Geospatial Information & Technology Association

      Date 3^rd November 2011

      AECOM

      Level 8 (North Tower), 540 Wickham Street, Fortitude Valley, QLD 4006

      PO Box 1307 Fortitude Valley QLD 4006

      T +61 7 3553 2000   F +61 7 3553 2050

      AGM Start Tiime is arrive 3:00 for 3:15pm. It will run to 4:45pm.

8-10 August 2011

Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre

This year the Geospatial Solutions Conference will be held in the centrally located Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre at Darling Harbour.

If you'd like to share your knowledge and present at the conference, now is the time to start thinking about it. The call for papers will go out shortly, but until then have a think and let your creative juices flow about the story you'd like to tell.

Following on from our successful recent events in Melbourne and Sydney, we've organised another opportunity for the spatial community to get together.

As GIS technology becomes more and more mainstream, the overlap between the consumer tools and the professional GIS systems increases. And so do the opportunities and benefits of integration the two... as well as the demand from users, including those outside of the GIS Team.

Google Maps is a hugely successful product. Initial popularity due to great speed, cartography, and user interface design grew to near dominance of online mapping when routing and Street View were added. Once GIS users realized there was a better way to access spatial data and functionality, they quickly became dissatisfied with traditional GIS. But GIS is much more than what Google Maps provides.

Paul Joyce of we-do-IT is going to address the issue of Why your users want Google Maps, not your GIS ... And what to do about it!

Paul has worked extensively with Smallworld, ESRI and Intergraph GIS systems. A recent project of his involved establishing an enterprise-wide adoption of GIS technology, using a combination of consumer-targeted (Google Earth, Google Maps), and open source server technologies (GeoServer, PostgreSQL).

Paul is currently a Senior Consultant with we-do-IT, having also worked with ESRI Australia and Intergraph. He has over 20 years experience in a variety of spatially related IT roles across a broad range of industries including Water, Electricity, Telecommunications, Local Government, Transportation and Forestry. He has Masters and Bachelor degrees in Surveying form University of Melbourne.

So come along, meet some people and learn something new - it’d be great to see you there!

gisDrinks - Melbourne

WHO:		Paul Joyce we-do-IT
WHEN:		Tuesday 22nd March 2011 From 5:30 ... Paul's presentation will begin at 6:15
WHERE:		Pop 68 Hardware Lane Melbourne N.B. This a different venue from last time
Google maps:		Click here
COST:		FREE ... just buy your drinks at the bar.
RSVP:		gisdrinks@gita.org.au

gisDrinks - Sydney

WHO:		Paul Joyce we-do-IT
WHEN:		Wednesday 30th March 2011 From 5:30 ... Paul's presentation will begin at 6:15
WHERE:		City Hotel 347 Kent Street (Corner of King Street) Sydney
Google maps:		Click here
COST:		FREE ... just buy your drinks at the bar.
RSVP:		gisdrinks@gita.org.au

Past Events

gisDrinks with Neil Kuruppu (February/March 2011)

What do you do when you see a problem in a public place? You know, something that's not right - rubbish, road hazards, graffiti, vandalism, or even a lost shopping trolley?

Without knowing who you should contact from which department of which organisation, let alone their phone number or email, chances are that you don't do anything ... which is completely understandable. After all, it's someone else's responsibility to fix it. But ... until they 'somehow' learn about it, the problem remains.

That is until NeatStreets came along ...

NeatStreets is a mobile phone based service that makes it really simple for people to report issues in their community with a few simple clicks. Anyone can report a problem from anywhere in the country, - with photos! It will be automatically routed to the relevant authority such as Council, Utility Service Provider, Transport Authority, Rail Authority, Government Department, or Supermarket.

Best of all, the reporter is kept informed of progress on their phones until the issue is fixed.

NeatStreets is a great example of Crowd Sourcing and community engagement. Obviously a great tool for local government, utility and emergency services, NeatStreets also has a potential application for any organisation with publicly accessible assets.

Neil Kuruppu is the Managing Director of PepperStack the company behind NeatStreets. Neil will be our guest presenter at the first gisDrinks of 2011. He'll be talking about how the idea developed, the technology used and the issues overcome.

We've has uploaded Neil's slides ... available here