AGI announces Professor Iain Stewart as Guest Compère at its annual awards evening - 13/11/14.

The Association for Geographic Information (AGI) is pleased to announce Professor Iain Stewart as Guest Compère at its new annual awards evening – The AGI Awards for GeoSpatial Excellence -  to be held at the Chesford Grange Hotel, Warwickshire, during the evening of November 13th 2014.

The AGI Awards are a prestigious event recognising the very best achievements in the field of Geographic Information throughout the year. The purpose of the awards is to recognise excellence within the industry and to foster a spirit of innovation to the betterment of Geographic Information in the UK. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the AGI and as a result the AGI has launched an exciting new set of awards for 2014 and beyond! The AGI Awards for Geospatial Excellence move beyond the traditional sector based approach to generate an open and engaging competition for each award relevant across the whole industry! For more information about the awards and how to nominate yourself or your project please visit: http://www.geobig5.com/events/agi-awards-geospatial-excellence/. 

The deadline for nominations is 30^th September 2014.

About Professor Iain Stewart:

Iain Stewart, professor of Geoscience Communication at Plymouth University (UK), is an Earth scientist and broadcaster who specialises in recent geological change. He has presented major television series for the BBC on the nature, history and state of the planet, most notably ‘Earth:  The Power of the Planet’; ‘Earth: The Climate Wars’; ‘How Earth Made Us’, ‘How To Grow A Planet’; ‘Volcano Live’, and ‘Rise of the Continents’. He regularly fronts BBC Horizon specials on geoscientific topics, such as the Japanese earthquake, the Russian meteor strike, Shale gas/ Fracking, and Florida sinkholes. In 2013 he was awarded the American Geophysical Union’s Athelstan Spilhaus Award for conveying to the general public the excitement, significance, and beauty of the Earth and space sciences.

Geo: The Big 5 - News Round-up

Big Data (IBM, London, 30 Sep) in Partnership with the Demographics User Group – programme online, book now!

There is still chance to book a place for this highly anticipated event and gain insight into one of the hottest topics in future IT thinking. The AGI’s Big Data event features world leading experts from big data (IBM, Cloudera, MapR, Deloitte), major commercial users (Marks and Spencer, Telefonica) and geospatial sectors (Esri, Ordnance Survey). Two parallel streams will run through the day, one focussing on Strategy and the other Best Practice. The conference is accompanied by an exhibition and the full programme can be viewed here.

Geocom - The Changing Face of Geo (Chesford Grange Hotel, Kenilworth, 11th-13th Nov) - early bird ends 12th September

This year’s new format Geocom (marking the AGI’s 25th year) will see talks from leading industry speakers and Government Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Mark Walport. Talks will explore the challenges, opportunities and business benefit of integrating geospatial with a host of other tools alongside skills focused workshops, hands on training and an innovation theatre. Regardless of your sector or interest GeoCom will allow you to debate, engage with and shape the future of the geospatial industry. Logistics information and the conference registration form can be found online.

 AGI Awards for Geospatial Excellence (Chesford Grange Hotel, Kenilworth, 13th Nov) - still time to gain recognition for your work

There is still plenty of time to submit an entry for the AGI Awards for Geospatial Excellence and be recognised for your achievements in and commitment to geospatial in 2014. Detailed descriptions of our ten prestigious awards are available on the Geo Big 5 site. 

AGI Awards for Geospatial Excellence – why you should enter, sponsor & attend

There is still plenty of time to submit an entry for the AGI Awards and be recognised for your achievements in and commitment to geospatial in 2014. Ten prestigious awards (new for this year and beyond) will recognise excellence in visualisation, education, research & development, business benefit, impact and sustained commitment to geospatial. 

Reflection and celebration is not often at the forefront of an employee's to-do list; award entries take time and effort (though the AGI's entry form really is quite concise) and other deadlines will often take priority. However, awards are an important way of acknowledging achievement and commitment. The AGI awards aim to inspire through showcasing the very best practice in the geospatial industry, fostering a spirit of GI innovation in the UK.

