From Warfighters and Mobile Apps to Time Zones and Story Maps, DC Meetup Provides Valuable Industry Insight

IMIA held it’s 2nd annual DC Meetup at Esri R&D Center in Arlington, Virginia on Thursday, January 31st. The full-day event included 12 topical presentations by industry leaders and provided attendees an opportunity to network with association members.

The morning keynote was given by Andrew Turner, Director and CTO of Esri R&D Center. His presentation “Open Data and Hub: Activating Community Initiatives and Engagement with Data” followed early efforts at processing “big data” through modern day examples of Esri’s advances on a Living Atlas which seeks to give data a purpose through real-time community data analysis.

The afternoon keynote presentation by Lisa Johnson, PAD-US Coordinator from Boise State University, provided a look at the USGS Protected Areas Database of the United States v2.0. This initiative combines the geographic databases of eight federal agencies, the national conservation easement database, and data from non-profits such as Ducks Unlimited. Their goal of 100% data intake by 2020 will include urban parks for over 14,000 cities, providing a comprehensive and vetted data resource for many purposes including conservation and commercial map development.

Additional tracks and presentations during the day included:

Government
• BLM Data Quality & the Enterprise (eGIS) System by Marshall Worthey of GISinc
• Forest Service Use of Mobile Apps by Betsy Kanalley of USFS
• AGC’s Warfighter Support & Geo PDF by Ray Caputo, U.S. Army Geospatial Center

Tools of the Trade
• Equipping First Responders with Maps by Ted Florence of Avenza systems
• GIS for Health Applications by Phil Satlof of Blue Raster
•Protecting Your Business from Cyber Threats by Bennett Moe of CyberWire, Inc.

Emerging Trends in the Business of Maps
• Where Maps Are Going by Mark Cygan of Esri
• Changing Patterns in Data Movement & Infrastructure by Matt Tricomi of Xentity Corporation
• Revisualizing Time Zones with Sovereign Limits by Tim Montenyol and Marissa Wood of International Mapping
•Next Generation of Story Maps by Allen Carroll of Esri

For more information on these presentations, please click here. 

These fascinating presentations illustrated both the modern advances in geospatial data applications and the value in sharing these advances through our association events. After the event, attendees and speakers gathered for a private happy hour event at Heavy Seas Alehouse where we continued our topical discussions and business networking. Our next event is the IMIA Denver Meetup on June 13. More info coming soon!