Situational Awareness, New Tech Discussed at Spatial Plexus Conference

A Report on the Annual GIS Conference of the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI)

By Art Kalinski, GISP

“Plexus is defined as any complex structure containing an intricate network of parts. The Spatial Plexus annual event elevates Geographic Information Science as the cross-disciplinary application of GIS and geo-technologies against so many interconnected issues.” — Spatial Plexus website

Two weeks ago, I attended Spatial Plexus 2013, a GIS conference put together by Danielle Ayan of GTRI. Her reputation of building well-organized conferences helped draw some very interesting and influential speakers. The conference was held at the historic Academy of Medicine at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. The academy is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and even has a connection to the movie Gone with the Wind. Built before television and movies, the auditorium was designed for doctors to view medical demonstrations using actual cadavers on the stage. Fortunately, none of the Plexus presentations were cadaverously dull.

The conference opened with several pre-conference workshops, including Course Development Workshops to advance GIS-related education based on DACUM (Developing A CUrriculuM) and the Geospatial Technology Competency Model (GTCM). This was tied in with a GeoTech Advisory Council Meeting. The GeoTech Center, funded in part by National Science Foundation, is a collaborative effort between colleges, universities and industry to expand the geospatial workforce by providing professional development and curriculum resources.

A workshop I attended covered new capabilities of ArcGIS Online. The hands-on workshop was conducted by Dr. Tom Mueller of California University of Pennsylvania and Dr. Rich Schultz of Elmhurst College, Illinois. If interested, you can go through the same tutorial online.

I liked the linear format of this conference rather than separate break-out sessions found in mega conferences, because I always get frustrated missing competing break-out sessions. Additionally, we tend to overly focus on our primary areas of interest to the exclusions of other topics. The linear format pulls your mind and attention through a variety of subject areas, expanding the breadth of your knowledge. That was certainly the case with Spatial Plexus — lots of variety. The following are just a sample of the presentations. You can go to the Spatial Plexus website for a complete list, including many of the presentations and associated SharePoints.

The opening keynote was given by Daniel Edelson, vice president of education for the National Geographic Society. He discussed “The Importance of Geo Literacy for College, Career and Civic Readiness.” His presentation was reinforced by Dr. Max Baber, the director of academic programs for the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF). He discussed the multitude of excellent positions in the geospatial intelligence community, both at NGA and associated contractors. He also stressed the growing need and demand for GEOINT analyst certification, which is becoming a way to ensure qualified personnel in government and contractor positions.

Tamarin Gullett-Tyrrell, GIS analyst for Cherokee County, Georgia, demonstrated the county geospatial Situational Awareness website. The Esri/Silverlight system by GeoCortex was designed to serve the public as well as emergency responders. Tamarin and Joe Woycke, Director of GIS and Mapping, built the well thought out and elegant system by bringing together all the county stakeholders early in the process. They determined that the complexity and diversity of stakeholder requirements pointed the way to two separate sites — one for tax work / county planning and the other for the public and emergency responder situational awareness including the sheriff, police, fire departments, EOC and the 911 call center. The early collaboration and consensus building saved a lot of time and expensive change orders. The result is two systems that all users are happy with. Shown below is . It not only incorporates county data and imagery, it toggles Bing and Google geospatial data.

Situational awareness website SAGE.

Joe Francica, editor-in-chief of Directions Magazine in Huntsville, Alabama, gave a rapid-fire summary of new technology he was following that he believed will impact the geospatial community. These include:

• WiFiSLAM, an indoor location technology
• geofencing, which sends location-based notifications to consumers approaching a store
• connected cars
• TracDot, a tag that tracks your luggage, and
• the much-publicized Google Glass.

He also mentioned my favorite new emerging technology — 3D printers, as well as drones and nano technology. He recommended James McQuivey’s book Digital Disruption: Unleashing the Next Wave of Innovation.

In one of the open group discussions related to my presentation on Soft Power, I mentioned the 2010 Foreign Affairs magazine article on the disruptive effect of social media and mobile devices on second- and third-world countries. I discussed my amazement at the ingenuity of people who find a way to communicate without the benefit of a well-established communications systems. FabFi is a very low cost and simple wireless network developed by MIT students that is being used in Kenya and Afghanistan to provide wireless communications between villages. The system uses inexpensive $40 off-the-shelf wireless routers and home-made parabolic antennas of plywood and chicken wire to send wireless signals from one village to another. The networks are so quick and easy to establish that governments may no longer have the power to turn off the Internet when they feel threatened. This is democratization at its best.

The FabFi program brings the Internet to villages in developing nations.

There were several presentations on the use of GIS in medical applications, especially the work being done by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and even a presentation by Chris Smith, director of IT Services for the U.S. Architect of the Capitol on how GIS had streamlined the management of Capitol facilities.

Chris Smith, director of IT Services for the U.S. Architect of the Capitol.

The closing keynote was given by Major General William Reddel, the National Guard Adjutant General for the State of New Hampshire, who also serves as the chair of the U.S. Adjutant Generals Association Cyber/GIS/IT Committee and was the keynote speaker at last year’s ESRI Federal Users Conference. The General seems to be a good steward of our tax dollars, since he quickly realized and acted to reduced 54 separate state National Guard Esri licenses to one enterprise license, saving us 1.5 million dollars annually. He also discussed how the needs of the National Guard had evolved and are moving to cloud services such as Virtual USA and Web EOC. He closed with a slight redefinition. He said most people use the term “Common Operational Picture” (COP), but he prefers the growing reality of “User Defined Operational Pictures” as capabilities and user needs evolve.

As you can surmise from this short sampling, Spatial Plexus 2013 was a very diverse and interesting collection of GIS practitioners and presentations. The linear format exposed all us attendees to corners of the community that we might not otherwise investigate, so it was especially informative. The conference was certainly well worth the time, and I strongly encourage all who can to attend next year.