The Association for Geographic Information is hailing its annual conference and flagship event a huge success. Attracting around 250 registered delegates, and with support from all parts of the community, GeoCom 24, under the theme ‘Connecting Communities – the Geospatial Perspective’, was described by one participant as ‘the most interesting event I have attended in a very long time’.
GeoCom, which took place on the 28th November at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) in London, opened with a keynote presentation from Alexandra Notay. Representing the Geospatial Commission and Radix Big Tent Housing Commission, she spoke about geospatial story telling in the real estate arena. Giving examples of good outcomes, and not so good, she urged the audience to consider housing as an ecosystem. She was followed on stage by Stewart Pert of Ogi Broadband, and Natalie Stevens of Idox Geospatial, who discussed the challenges of supplying broadband in rural areas and how geospatial can inform decision making and support the planning process.
The final presentation of the first session was delivered by Professor Andrew Tatum, AGI award winner 2024, and co-founder of WorldPop, who explored the importance of small area population data. How to best ensure it is accurate, up-to-date, and as complete as possible, and examples of its application for vaccine roll-out programmes and flood impact modelling.
The second sitting of the day started with an insight into the potential of digital twins, by Mark Wells, CTO at Esri UK. He started his presentation with a look at how the world’s most favoured business analysis tool, Microsoft Excel, can indeed deliver geospatial information, before exploring the real power of geography in connecting the digital and physical environments. Another AGI Award Winner, Dr Egbe Manners of Ordnance Survey, then demonstrated the power of a new Emergency Services Gazetteer, and how this has been developed and evolved through engagement with frontline service providers.
Allana Gluck, Dr Elliot Christou, and Holly Hensler, of Connected Places Catapult, were joined by James Daniel of UK Power Networks, to reveal the journey and future of CReDo, the Climate Resilience Demonstrator. Through real-world application they showed how data sharing is helping increase infrastructure resilience and inform reactions and adaptions of networks to climate change.
During the lunch break delegates were encouraged to engage with event sponsors City Science, Esri UK, IDOX, ARKANCE, Avineon Tensing Europe, Bluesky International, CGI, GIS Jobs, Verisk, Cadcorp, Dalcour Maclaren and LANDCLAN and network with industry partners including the British Cartographic Society, The Royal Geographical Society, and the Government Geography Profession.
Also on offer was a lunchtime networking session organised by the AGI Early Careers Network (ECN) during which speakers and representatives from across GeoCom served as ‘key networkers,’ acting as bridges to help early career professionals connect with established professionals from various geographical sectors.
The afternoon proceedings, commenced with a presentation by Laurence Oakes-Ash of City Science who re-iterated the well-known management phrase ‘if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it’ and looked at the role of geospatial and cloud-based GIS in helping Local Authorities design, develop, and deliver essential services. This was followed by Jade Saunders of World Forest ID, who shared the work that is being done using geography and location to create AI-enabled models that are being used to understand the source of traded products to control illicit trade and address the crises of bio-diversity loss and climate breakdown.
Asher Kessler of the London School of Economics explored the new economics and spatial patterns offered by the changing concept of space, looking at the vision of cyberspace in the mid 90’s versus the current metaverse reimagining. In contrast, this was followed by Professor Flora Samuel of the University of Cambridge, who presented the Public Map Platform, an inclusive and engaged eco-project that is using maps to tell stories, engage with communities, and create value, urging residents on Anglesey to ‘keep mapping!’.
Following the afternoon break, the final session of the day commenced with a second keynote from Dr Ken Field. He started his presentation by thanking the AGI for sparing him the delight of deep-fried Thanksgiving turkey, before presenting an irreverent gallop through the topics of trust, ethics, politics, and maps, which was generously seasoned with musical accents. He was then joined on stage by Denise McKenzie, past AGI Chair and Managing Partner at the Place Trust, for a ‘fireside’ chat to explore in more detail his ‘cartonerd’ origins and tendencies.