Dr. Nadine Alameh, the inaugural Executive Director of the Taylor Geospatial Institute, has been leading an ambitious effort to accelerate geospatial research for tackling today’s biggest challenges—climate, disasters, health, and national security. In this session, she will reflect on what it takes to build a truly impactful geospatial ecosystem, challenge assumptions about the roles of national mapping agencies, academia, and nonprofits, and ask the hard questions about why our sector still struggles to break through its own barriers.

And if you think Generative AI is the magic bullet for geospatial, think again. Drawing from a recent collaboration with AWS, Dr. Alameh will share why applying AI in this space is far more complicated than most realize—and why that’s both a challenge and an opportunity.