This explores the integration of spatial data into our work and personal lives, where it is evolving to, and how spatial information will play a critical role in the next decades. It discusses how companies are innovating new solutions that rely on spatial information, but consider themselves outside the domain of “geomatics companies” and what this means for the ecosystem.
But Geomatics plays across many different sectors and impacts a great number of industries in ways we don’t thinkof
we have 23% of global forests
~400M Ha forest land
1.31 million barrels per day of conventional oil production
1.7 million barrels per day of oil sands production
13.7 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas production
Critical knowledge & tools to improve productivity & decision-making in natural resources, disaster management, municipal services, health, …
Geomatics is key to Integrated Resource Management
Geomatics is key in driving Canada's Innovation Strategy
TECTERRA is not about geomatics for geomatics sake; we invest in geomatics applications that lead to economic, societal and environmental benefits.
Wildlife – GPS Collar for animals with Dead-Reckoning capability (Funded Partner: Lotek)
Agriculture – Precision farming (navigation & positioning of farm machinery)
Forestry – Web-based Wildfire Management Decision Support System (MRF) and Advanced Forest Resource Inventory Decision Support System (LIM)
Energy – earth observation for oil sands monitoring and management (discussions with ERCB and University of Lethbridge)
Water Resource Management – wet lands assessment using LiDAR technologies (Government of Alberta)
The funded partners who are here today can further explain how our investment is contributing to their success and economic growth
Geomatics is key in driving Canada's Innovation Strategy
Contribution to Canadian GDP by economic sector (oil/mining, agriculture, forestry, high tech)
we have 23% of global forests
~400M Ha forest land
1.31 million barrels per day of conventional oil production
1.7 million barrels per day of oil sands production
13.7 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas production
High tech firms
31 500 Canadian ICT firms
Source, via NAICS code
When people think of “geomatics companies” they think of these
Dead give away, they have “Geomatics” or “spatial” in the name
But, its like he old joke, there are 10 kinds of people
- Those that know binary and those that don’t
Little-g sells to
Business Customers – Big-G Solution
Business Customers – little-g Solution
Other little-g companies
Individual Consumers
BIG-G sells to
Business Customers – Big-G Solution
little-g companies
How many people use a computer at their work?
Would you call your company an IT company?
No… that wold be absurd right?
But you know that IT is an enabling part of the work that you do.
This is Meghan Dear, CEO of Localise
She’s a Member of the Edmonton Food council; has been a farmer with Strawberry Creek Farms; worked with Engineers w/o Borders in Ghana for a year assisting with agriculture extension and development
I remember when I first talked with Meghan. Localize had applied for funding through TECTERRA to extend their platform and we were on the phone grilling her about different aspects of her project. I asked her to describe the geomatics content of her proposal, since that is what are traditionally interested in, and she went on to tell me.
How their system could be used to know where each of the ingredients in a food item came from; where it was processed, or distributed from, and where the owners of the company were. Finally, she described how, for each store, the system would then combine all of this geospatial information to create a “score” out of 10 that said how local the food item was. She was describing in detail how at each step their system knew the vital “where” for the food product.
Then she paused and said, I’ll never forget this, “I don’t know, is this geomatics enough?”
To Meghan this is locality rating system, a shelf labeling system – it just happens to use geomatics as the basis for that understanding.
I’m embarrassed to admit, I actually laughed when she asked if it was geomatics enough.
To me, someone from the geospatial industry, this is very clearly a geomatics technology.
But her question was a lightbulb moment for me.
If Meghan didn’t know that her company was a geospatial company, then how many more were out there? Companies that were building new things, leveraging this technology to solve problems without recognizing
TX: of course, all of this food has to be grown somewhere, and that brings us to another little-g geomatics company
Now in 300 COOP locations and blah bl;ah glagh
Decisive farming is a precision agronomics company that works with local farmers to optimize product, improve yields, and decrease risk.
They
This year they’ve expanded their reach by partnering with large equipment dealers, land evaluation services, and carbon credit organizations.
Logistics co that works for Shell that handles their transport
Lots of well sites around fox creek, Logistics guy will call all his vendors about which trucks they have and where they are
1st guy says, let me find out and I’ll let you know. 1hr later he finds out
… again and again
½ day spent figuring out the scenario while it changes
Gotta optimize the routes for trucks to pick up water, take to site near Edson
He’s optimizing the route, but not thinking about the line up at Edson
Working to optimize based on historical data + real time data
Requires geo to work
Inspiration to start payload because a group of haulers would meet up 5mi away for coffee, all leave together, and take turns being the last guy in line who got to pad his hours.
Payload is a trucking logistics and vendor performance platform – they are also a geomatics company
Transparent, visible audit trail on the performance of a vendor on a delivery
Speeds up vendor selection and payment (since they don’t have to manually audit the invoice)
Helps scheduling
Not paying for them to sit inline when there is a tight timeline
Efficiently in delivery/drop off in scheduling
Prevents padding of hours
Geo-fence areas for notification when truck arrives and for staff scheduling
Little-g sells to
Business Customers – Big-G Solution
Business Customers – little-g Solution
Other little-g companies
Individual Consumers
BIG-G sells to
Business Customers – Big-G Solution
little-g companies