year’s installment. The conference draws a high-level international audience, with CEO-level participation from many geospatial organizations, and representation from world mapping agencies and international government and humanitarian agencies.
The theme for this year’s event is Dimensions and Directions of Geospatial Industry, with tracks that address many of the issues facing the world, and in particular the developing world. Focus areas include climate change implications, spatial data infrastructure, environmental management, agriculture, urban planning and development, coastal zone management, disaster management, natural resources and geospatial design and engineering for infrastructure. There are also a number of technology focus areas including surveying and cartography, earth observation, LiDAR and 3D modeling, open source software, and Web GIS.
The event’s location within India places a focus on one of the hot points of geospatial technology application and development. There is a high level of government support for the geospatial technology sector within India, and the event draws on government support and participation. The level of support is manifest by the participation and evangelism of Kapil Sibal, minister for Communications and Information Technologies, Earth Sciences, and Human Resource Development, with a past stint as minister of Science & Technology. Sibal said that it’s an accident of history that he is the minister of all three organization, and here at the event, because geospatial technology drives convergence of all three areas that he administers and is very important for further development of the country.
The event is both a display of the current global status of geospatial technology, a showcase for applications, and an opportunity to lay out the future, forging new alliances and coming together on common pain points. This year’s event was preceded by a focused international gathering of mapmaking agencies, there is a significant trade mission from Canada with twenty companies working to forge relationships with the Indian counterparts, and there is a concerted effort to address issues of data sharing and interoperability.
I’m certain that I’ll gain a great deal of new insight in terms of the global geospatial market from this even, and I look forward to sharing details throughout the week. I encourage those unable to attend in person to participate via live streaming at http://www.geospatialworld.net/.
