Preparations are underway for what could be the country's largest geospatial analytics event - the Esri Indonesia User Conference (EIUC) happening on 22 August at Raffles Hotel.
The EIUC is expected to gather the country’s growing geospatial community and aims to highlight how geospatial analytics is driving the Making Indonesia 4.0 agenda – now and into the future.
The conference will feature Jack Dangermond, renowned tech visionary and President and Founder of global mapping giant Esri. In addition, the event will also feature Omar Maher, Esri’s Director for Artificial Intelligence, and speakers from high-profile organizations such as the Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs of Indonesia, Head of Geospatial Information Agency (BIG), Head of Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS), Head of Meteorological, Climatological and Geophysical Agency (BMKG), Jababeka, and more.
Concurrently, the Indonesian Geospatial Technology Exhibition (IGTE) will also be held by BIG on August 21-22, 2019. This exhibition is part of the celebration of 50 years of BIG.
IGTE is a geospatial technology exhibition that has been held since 2006 by BAKOSURTANAL (now called BIG). This exhibition is an arena to showcase the progress of geospatial technology, industry and the utilization of geospatial for Indonesian development. In 2019, the theme of the IGTE exhibition was "Geospatial Information for Sustainable Development of Indonesia".
The Head of BIG, Prof. Dr. Hasanuddin Z Abidin said that BIG is dedicated to immediately fulfil the availability of basic Geospatial large scale to support the development of the Republic of Indonesia. Through IGTE, it is expected to be an important medium of meeting between geospatial organizers in Ministries, Government Agencies, Regional Governments and Universities with the geospatial industries for the creation of geospatial data that is accurate, detailed, fast and in accordance with the needs of users to support Indonesia's development
“As an industry leader, Esri Indonesia has been dedicated in not only promoting the use of geospatial technology in addressing real-world challenges, but also in the adoption of a spatial thinking mindset in communities,” Hasan said.
“We are sure, The IGTE and EIUC are going to be an exciting geospatial platform where the audience can expect to be inspired and empowered by local and international thought leaders” Hasan said.
Meanwhile, according to an Esri Indonesia spokesperson, “Indonesia’s geospatial community is growing. Whether you are a student, a banker, a government policy maker or a Minister – geospatial is becoming a way of life for many people.”
“We have been working with many organizations to empower this growing community by inspiring them to test the boundaries of spatial thinking. This includes gathering user communities in a number of industry-focused events in Oil and Gas, Agriculture and now the EIUC. In fact, last year we were able to bring together nearly 700 geospatial professionals in six different industry-focused gatherings.”
“We are one with BIG in celebrating 50 years of geospatial in the country and we look forward to working together in nurturing our country’s growing geospatial community and in inspiring a nation of spatial thinkers,” the spokesperson said.
Geospatial AI (GeoAI) will be a major focus of the conference as it will be key to the success of Industry 4.0 and the One Map policy of which BIG is a key stakeholder, especially as a provider of basic geospatial information.
The fast pace of technological evolution has resulted in the exponential growth of sensors used to gather real-time data about the environment. It has blurred the lines between physical and digital spaces resulting in advancements in areas such as data science, AI and machine learning (ML).
Geospatial analytics platforms have emerged as the silver bullet for harnessing the potential of these new capabilities, operationalising AI, ML and IoT technologies to solve some very pressing and real problems, for which there are no traditional solutions.
“The country’s 'Making Indonesia 4.0' program is set to take advantage of these advancements in order to make the country into one of the world’s largest economies by 2030,” the Esri Indonesia spokesperson said.