Our Committee is solidifying a vast variety of diverse and engaging tracks for GeoIgnite 2020.

If you would like to be a presenter for one of the tracks below, please fill out the attached form to be considered by both the committee and the track chair.

GeoIgnite 2020

GeoIgnite 2020 will bring together senior members of the government, business executives, and thought leaders in the IT and location technology sectors in our nation’s capital. GeoIgnite 2020 will grow into Canada’s largest geospatial event with over 1,000 participants over the next 5 years and is already unique as Canada’s annual geospatial leadership conference.

This conference is focused on providing attendees with updates on technology, data, services, and thought leadership. GeoIgnite will bring the latest innovations and the next generation of disruptive geospatial technologies under one roof for two days of connection and collaboration.

Our Tracks, Summits and Forums for 2020

Defence and Security Day

Track Chair: Anthony Mayne

GeoIgnite is pleased to announce its new tract dedicated to the men and women that strive to protect Canadians at home and abroad. Our new Defense and Security day will gather leaders and key figures in the Department of National Defense, Police Forces both provincial and federal, and other government organizations involved with public safety. This will provide the opportunity to network and share lessons learned, find ways that we can share data and tools, and introduce newly appointed members to key individuals of other organizations. It is growing ever more important that defense agencies stay well connected and build strong and lasting partnerships. With postings and regular reassignment of key figures across the region it can be challenging to keep up with whom you should be contacting when reaching out to other organizations. This conference seeks to solve this problem. Participants will learn what technologies Canada's newest Targeting Cell is using to achieve their missions, how members of defence and security can leverage modern geo solutions to manage their operations, what the latest innovations industry is developing to help protect the lives of Canadians, and speed up our response times to crisis scenarios. Most importantly, it provides a venue that could become a regular meetup for leadership in key positions in defense and security organizations to establish and build relationships in the geo community and amongst themselves.

Geospatial Commercialization Track

Track Chair: David Gachuche

Canada has led the world in the commercialization of location based technologies like remote sensing and GIS. This year at GeoIgnite, we will showcase transformative technologies from industry as we explore the diversification of geospatial markets in areas like insurance, space, defence, infrastructure mapping, smart cities, agriculture, energy, oil and gas, and investment banking. Please join us for our most popular tracks from last year comes back for 2020.

Mapping the Underground

Track Chair: Geoff Zeiss

Without accurate maps of underground infrastructure, every construction project has the potential to become a disaster site. Unlike the aviation industry where reliable data is collected and is accessible to investigators to prevent disasters from happening in the future, there is limited access to data about the location of underground infrastructure and what data is accessible is inaccurate, out-of-date and incomplete with the result that serious incidents during construction with injuries and fatalities occur again and again. This also represents a drag of billions of dollars on the Canadian economy. Now public and private organizations around the world are implementing policies, procedures and technologies to reduce underground utility damage during excavation. At this summit at GeoIgnite we are bringing together leaders in the subsurface utility engineering, one-call, surveying, geospatial, and construction sectors to discuss how to accelerate initiatives in Canada for reducing the risk to the public and to construction schedules and budgets. The summit is targeting professionals for whom underground utilities represent a risk or an opportunity; surveyors, subsurface utility engineering and location specialists, utility regulators, federal, provincial, local government and utility policy makers, utility associations, geomatics professionals, academics in geomatics and geography, and smart city specialists.

Remote Sensing Track: Big Data Geospatial Imagery - Next Level Technology, Platforms, Access, Algorithms, Standards & Skills

Track Chair: James Ashton and John Roos

Future of innovations in remote sensing, geomatics and imagery will depend on; translating big data into information and knowledge, navigating new cloud based platforms and cloud native processes required to conduct predictive analytics and monitoring of occurrences on the land. Canada has many active scientists working on the phonological aspects of disease, harvest detection, drought, flood, soil moisture, detection, and emergency response; however there is considerably less investment in aspects navigating an agile cloud implementations that scale to the cloud and harmonizes these data science activities in the public cloud offering. Computational power, the increased availability of high resolution remote sensing data, and existing Canadian data products openly distributed can be leveraged as building blocks for creating detailed, national-scale occurrence and monitoring maps.

Transition of cloud savvy organizations and a vibrant geospatial economy using AI and Big Data will be made by a series of initiatives that embrace rapid, exploratory, and iterative innovation rather than embracing the risk-averse, politicized culture that demands perfection at the outset.