This post details a plethora of reasons to submit an entry for, sponsor and attend the 2014 AGI Awards for Geospatial Excellence: 

Why Enter?

• Obtain recognition of your success among your industry peers – being shortlisted for an award will raise your profile among the most renowned names in the industry
• Showcase your company at one of the UK’s biggest gatherings of GI professionals
• Demonstrate your company’s success stories to prospective clients – the awards are an opportunity to prove that you are at the forefront of the GI market
•  Keep an eye on the competition - the awards are a great opportunity to measure your own performance against your competitors’ and see where you sit alongside the best in the industry
• Share your stories and excellent case studies of exemplar projects to help the AGI to sell the value of investing in geospatial to a wider audience.

Why Sponsor?

• Showcase your company at of one of the year’s premier geospatial events and position your company as a market leader
•  Stand out from your competitors with branding throughout the conference and ceremony
•  Differentiate yourself from competitors by demonstrating your support and commitment to the GI industry and its achievements
• Participate in the judging process and present an award on the night
•  Benefit from visual marketing at the event and coverage in the AGI Geocommunity Brochure.

Why Attend?

• Learn about the projects which your peers and competitors are undertaking - see state of the art projects and learn from the entrant’s experiences
• Network with Geospatial leaders from a range of sectors and network in a relaxed environment
• Celebrate the industry’s success with clients
• Establish face to face relationships and create new business opportunities
• Reward your team with a glamorous night out
• Meet our distinguished panel of judges.

Diamond Sponsors:

Awards Sponsors:

Getting Ready for Summer at the AGI

I've managed to find time from website specs, CRM user stories and PR plans to write the first blog in ages. It’s very very warm in the office which must mean it’s nearly time for the summer holidays so before everyone disappears to somewhere exotic and exciting I thought I’d give a quick preview of what you’ve got to look forward to when you come back.

GeoBig 5 - Big Data:

The next of the GeoBig5 events is looking at big data from both the perspective of how technologies and practices can and are impacting geospatial data collection and analysis and the opportunities provided by so much big data containing a geospatial element. The full programme will be released next week for what’s going to be a great event at the IBM hub in London on 30 September.

GeoBig 5 - Policy:

The final one day event of the GeoBig5 series will be exploring both the implications of policy on geospatial (INSPIRE, Open Data etc) and also the positive impact geospatial can have in informing policy decisions. The call for papers for this event closes on the 1 August so there is still time to submit. The event takes place in Cardiff on 9 October.

GeoCom ’14:

The culmination of the fantastic GeoBig5 series. Having been at the recent planning meeting and paper selection for this event I can safely say GeoCom ’14 is going to be something special and unlike any previous AGI conference. As well as having secured Sir Mark Walport (Government Chief Scientist) as our keynote we’ve got a mixture of presentations, lightning talks, workshops and training that will make the whole conference a lot more vital and dynamic. GeoCom ’14 takes place between the 11 and 13 November at the very pleasant Chesford Grange Hotel, earlybird booking with a 10% discount is still open.

Awards:

The final event of the year and a fitting end to 2014 will be the new AGI Awards for Geospatial Excellence. Replacing the previous AGI awards these will take a much broader and more outward looking view of the industry to promote and recognise excellence and innovation. Compared by TV’s Professor Iain Stewart (A great evangelist for the power of Geography and GI) this will be a great showcase for the industry and a chance to see some of the great ideas from 2014. This will take place on the 13 November at the Chesford Grange Hotel following on from GeoCom. Awards submissions are still open.

Website:

The project that has been absorbing my blogging time is well underway and the new look AGI website should be greeting our members as they return from their summer holidays in September. Complete with content hub, best practice documents, space for SIGs and other AGI groups to interact the new site will provide both a showcase for the AGI and UK GI and a resource and benefit for our members.

And Finally

It’s hot, the evenings are bright and we’re not quite ready for summer yet so why not come along to the next AGI Geodrinks on the 23 July? These are being hosted by the Insurance and Risk SIG at the Crosse Keys (extra e not a typo) on Gracechurch Street, London. Its an Insurance and Risk event but other Geo talk is more than welcome!