Finnish GIS Expo has been thriving for 31 years now, and the event still brings the local geospatial community together annually. Climate Change and Interoperability were the big topics this year and Spatineo had a special part in this years expo!
As most people in Finland already know, the geospatial sector has been shifting towards more interoperable dataflow and usage within the last few years. Finnish Geospatial Platform and Geospatial Policy Report (Paikkatietopoliittinen selonteko) have been few of the drivers towards effective usage of geospatial data. Several different presentations were held on these two, such as Sakari Jäppinen’s “Towards Digital Decision Making in Land Usage” and “Work together or Die” presentation from Antti Jakobsson.You can see some of the recordings from here.
We were also on the stage several times during the conference. First our very own Riitta Vaniala had a presentation about the Impact of geospatial data. The topic has been hot lately, and we have been working quite hard here at Spatineo to showcase the impact of open data. You can read and download the Impact whitepapers, of which Riitta’s presentation was based upon, from our Impact page.
Riitta is also hosting a webinar on the topic of Impact Assessment. You can register to the webinar for free.
Besides Riitta presenting at GIS Expo, Jaana Mäkelä took a strong stand at moderating panel discussions.
She was the main moderator in two major panel discussions. First being the “Future of Geospatial industry” on monday. Participants were Teemu Virtanen from Sitowise, Ville Alasalmi from Aalto University and Researcher Pyry Kettunen from NLS of Finland . Panel recording can be viewed from here.
One of the most important program numbers was Geospatial Grill, in which Jaana was the moderator and valued guests were literally grilled on the premise of how they are going to make geospatial data better and more available.
The panelists were Antti Vertanen from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Sami Suomalainen from Emergency Response Centre Agency of Finland, Päivi Nerg from Ministry of Finance, Tommi Karttaavi from Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities, and Vesa Ilmarinen from Platform of Trust.
We will not go down to the details on the discussions here, but summarizing everyone on the panel agreed that data should be even more available, and easily reachable. Private companies must be backing up the public sector, and innovation has to be formed in both private and public organisations.
One of the most delightful things in GIS Expo was seeing how people meet their old colleagues and friends. Most people have worked in several companies within the industry, and cooperation between organisations is common.
Huge thanks to everyone who made GIS Expo possible this year, and shoutout to everyone who visited our stand! We had great conversations with people there, and in case some of you want to keep those discussions going, don’t hesitate to contact us at your convenience.
