Summary presentation of the conclusions of the AGI Fo

1. AGI Foresight Study
A Vision of the Geospatial industry in 2015
Andrew Coote
AGI Chairman
1

2. Prediction is very difficult,
especially about the future.
Neils Bohr (1885-1962)

3. Defining the Geospatial Market
• Information, processes, products and services
where location is a significant component.
or
• Any endeavour where geospatial expertise can
be used to the benefit of citizens, business
and good governance

4. Paradigm Shifts
• Over last 20 years the industry has been changing but in
relatively small increments – there were breakthroughs but
their effects emerged at a rate businesses and Government
could absorb and adapt to.
• What we are seeing now is the biggest paradigm shift the
industry has seen in my professional career .
• Radical changes are occurring not just in technology but also
in political and social attitudes.
• Furthermore, this is happening against a backdrop of
economic turmoil.
• The industry will look a lot different in 5 years time.

5. What is different now?
• Pace of change (demise of the record industry: as we knew it)
• Speed of Communication (e.g. Twitter)
• Medium of Communication (television / newspapers -> web)
• Chips with everything (e.g. intelligent fridge)
• Globalisation (China has more internet users than the US)
• Artificial Intelligence (the web has a level of consciousness)
• Cultural Change
– Generation Y
– Work / Life balance
– Social networking

6. Globalisation in Action

7. Data and Technology

8. Geospatial Information is Pervasive
Position will be “always available”
through Smartphones, RFID tags and other sensors.
The value to each application will be variable,
but it will always be there.

9. Global Navigation Satellite System
“Multi-constellation GNSS providing 100 satellites will mean
centimetre positioning is commonly achievable in a
mobile environment.” Alan Dodson
Source: klipsi.ch

10. Sub-metre accuracy 3D data is
available for all urban areas
“Imagery becomes a commodity, viewed and distributed
on the web almost for free. The mass market is removed
and specialist capture returns”. Andy Wells

11. Earth Observation Satellites
“By 2015 governmental organisations will operate
over 200 EO satellites carrying 385 different instruments.
Turning data from such a range of systems
into information calls for a corresponding range of scientific and technical
competencies.” Alan Belward

12. Cloud Computing:
the dominant delivery mechanism
“Essentially it will mean that users of IT-related services will
be able to focus on what the service provides them rather
than how the services are implemented or hosted.”
Gartner (2009)

13. Location based Services
“Mainstream consumer-focused location aware smartphones
and related location based services will make significant inroads
into the enterprise, significantly reducing the cost and effort
required for many mobile applications.” Peter Batty

14. Augmented Reality

15. Open Source Geospatial Software
GRASS
OpenLayers
“In 5 years time, Open Source Geospatial won't be a
niche or a specialism, it will be a standard way that
things are done.” Jo Cook

16. Crowd sourcing
“Five years ago OpenStreetMap didn't exist, so forecasting the
future of crowd sourced data feels particularly futile.”
“However, the UK is predicted to be complete,
at the street level, in 14 months time.”
“There will be more than 1,000,000 users in much less
than five years time.” Chris Osborne

17. OpenStreetMap

18. Geomatics
an envisage a large market for 3D point cloud
ata from lidar combined with mobile scanning
ground vehicles.” Richard Groom

19. Semantic Web
Google will parse complete natural language
sentences in a single query – Gary Gale

20. Geospatial in Political Debate
Courtesy of Ed Parsons

21. Some Resulting Challenges
• We need to discard the location-specific baggage and embrace being in the
mainstream of ICT.
• Adjust our business models to ensure we survive and prosper alongside
Google and other emerging global players.
• Engage with LBS developers and service providers and take advantage of
their expertise.
• Provide services to help users migrate through these paradigm shifts.
• Take location information into significant applications, e.g. climate change,
participatory democracy, mega city planning
• Improve how we communicate with end users who don’t understand maps.