Finding the Right Balance: Geospatial technologies, Data, Policy and Privacy

Track Chair: Amina Deiab

The evolution and proliferation of geospatial technologies and the increasing usage of geographic information systems has created an exponential growth of geospatial data, and with it, new market and business opportunities. Geo-spatial data and data analytics play a crucial role in economic development with the global geospatial data analytics market forecasted to grow from $69.9 billion in 2018 to $88.3 billion in 2020. However, the increased usage of geographic information systems, geospatial technologies and the individuated characteristics of location data has brought with it an increase in public concern over consumer privacy. With the rise of data breaches, data misuse and sophisticated cyber-attacks, consumers are demanding greater rights over how personal data is collected, used and stored while regulators are increasing the level of scrutiny over companies that manage consumer data.

Critical questions for businesses, policy makers and consumers remain: Can the right balance be struck between enabling business innovation and protecting consumer privacy? Is there a “right” model for Canada? The European Union recently released the General Data Protection Regulation which aims to standardize data privacy laws across the European Union contrasted with a de-centralized approach in the U.S, which uses sectoral regulations to protect consumer privacy while not impeding cross-border data flows.

This moderated panel will bring together experts in privacy law, data governance, and information security to discuss how privacy, technology, business innovation, and law intersect. The panel will discuss and explore key opportunities, challenges and potential paths forward for the geospatial sector.

Canadian Geospatial Cities Forum: Canadian Smart Communities, Opportunity and Challenge in the Next Decade

Track Chair: Prashant Shukle

This track will span the idea of smart cities/municipalities from a policy/complexity thinking perspective; cyber security perspective; emergency management; sustainability (finance, infrastructure, environmental perspective) and open cities versus proprietary cities.

We will also be speaking with an indigenous consulting company. They will be discussing the engagement and capability of building for a “smart indigenous community” – one that integrates traditional knowledge.

The Impact of OGC Standards on Society

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”

Track Chair: Nadine Alameh

We live in both exciting and challenging times. Sources of location and geospatial data are ever-increasing and coming from sources outside the Geospatial community. At the same time, climate change is creating a dramatic increase in environmental challenges that result in massive socio-economic effects.

As a community, it is now more important than ever to work together to improve our ability to make location data more findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable ( FAIR).

Co-organized by The OGC Canada Forum and Natural Resources Canada, the session will focus on selected community activities and the impact of standards on real-world challenges in Canada and around the world.

Geospatial Reference Systems are Changing in the United States: How will Canada Respond? How Will you be Affected?

Track Chair: Calvin Klatt

Mind the Gap! The United States’ planned changes will create an inconsistency at our shared border for the first time in history. How will you mind the gap?

Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) hosts this event to discuss the implications of coming changes in the geodetic reference frame in the United States. A geodetic reference frame is the key to universal compatibility of geospatial information through accurate and globally consistent positioning. What will happen when frames differing by more than a meter abut at the U.S.- Canada border?

The Surveyor General of Canada will welcome attendees and participants from both Canada and the United States. Joint presentations by NOAA and NRCan will clarify the situation and different client perspectives (transportation, municipal government, industry) will provide a multidisciplinary view of the potential implications for you as a stakeholder. NRCan welcomes your input to establish a path forward for Canada.

Diversity + Inclusion = Better Decisions

Track Chair: Bilyana Anicic

The GeoIgnite Conference and our sponsors are proud to present the second Diversity Leadership Summit. Our inaugural Summit was a great success featuring relevant diversity and inclusion topics, a powerful panel of speakers, and a "full house" of engaged participants.

Increasing the diversity, equity, and inclusiveness of the Geomatics community is essential to our mission. There can be no barrier to talent at Geospatial organizations as solving the world’s most intractable problems will require a rich variety of perspectives and abilities.

Latest research shows that decisions made and executed by diverse teams delivered 60% better results, so this year’s theme will be “Diversity + Inclusion = Better Decisions”. Our intent is to spur the grassroots of a more diverse ecosystem where diversity of thinking and knowledge will ignite innovation and better outcomes for us all.

The Diversity Leadership Summit provides a platform for current and the next generation of leaders to:

• Discuss challenges and opportunities surrounding diversity in leadership

• Be inspired by influential and successful role models

• Explore new paths to leadership

• Network with like-minded professionals

GeoIgnite Business Startup Program

Track Chair: Amina Deiab and Jonathan Murphy
Description Forthcoming

Building Information Modeling (BIM) Track

Track Chairs: Megan Beange and Gerry Lattmann
Description Forthcoming

Location Intelligence Track

Track Chair: Bilyana Anicic
Description Forthcoming