Geospatial World 2004 Day 1 Conference reporting by GIS Development Dear Readers, “Open. Solutions. Exchange.” That’s exactly what the theme speaks out (in loud letters) for the Geospatial World 2004 Conference. These three words had its overpowering effect right from the inception of Day 1 and lingered on for most of the first half with varied interpretations that did set the agenda for the conference. An agenda of ‘openness, solutions and exchange’. Impressive and forward looking keynote speeches captivated the packed audience of about 500 in the opening ceremony and set the ball rolling for the 3-day conference on geospatial sciences and Intergraph, at the grand Fontainebleau Hilton Resort, Miami. Geospatial World 2004, is the annual gathering of the Intergraph Geospatial users community sponsored by Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions and is the fourth major conference being held since its start in 2000. This year the conference boasts of about 900 registered participants, 30 exhibitors with over 200 speakers. “Intergraph technology makes the world safer and more prosperous…” declared Halsey Wise, President and CEO, Intergraph Corp. in his keynote address openly and hoped that the conference would bring to its attendees - cases, papers, discussions, products, techniques and issues that can lead to a better understanding of the potential of geospatial sciences in enabling organizations take better decisions. GIS Development strives again to foster the growth and sharing of important happenings in the world of GIS and related technologies. In this continued effort it brings you a live update of the conference as it unfolds. Find following a brief update of Day 1. Regards, Ayon Tarafdar, Assistant Editor, GIS Development ayon@gisdevelopment.net Keynote Address – Halsey Wise Day 1 started off with Halsey Wise , President and CEO, Intergraph Corporation presenting an articulate opening speech. He broadly covered 3 areas – Intergraph Corporation in brief, description of the main divisions and their activities, and finally focusing on the vision of the organization. He mentioned that the revenue of Intergraph in 2003 has been to the tune of 527 million USD with an operating income of 14.6 million USD. He mentioned that the future geospatial markets to be quite positive and prospective. He emphasized on Intergraph’s strive ‘to make sense of a complex world’ rather than being anywhere close to just a GIS company. Key aspects raised - ‘A global provider’ : Halsey mentioned that Intergraph is a global provider of ‘enablement’ - enabling organizations (both government and private) to make the right decisions at the right time with the right information. He talked of the necessity to understand that a relationship between data and an organization is very crucial. The more accessible, useful and analysed is the data of an agency, the better informed, equipped and able is that agency towards execution of activities, managing of resources and taking proper decisions – all of which effect the productivity of the organization as a whole. ‘Aspiring to lead’ : He emphasized upon the importance of industry standards and mentioned, “we aspire to lead, by setting standards that others emulate”. Asserting the healthy position of the organization, the investor’s confidence and the potential, he emphasized on the transition of Intergraph from being a vendor of proprietary GIS to an organization of open solutions. ‘Taking GIS out of its island’ : The role of geospatial sciences has risen beyond being a science or even a service. It is now a just logical component in a larger agenda of seeking rational solutions to development and conservation. GIS or related sciences need to be amalgamated into workflows of government and organizations on their own prerogative. GIS is more of a decision support than anything else. Keynote Address – Preetha Pulusani “Is geospatial interoperability necessary?” - So said Preetha Pulusani, President, Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions, in her speech that interestingly positioned the company in the geospatial domain and gave promising glimpses of the future of this discipline. Various issues were touched upon. She mentioned that data availability is important in current times but it needs to be timely and adequate. She advocated a new mindset required for experts in GIS or even users and that is ‘to stop isolating GIS.’ GIS is mainstream and an integral part of any processes that tries to visualize complex interrelationships of data or information with a specific purpose of generating intelligence. She gave a very brief and lucid product update. Then she took her presentation all over the globe picking up cases of Intergraph’s work in enabling complex situations management. She spoke of cases from Korea, US Army, UK, Canada, Belgium, Macau, Netherlands, china, and many more. She touched upon two important updates – Geomedia Fusion and Intergraph Synergy Programme. Geomedia Fusion is a new product to be launched by the Intergraph Synergy Programme end of this year that basically shall be a tool to integrate datasets of various scales and origins. It shall be a powerful product that advocates Open, Solutions and Exchange. Intergraph Synergy Programme is a programme that has been re-christened from its earlier Team Geomedia emphasis. Under this programme Intergraph seeks to reach out across the globe for partnering with organizations research, development and solutions in the geospatial domain. She also talked of the b bond between Intergraph and Education. 100% Club Awards This session also presented 6 awards to Intergraph products and services users, who have used technologies by Intergraph to the fullest of every value chain and has been successful in their cases also. The award was handed over by Halsey and presided by Preetha, Bart Hoogenraad and Art Spencer from Intergraph. The award went to – DTE Energy Gas/Michlon Northern Virginia Electric cooperative Prague Energy Rappahammock Electric Cooperative Sacramento municipal Utility District The Empire District Electric company Open Geospatial Solutions from Intergraph Post tea and just before the lunch, there were three significant speeches that summed up the position of Intergraph in the geospatial domain in terms of its services, products and updates of the last year. Dr Art Spencer, spoke at length with heavy emphasis on the role of geospatial sciences in return on investment (RoI). He also emphasized the RoI on geospatial initiation in any organization. He gave an example of sample RoI, with and without enterprise image management. He also touched upon various demos of GIS systems, Image Processing, LBS, Utility application, etc mentioning the various situations of RoIs. He concluded on the need for robust industry solutions that aim at a rational cost benefit analysis rather than following set procedures that might not be applicable universally. Dr Umit Basoglu spoke at length on geospatial intelligence. His key concept revolved around the fact that operational costs are sensitive to the demands of the enterprise. He mentioned the importance to have a goal that is demand driven. He exemplified his concepts in terms of geospatial intelligence. He elaborated upon the need, use and process to moving towards geospatial intelligence. David D. Holmes, the director of worldwide product strategy, mentioned elaborately all the product ranges available and awaiting release in near future from the Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions like – GeoMedia 5.2, Intelliwhere Trackforce 5.2, Inservice 7.9, Dynamo, Z/I Imaging, Digital Cartographic Suite 3.2, Map Publisher 6.2 and GeoMedia WebMap 5.2. He gave a firm picture of the application areas its product traverses and the division has grown with dedication and perseverance to provide the best and most reliable services. The opening of the technical sessions commenced from here. Technical Sessions The post lunch sessions took place in 14 different halls spanning primarily 6 different application areas of Foundation, Local Government Cases, National Government Cases, Transportation Solutions, Earth Imaging Solutions, Utilities and Communications Industries and Military. In all about 55 different papers were presented which spanned from basic generic papers that touched upon concepts to technical papers with hands on workshop on the case specific solutions. The post tea sessions starting 3:30pm also took place again in 14 different halls. Press meets and interviews The post lunch session also allowed press personnel to have direct one to one discussions with the management of Intergraph as well as technical resource personnel. Summary In summary, the day emphasized Intergraph’s strong messages as follows: We need to see our world more clearly and for that we need to use and propagate the use of right information (read geospatial information). Every organization needs to enable productivity and increase Return on Investment (RoI) and that holds true with geospatial information usage. We need to move towards a better and faster operational decision-making challenge. All the above three core aims are something that Intergraph inherently touches upon in their vision and mission. And perhaps that’s why – ‘Open. Solutions, Exchange’. In case of problem in viewing this report kindly Click Here Comments : Info@GISdevelopment.net © GISdevelopment.net. All rights reserved.