Canada’s first Geospatial Advancement Conference was held this past week (March 3rd-5th) in Ottawa, Ontario. The goal of the conference was to bring together Canada’s leaders in geomatics to further the discussion on developing a National Geo strategy in light of the country’s rapidly accelerating Geomatics/GIS industry.
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The Geomatics Association of Nova Scotia (GANS) entered into a media partnership with conference organizers and in turn received two complimentary passes to the event. GANS offered the passes to the membership on a first come, first serve basis. Lucie Kendell (VP, GANS Board) and Harold MacNeil (GANS Corporate Sponsor, Halifax Water) were able to make the trip to Ottawa and represent Nova Scotia.
The three days were packed with individual speakers from all across Canada with 20 minutes each; a variety of 40 minute panel discussions; and daily intimate round table discussions led by selected speakers on their presentation topics.
The three days were broken into loose themes; Day 1 targeted interoperability challenges, Day 2 focused on the development of a National Geo strategy through collaboration, and Day 3 ended with questions of GIS governance. Despite the breakdown in days, there were several common discussion threads and areas of interest that were increasingly apparent as the conference progressed.
Lucie has taken the time to write a 4 page summary of the conference with photos and key topics to share so GANS members could understand some of the topics that were discussed in Ottawa and help GANS engage the Nova Scotia Geomatics community to continue building upon those discussions.
