Leaders in Geospatial Space come together to tackle important national & global issues

Australia’s premier spatial conference, Locate, has announced the speaker line up for its national conference this year called Locate20, to be held at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre, 28 to 30 April 2020.

Organisers say this year’s conference will see a particular emphasis on how geospatial technology and practices are equipping us to meet the immediate and serious challenges our planet is currently faced with such as drought, bushfires, water scarcity and health outbreaks.

The line up includes over 50 inspiring speakers from a diverse range of backgrounds and industries including Government, academics, defence force, surveying, technology, mining, natural resources, energy, transport, agriculture, utilities and more who will speak to national and international delegates from within and outside the spatial industry on a range of important topics.

The action-packed three day program will feature keynote and breakout sessions, workshops, panel discussions, the Asia Pacific Excellence Awards (APSEA’s), a Young Professional Symposium, and a Market Day - an exhibition open to the public to attend and interact with geospatial technologies providing them with an opportunity to learn how we can harness the power of location.

Notable speakers and topics for the conference include:

Scott Dewar, Director Australia Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation (AGO)

Topic: How the Defence Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT) Community will transform to meet the future needs of the Australian Defence Force

Panel discussion featuring: Mustak Shaikh, Department of Planning, Industry and Environment Chris Tanner, Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities Claire Krause, Geoscience Australia

Topic: The drops are running out – managing water scarcity in an increasingly variable global climate

Justin Mendelow & Ryan Bannister, Urban Utilities

Topic: Spatially Managing Asset Risk at Urban Utilities

Karen Joyce, Senior Lecturer, James Cook University, Queensland

Topic: Guiding the Geospatial Workforce of 2030 towards a stronger economy

Anne Harper, Koordinates

Topic: Why Oceania needs to open up geospatial data — and how

Kangmin Moon, Victorian Commissioner's Office for Environmental Sustainability

Topic: Accessing geo-spatial data to assist in filling data gaps identified in reporting on Victoria’s State of the Environment Report

James Johnson, CEO, Geoscience Australia

Topic: Creating a location-enabled Australia

Eamon Mansoor, Omnilink

Topic: Spatial Data in Business

See the full program here.

Chair of Locate Conferences Australia Maurits van der Vlugt says:

“In a world with an increasing rate of technological advancement around location technologies along with automation and machine learning, the spatial industry is moving ahead in leaps and bounds.

“Spatial underpins every other industry, but not everyone is aware of that, so our annual conference is very important for bringing together not only the immediate geospatial industry, but also introducing the case studies and technologies to others who could be using location data to inform and enable better decision making around some serious challenges our society is facing.”

KEY CONFERENCE DETAILS:

When: 28 to 30 April 2020

Where: Brisbanetion Centre

Cost: From $1,280 for a full conference non-member

For more information about the Conference visit:

https://www.locateconference.com/2020

Also follow the conference social channels at:

https://www.facebook.com/LocateConference/

https://twitter.com/locateconf

https://www.linkedin.com/company/locate-conference/

Some major sponsors for the Locate20 Conference include Esri Australia, Geoscience Australia, Vexcel Imaging, Bentley, Maxar, RIEGL Australia and GHD Digital. Further opportunities are still available, including exhibiting at or sponsoring the upcoming or future year’s conferences.

About the organisations behind the conference

Locate Conferences Australia Pty Ltd has been established to deliver the Locate series of annual conferences by the Surveying & Spatial Sciences Institute (SSSI), Spatial Industries Business Association (SIBA) and Geospatial Information & Technology Association (GITA).

LOCATE BOARD

Chair: Maurits Van der Vlugt (SIBA)

Vice-Chair: Zaffar Sadiq Mohamed-Ghouse (SSSI)

Directors: Glenn Cockerton (SIBA), Paul Digney (SSSI), Mary-Ellen Feeney (SIBA), Paul Reed (SSSI)

ORGANISING COMMITTEE

Paul Reed, SSSI QLD Chair & East Coast Conveyancing (Convenor)

Margaret Blade, Regional Development Australia, Brisbane

Glenn Cockerton, Spatial Vision

Kate Crawford, Eviva Pty Ltd

Joanne Hansen, Department of Environment & Science, Queensland Government

Peter James, Cohga Pty Ltd

Alex Leith, Geoscience Australia

Peter Lennon, DNRME

Zaffar Sadiq Mohamed-Ghouse, SSSI President & Spatial Vision

Dipak Paudyal, Esri Australia

Alison Rose, Chief of Place, Space & Community Safety, Geoscience Australia

Kate Williams, Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP)

Laura Kostanski, Locate20 Hub Coordinator

Roshni Sharma, Locate20 Hub Coordinator & SSSI YP Chair

About geospatial technologies

Geospatial technologies is a term used to describe the range of modern tools contributing to the geographic mapping and analysis of the Earth and human societies. Systems such as Global Positioning System (GPS) and Geographical Information System (GIS) are used in geospatial work. “Geo” is a prefix that comes from a Greek word meaning earth.

Surveying and spatial sciences come together as two sides of the coin of all things related to location data (anything with coordinates, primarily on the Earth but also in space).

Surveyors have a long and well-established foundation in the history of many countries and cultures around the planet as the creators of accurate and precise records of location information that underpin the smooth operation of society - around cadastral (property) boundaries (land surveying); around building and civil construction (engineering surveying); around the planning, construction and operation of mines (mining surveying), around understanding and measuring the geography of land under the ocean (hydrographic surveying); and understanding the shape and size of the earth and it’s changing surface over time (geodetic surveying). Surveyors use many tools to undertake their work, utilising a range of technology from theodolites to photogrammetry.

Spatial science goes hand-in-hand, almost inseparably, with surveying as the management and applied use of this location data - from the creation of small and large spatial datasets of many types and capabilities, interpretation of remotely sensed images and photogrammetry, to cartography (the display of location data as maps in various mediums) to modelling (utilising location to accurately and precisely predict how a product or situation might play out in the real world) to complex analyses (for example to understand constraints or make comparisons).

Increasingly, the geospatial industry as a whole is moving towards capturing and modelling the world around us digitally in 3D and 4D, allowing a spatial data framework to become the workbench for other data that links to its location context. This is both a spatial data science and an information management art, bringing together both surveyors and spatial scientists as custodians if quality location data and its effective management. Spatial data can be related to almost any dataset in the world, and in a quiet, humble way, geospatial underpins the work that all other industries do.