For the second year we once again grateful to GEO Business for hosting the presentation of the AGI Awards for Geospatial Excellence. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank every person and organisation who nominated an individual or project for this years’ awards – we were truly overwhelmed not only by the quantity but also the quality of submissions. I would also like to thank our judging panel for the hard task of whittling these down to just six winners.
In front of an excited audience, with support from Council, Partner Members, and previous award winners we recognised just some of the innovation, achievements, and best practice that takes place every single day across the geospatial sector:
The Chairperson’s Award for Outstanding Service to the Geospatial Community was presented to Ed Parsons by Peter ter Haar; “To me our winner is our industry’s ultimate educator and explorer. Over many years he has travelled the world with stories about geospatial. Always exploring new applications and locations, and always helping people to understand the opportunities and future of geo. He has been a critical friend of the AGI and I am pleased to also call him my friend.”
Accepting the award Ed added, “Its amazing to be here amongst many of my colleagues – one of the great things about our community is it is relatively small and that means that everyone ends up knowing everyone else which has real value. Although my granny did advise me not to do geography to do cyber security instead so things could have been very different.”
Other awards included Geospatial Professional of the Year; presented by Liz Fox-Tucker, Professional and Policy Manager at Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) to David Hinton, Senior Analyst at The Crown Estate. Liz commented, “I am really excited about this award because David’s work focusses on the marine, an environment we sometime forget. The judges noted David’s technical ability and his ability to communicate, and in particular his work to support the shift to UK net zero by promoting nature recovery and identifying the pressures on the marine environment.”
The Early Career Professional of the Year Award was presented by Tom Perks, Co Chair of the AGI Early Career Network to Lucy Main, a Geospatial Data Graduate at Ordnance Survey. Tom noted, “In just a year and half Lucy has solved complex data science problems for multiple government agencies, become the go-to expert on machine learning for geospatial data within the OS, led the integration of ML, AI and computer vision into cloud computing platforms, and co led the OS LGBT plus network fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace.” On accepting the award, Lucy added, “I started at OS without a geospatial background so I owe a lot to everyone who has supported me, everyone who has let me get involved, and everyone who has helped me to learn.
Claire Williams, Product Manager at AGI Partner Member Esri UK, presented the Award for Environment and Sustainability to the Ecosystem Management Insights (EcoMI) project. She noted, “This award celebrates geospatial projects, applications and products, that contribute to the sustainability of people to coexist on our planet and the winner uses satellite ecological and historical data to support the 30 by 30 biodiversity target; enhancing our ecosystem resilience and enabling faster and smarter decision making.” Accepting the award on behalf of David Genney, team Manger for Protected Areas, Innovation and Data Activity at NatureScot, Daniel Rex, Lead Technical Consultant at Informed Solutions, added, “I’ve been asked to pass on David’s thanks for this award – to be acknowledged by fellow geospatial experts is an incredible feeling. One of the key things that David wanted to convey was this type of work is only possible through a one team approach, by combining ecological expertise with geospatial, with digital expertise, to deliver a solution that has real world impact. He also wanted to share the importance of engaging with users through the process; by taking a collaborative and user centred design how we were able to develop a deep understanding of the problem, the pain points and the future needs.”
Past AGI Award winner Will Robertshaw, Geospatial and AI Engineer at Ramboll, presented the Award for Innovation in Geospatial Technology to the AI4Peat project. “This award recognises groundbreaking advancements in geospatial technology, whether that be through new processes, software, hardware, data collection or innovative applications for AI automation and Big Data. It celebrates forward thinking solutions and pushes the boundary of what is possible and the AI4Peat project epitomises these things. Accepting the award on behalf of project lead Anne Williams, Senior Project Manager at the AI4Peat Project Partnership, Samuel Richardson, Data Scientist at Natural England, outline the project and the achievements to date.
The last award of 2025, was made by Kenna Dallaway, Vice Chair of the AGI and Strategic Project Manager at AGI Partner Member Ordnance Survey. “The nominated project was chosen by the judges for effectively addressing skills sources in the UK geospatial sector, reducing barriers to entry to market, and having potential for significant widespread impact. It demonstrates a huge amount of collaboration to make happen, across both public and private sectors, as well as academia. It was well promoted, and, not only tackles current workforce gaps, but also prepares individuals to support the environmental challenges and growth of Scotland’s geospatial science and space industries.” Accepted by Tom Timms, Sales Director of Verisk, on behalf of Stuart Miller, Geospatial Sector Lead at Fife College, the Award for Geospatial Collaboration and Partnership, “On behalf of Stuart and the team I want to thank you for this award. I’d also like to congratulate them on bringing together a whole range of partners to provide practical hands-on training, real-world experience and collaboration.”