Conference Casts an Eye on Wicked Geospatial Problems

The Spatial Plexus ’13 international conference takes a twist on the conference paradigm by bringing problems to the practitioner and educator, versus bringing practitioners to the problems.

The annual live environment (November 4-6, 2013, Atlanta, Georgia) and continuous online community created by Spatial Plexus fosters direct interaction between educators and practitioners, those who have worked with the U.S. Department of Labor to create a Geospatial Technology Competency Model (GTCM) — the National Geospatial Technology Center of Excellence, run through the Technical Colleges and Higher Education partners — and those who are writing job descriptions, assessing skills and setting salaries against it — private and public sector employers.

According to organizers, intricacies and interdependencies of “wicked problems” (those difficult to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements) can be exposed, better defined, dissected, better managed and reassembled through the geospatial approach.

Wicked problems highlighted this year through panel presentations and audience interaction are packaged as: “Geospatial Intelligence in Higher Education,” “GIS 4 Sustaining the Built Environment,” “GIS 4 Business Intelligence,” “GIS 4 Public Health,” and “GIS 4 Public Safety.” Open mic and topical roundtables will encourage discussions about the those issues and additional issues of interest, including “GIS in the Cloud,” “GIS and IT: integration/separation/recognition,” “Challenges for GIS,” “Speculation/forecasting future issues,” and “GIS 4 Social Media.”

Contributions by distinguished keynote speakers will build the story of geospatial literacy, articulation from education to work force and real-world implementation, respectively. These speakers include Daniel Edelson of the National Geographic Society, Rachel Kornak of University of Southern California, Frederic Grant of Emory University, and Major General Reddel of the Adjutants General Association of the United States of America.

Other noteworthy panelists and contributors include:

• Art Kalinski established the U.S. Navy’s first GIS, and is the editor of GeoIntelligence Insider for Geospatial Solutions.
• Josh Knauer, president and CEO of Rhiza, a Spatial Plexus sponsor, has served on President Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science & Technology
• Carl Anderson was an original author of the “United States Thoroughfare, Landmark, and Postal Address Data Standard” and is the president-elect of URISA
• Shan Arora, a non-geospatial practitioner/former attorney, will present information on the first clean energy industries census for the southeast.

Additional conference content and activities include:

• an Academic Showcase of geospatial programs from across the country.
• a social mixer highlighting Spatial Plexus sponsors, the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF), MapLarge, Rhiza, Elmhurst College, and GPS World magazine (Geospatial Solutions’ partner site).

This year’s event will be held at the Georgia Tech Historic Academy of Medicine, with space exclusively for Spatial Plexus. A tour of this historic building and its assets, including Gone With the Wind chandelier, will be offered. Registration (a nominal $350 fee), hotel information and more conference information are available through the spatialplexus.com website. Continuous break foods and lunch will be provided.