Mayor Watson welcomes delegates, exhibitors and VIPS to the inaugural National Geospatial event in Canada.

There's never been a more exciting time to be a part of the geospatial profession. From mapping the infrastructure beneath our cities to indoor wayfinding, to plentiful and powerful remote sensing capabilities in air and space which we could hardly have imagined just a few years ago, the opportunities - and the expectations - for geospatial professionals are immense. Technology is evolving at a pace which outstrips the ability of academics, governments, and industries to keep pace. How will w...

Let’s admit it! We live in exciting times with technology, social interactions and business models changing before our eyes: Flying taxis, self-driving cars, commercial Space missions, smart cities, SmallSats and Internet Of Things (IOT) to name just a few innovations! Our kids are growing up in a world of on-demand TV, GPS availability, all around virtual assistants, and mobile devices that pretty much can do anything! Each and every one of these innovations has a location element to i...

Prashant Shukle is the Director General for the Canada Centre for Mapping and Earth Observation Branch, Earth Sciences Sector, at Natural Resources Canada (NRCan).NRCan has fostered an enabling policy mechanism and provided a conducive framework for geospatial information infrastructure. In today’s digital age when geospatial is becoming more and more ubiquitous, open and inter-disciplinary policies are the key instruments of harnessing the true value of this wonderful technology...

Alberta View: Economic impacts and Opportunities of the Geospatial SectorLocation technologies are changing the way we live, work, and play, and are having a transformative impact on industries across Canada. The intersection of location technologies with Virtual Reality and Augmented reality are rapidly transforming key sectors of the Canadian economy including transportation, the resource sector, the digital and interactive media sector and transforming how governments d...

The future is digital. Big data is an integral part of the digital transformation of a private or public organization. Location and geospatial technologies are at the heart of the digital transformation as enablers, game changers and contribute to the success of big data in many ways. Combined with emerging geospatial artificial intelligence, the possibilities are limitless. Smart cities and autonomous vehicles are examples of this potential. However, this big data revolution raises many lega...

Several key trends in the geospatial industry over the last few years have created the conditions needed to truly leverage remote sensing as a technology that has the potential to provide tremendous benefit to civil society. These include changes in data policy, most notably with USGS's decision in 2008 to make all Landsat archives free and open, a policy which led the European Space Agency to also implement free and open access to the Copernicus constellation. The volume of data that is incr...

Hope Spots are special places that are critical to the health of the ocean — Earth’s blue heart. Some Hope Spots are already formally protected, while others still need defined protection. The Mission Blue team has embarked on a series of expeditions to shed light on these vital ecosystems and ignite support to safeguard them as marine protected areas.The IUCN are an integral partner in the Mission Blue initiative and the Hope Spot concept ties into UN amb...

Today, geospatial technologies are embedded in many of the workflows that support the Fourth Industrial Revolution and therefore invaluable to users. This means that geospatial information is no longer the domain of specialists and suddenly has become a context for the rest of our augmented existence.From Pokémon Go, to Uber and autonomous vehicles (AV), Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), smart applications and on-line mapping tools give the public almost insta...

The UK Government as part of its building information modeling (BIM) initiative has said repeatedly that it expects the big payoff of a digital model will be during operations and maintenance, which typically represents 80% of the cost of a facility. Companies who do design, build, finance, and maintain, or design, build, operate, or PPP projects often employ a full lifecycle BIM + geospatial strategy. For example, Crossrail appears to be the first major project that may be able to provide su...

The Earth is immense, and abundant with interesting information. Recent advancements in geospatial sensors (e.g. satellites, smart phones, meteorological instruments, and LIDAR) have resulted in the development of technologies capable of collecting large and dynamic geospatial data. As a result, we are experiencing an explosion in the volume and variability of geospatial data, and yet many in public remain unaware of or unable to access this wealth of data to make informed decisions regarding...

Cloudy with a chance of data science.Sparkgeo had been building cloud first geospatial applications, from day 1. But that was not the plan. The plan was to make more maps for more people, using the internet.Sitting at the intersection of software development and GIS we see how these two communities can benefit from each other. But, to do so, we will have to step out of our comfort zones.Let me tell you the story of a lowly GIS tech's journey through the technol...

The Mapbox live location platform was designed to serve all levels of government and the critical services they support. Develop custom mapping and location applications from start to finish in your own private cloud or on-premises infrastructure. Atlas offers the same capabilities found on Mapbox.com only offline, and deployable anywhere, even on your own infrastructure. Learn more about accessing and analyzing your sensitive geospatial data on and off network during this 30 minute session. ...

The coastal zone is a challenging place to map, techniques for mapping the land elevation do not work under water and echosounding methods for mapping the seabed elevation work well in deep water but are dangerous and expensive in shallow water. As a result, detailed information in the shallow coastal zone is lacking. This presentation will focus on the Chiroptera II shallow water topo-bathymetric lidar sensor that can collect seamless elevation data in coastal or freshwater environments. The...

Megan works with national players in the Construction Industry, balancing high-level strategic direction and thinking with operational needs and technologies. She works with Departmental Stakeholders, Clients, and Private Sector Service Providers alike to bring digital efficiencies and innovation to workflows and processes in Real Property portfolio, program, and project, management. Megan has been a strong voice for digital transformation within the Federal Government's Real Property Communi...

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites image the Earth in all weather conditions, day or night. Canada’s RADARSAT-2 satellite, launched in 2007, orbits the Earth with a 24-day revisit cycle. It is used for mapping ground deformation produced by natural and anthropogenic hazards; natural resource development; permafrost, glacier and coastal changes. The next generation of Canadian satellites, the RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM), to be launched in June 2019, will improve the revisit cyc...

