By Bob Grant
Geospatial researchers, industry leaders, government officials, and members of the greater geospatial community gathered in St. Louis on September 12 for Geo-Resolution 2024 to discuss the future of geospatial technologies, the valuable information they provide, and the impacts they make across the globe. In its sixth year of existence, Geo-Resolution was attended by more than 700 people on the campus of Saint Louis University (SLU), with hundreds more tuning in to watch the live webcast of the event online and submitting questions for presenters through the Geo-Res 2024 mobile app.
By any measure, Geo-Resolution 2024, the annual geospatial conference co-hosted by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and SLU and supported by the Taylor Geospatial Institute (TGI), was a success.
The audience and roster of speakers included up and coming students, government agency leaders, executives at leading geospatial firms, and top academic researchers at the forefronts of their fields. The theme of Geo-Resolution 2024 was, “Modeling the Future to Address Today’s Geospatial Challenges,” and the conference included in-depth discussions on the development and application of digital twins, geospatial simulations, GeoAI, gaming, and augmented reality, among other cutting-edge modalities and technologies. Panel discussions were punctuated by keynote addresses from Bob Pette, Vice President and General Manager of Enterprise Platforms at chipmaker NVIDIA and Josh Delmonico, Executive Director of the Federal Geographic Data Committee.
While the official program focused on the latest geospatial technology and applications, the unofficial organizing principle that energized the room was that collaboration is key to propelling geospatial science and technology forward. With NGA co-hosting, several speakers referenced the importance of the decision by the federal agency to site it’s midwestern headquarters in the St. Louis region. “The NGA created a spark. Universities have created geospatial programs which led to the birth of the Taylor Geospatial Institute, and that’s going to be part of the future roadmap,” said TGI executive director Nadine Alameh, Ph.D. “From the Institute, we’re going to create ideas that hopefully spark innovation.”
On the technological front, artificial intelligence, digital twins, and virtual environments were frequently invoked at Geo-Resolution 2024. During his keynote address, Pette admitted that his ultimate goal is to recreate the Holodeck from Star Trek and summarized the potential of building digital twins. “We use the virtual world to improve the physical world,” he said.
In addition to the stimulating discussion, Geo-Resolution 2024 also included a student mentoring lunch, a student poster competition, and a closing reception, which coincided with the TGI Expo, where the NGA and many institutions in the TGI consortium shared program resources and highlighted their geospatial capacity and more than 10 companies involved in the geospatial realm distributed information on their activities to attendees. Companies that participated in the TGI Expo included Boeing Intelligence & Analytics, Bentley Systems, and others.
Geo-Resolution 2024 was a demonstration of the strength and vigor of the geospatial community and the fact that St. Louis is a focal point in the field. Patrick Cozzi, Chief Platform Officer at Bentley Systems—which recently acquired Cesium, the company Cozzi co-founded—stated this plainly. “There’s no place I’d rather be than in St. Louis, with such a strong geospatial community,” he said.
Alameh echoed Cozzi’s sentiment. “Today we have an amazing story that is the dream of geospatial in St. Louis,” she noted.
About Taylor Geospatial Institute
TGI is passionate about fueling geospatial science and technology to create the next generation of solutions and policies that the whole world will depend on for sustainability and growth.
The TGI consortium includes Saint Louis University, the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, Harris-Stowe State University, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Missouri University of Science & Technology, University of Missouri-Columbia, University of Missouri-St. Louis, and Washington University in St. Louis. Collectively, these institutions cover geospatial research from ocean depths to outer space.
For more information, visit taylorgeospatial.org.