As we worked with multiple government organizations this past year, we faced this same question along the way: Should we move our data processes to the cloud? Now as much as we would like to give you a yes or no answer, there are different paths or options you need to explore inside your organization before taking this decision. In this presentation, you will hear about the latest trends and some ways to use the Cloud as a platform for geo data processes. You will also learn different conside...

The value of geospatial big data and how to efficiently convert it to useful information is an important cross disciplinary question. There has been significant investment in the collection and archiving of geospatial and other environmental data and numerous organizations recognize the importance of this information resource. However, the software and computing systems to effectively and efficiently access, interrogate, and utilize this information for specific applications has not seen the ...

The purpose of this presentation is to make the case for greater Indigenous participation in the development of geospatial technology and information. Next to government and resource companies, Indigenous people are the prominent stakeholders of the land and all the economic development that can happen on their territory. For this reason, they should have access to their own Geospatial data such as GIS data and ground imagery. Often the sources for Geospatial data comes from the proponent who...

Natural Resources Canada provides mapping and engineering advice and expertise to Public Safety Canada in support of the National Disaster Mitigation Program. Notably, NRCan develops the Federal Flood Mapping Guidelines Series and is nearing publication on two documents that will move Canada closer to having common practices for flood risk: • The Federal Hydrologic and Hydraulic Procedures for Flood Hazard Delineation, and • The Federal Geomatics Guideli...

Building on the panel discussion at GeoIgnite 2019, David Acco will discuss the potential of geospatial data and analytics to advance issues critical to Indigenous communities across Canada, from exerting sovereignty over territory, to environmental protection and climate change adaptation, to natural resources development. Mr. Acco will further outline how his firm, Acosys Consulting Services Inc., has developed an approach to marrying Indigenous Traditional Knowledge (ITK) and geospatial...

Presented by: Jake Dickinson & John Roos Abstract: As shrinking polar ice creates new opportunities for resource exploration and shipping routes, the importance for Arctic nations to monitor the ongoing expansion in the Arctic is ever increasing. Additionally, climate change continues to impact people and the environment. High resolution satellite imagery remains one of the most effective means of monitoring inaccessible and de...

Space-Based Earth Observation in Canada - A Vision for the Future Today, Canada’s landscape, coasts, waters, and cities are changing rapidly, in a large part due to unstable geopolitical currents and the acceleration of global climate change. Our future economic and environmental security, as well as the safety and well-being of its citizens, depend on our ability to understand, plan, and respond quickly to change. Space-Based Earth Observation (SBEO) technologies ...

Ocean, Marine & Coastal Hydro(Geo)spatial Management is critical for the Blue Economy. Much knowledge, data, information and coordination are needed for the marine and coastal sector in time of disruption to maintain safe and efficient operations. This session will cover the scientific basis; the detection and the response of Earthquake in the Canadian coastal zone and underwater that could potentially generate ocean coastal flooding & Tsunamis. The session will be a...

Title: Growing Canada’s Next Earth Observation (EO) GenerationCanada has a proud history in Earth Observation, supporting a strong export industry driven on EO imagery and geospatial analytics. It is incumbent on all of us to continue Canada’s strong presence in the global EO community and we can only do that with a concerted effort and plan to grow the next generation of leaders. After 51 years of leadership in space and spatial information technology MDA was recen...

A closer look at some of the lidar-derived innovations for enhanced forestry management solutions and topobathymetric flood mitigation from Quantum Spatial Canada. Presented by Sven Cowan, Dr. Andrew Brenner, and Colin Cooper. Quantum Spatial, Inc., an NV5 company, is one of North America's largest geospatial services firms, providing insights to organizations that need geospatial intelligence to mitigate risk, plan for growth, better manage resources and advance scientific ...

Agriculture Canada’s COVID-19 response with location data & technology helping drive Objectives and Key Results (OKR’s) on the Enterprise GIS Roadmap This talk is designed to provide insights and guidelines for managing and directing Geospatial programs and uses the COVID-19 response (Maps Apps and Data) and digital transformation as the means to achieve the Objectives and Key Results of the Geomatics program.At AAFC the strategic initiatives of our data driven...

In recognition of the increasing costs and risk due to flooding, the Government of Canada is investing in flood mapping as part of the Government’s commitment to build safer and more resilient communities. Flood maps are critical for the public to understand their flood risks, and the availability of up to date flood hazard maps are key to strengthening the resilience of Canadian communities to overland flooding. Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) has been working in collaboration to advance...

We are living through a transformative time, not least in the space industry. A graph of upcoming satellite launches looks like a hockey stick – soon there will be orders of magnitude leading to more satellites being launched and more downstream data being generated from space than ever before. The question is, what is the most effective means of ensuring that space data brings tangible benefits to business operations and value to end users? In our talk we cover a satellit...

The key elements to take into account a successful implementation of drone survey with a mm accuracy are: Know your camera; Trust your measurement; Control your space; Understand your photogrammetry software. Working out that, we present this nuance including special tags around the surveyed object as the measurement system to get details.A correct implementation of photogrammetry tags with consumer grade measurement devices and consumer grade UAVs and cameras enables very precise a...

Abstract A fundamental shift in the geospatial industry has occurred over recent years. Modern remote sensing technology has been developed at PCI Geomatics and in Canada through advanced research through partnerships with private industry, academia, and government researchers. Ubiquitous access to openly accessible earth observation data, cloud computing infrastructures and international collaboration have created opportunities to increase downstream access to inf...