GIS: The Intelligent Nervous System

[Music] the theme of this year's conference I'm sure has been going on in some of your brains for a while GIS has an intelligent nervous system and this is not a new idea it's an old idea but it's also a new idea this notion is built on the metaphor of the human nervous system it's essential as all of you know to our life one might say it's our most important organ and it's an organ that does more than simply stimulus response it's intelligent it integrates data from many sources sound familiar it couples that data with logic and reasoning ethics values and in some cases emotions and then it carries out coordinated response this isn't like one hand it's both hands or all in often and it's also learning continuously we have an experience we have a memory and we learn we remember it and we grow it's kind of an evolutionary thing with us as humans or at least most of us learn some of us never learned but it's true isn't it a beautiful thing when you think about it our world resembles a living organism it's complex it's all interconnected as an ecosystem it's self-healing and resilient and it's always changing and humans like you and me or fundamentally part of that ecosystem our digital technologies today are literally transforming our world they're enabling us as humans our species to be enormous ly successful we're coevolving with this technology and its really fantastic it's enabling us to make huge advancements in science in communication and becoming connected and at the same time it's accelerating everything it's changing how we think it's reshaping our very existence and one only can look at young children doing this to know that they are Co evolving as this technology evolves and this evolution is at the same time rapidly changing our world today our human footprint is creating many challenges for all of us you as individuals and your organizations and the broader society were overpopulated today we're losing biodiversity at a rapid rate we're on the frontiers of some of the challenges of water and food this kind of unconstrained development if we project it out well it's just not sustainable it's really not sustainable and that's our big challenge in the big dilemma today our world needs something like our human nervous system a kind of nervous system that's intelligent and responsive that creates fundamentally as Richard Saul Wurman says often more understanding and more collaboration and more systemic action collaborative action and from my personal perspective geography is essential to make that happen geography your science our science is the science of our world it provides all the rich content biological content geologic content sociological conte all the ologies content as well as a common reference system which is close to our human experience and it helps us see it helps us see complexity and relationships and patterns this is why people love maps and this science brings it all together in this most remarkable way it helps us understand and it helps us intelligently respond now the science of ware which is basically digital geography and GIS provides us a kind of framework and process similar to our brains we sense we understand and we respond we sense through measurements Geographic measurements we see through visualization and mapping we model relationships and patterns make projections interpret things holistically and then plan design take it to action make better decisions this is the foundation of your work and it's also the foundation for a geographic or geospatial nervous system and your work provides the evidence of this it may be patchy one part or another part focused just in your single organization but for many of you it's already creating geospatial infrastructure a kind of digital nervous system for your own organization your city your utility your school and this is an intelligent system that's responsive I'm going back to the fundamental definitions of a nervous system it also integrates all sources of data and it connects like we do in our brain everything and everyone in organizations it applies the science of where now your work is also contributing directly or indirectly to a kind of global geospatial infrastructure sharing apps going doctor the purpose of this meeting sharing your experience sharing data sharing your knowledge linking your projects into infrastructure using the infrastructures resources and contributing to it creating a system for understanding and collaborative action isn't that beautiful it's actually beautiful to me this geospatial infrastructure supports individuals but it also supports organizations of all sizes and it's evolving rapidly connecting things much like the web did in the 90s I like to describe it as GIS at scale all the fundamental sciences and tools that you've been pioneering for these years are stepping up to a distributed network of interconnected systems and this ladies and gentlemen is powerful for GIS professionals it helps you access networks of distributed services content modeling being able to publish and share real-time measurements are becoming integrated into the fabric this is very powerful for you but it's also it's also the foundation for delivering powerful capabilities across your organization's and many of you are doing this through apps the kind of building blocks for this responsive system making it available engaging people both ways supporting geospatial enabled systems these are beyond apps this complete sort of independent solutions for indoors and urban planning and conservation and business analytics so we're seeing trying to tell you a story that this infrastructure which is rapidly growing is about bringing it all together it's about bringing together and interconnecting and engaging communities something that we'll hear from Jane Goodall about this afternoon citizens participants governments NGOs and engaging them through maps and your good work it's also about integrating the new frontiers of science open science open software tools using Python notebooks to be able to access and integrate and bring science together for all of us it's also about extending GIS to the edge which is a kind of you know modern phrase with distributed edge computing and in edge devices what does this mean actually it means like having a complete GIS system in the jungle or in the middle of a hurricane or on a vehicle it means being able to take these new smart cars and have them take pictures and automatically in the car recognize things and send a message over to a master system for updating signs and updating situations this infrastructure is also as we'll see through the day transforming organizations it's interconnecting data and systems for all types all happening at the same time it's using location as a common key to bring together heterogeneous systems this is very powerful this is like no other IT has ever done and it's just beginning it's not just a dream in the city of Abu Dhabi for example they have brought together over a hundred and seventy different agencies all working at this pace the Ordnance Survey in the UK has literally transformed their own operations saving enormous amounts of money integrating information providing a common foundation for their country serving their country with much more automated and up-to-date information in the City of Raleigh North Carolina under the mayor's leadership they've connected GIS operations with their citizens and in right here in Southern California as some of you might know the gas company has not only become more responsive internally but they are responding to external challenges like fires floods and so on so this is also extending beyond single organizations like FEMA our Federal Emergency Management Agency is connecting with Red Cross saving people's lives during emergencies of disasters this is really amazing to me and it's only beginning these responsive geospatial infrastructure are integrating citizen science 3-1-1 this powerful example by Walgreens is sharing their point-of-sale data about selling flu flu medicines as an open web map and it's showing the world where flu is much faster than our government is and in San Francisco they're communicating the fundamental policy of their future city with citizens and in Rotterdam everything that moves and changes is integrated with the IOT and now running the port in more efficient ways and again let me simply acknowledge the UM for their leadership in connecting with statistical agencies around the world to create a future which is more sustainable the geospatial evolution is just beginning and this geospatial nervous system that's going to emerge he's going to profoundly transform our world like our nervous system it will be intelligently responded and only in your mind can you imagine the power of what this is going to bring but this is not just a technology thing it's not going to be driven by some just some mere technology things your work the very knowledge that you have gained and experienced and your personal organizations work is essential it'll take leadership it'll take envisioning what's possible it's going to take learning and sharing and collaborating just like you do now strategic thinking engaging communities getting it together and also above all a passion for creating this vision of better understanding and a better world leveraging this science to see what others can't you

Channel: Esri Events

Views: 11,973

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Keywords: Esri, ArcGIS, GIS, Esri Events, Geographic Information System, Esri UC 2019, Esri User Conference, UC, 2019, Plenary, Maps, Jack Dangermond, Vision, The Science of Where, The Future of GIS, See What Others Can't

Id: RUD_p7TIiYg

Length: 14min 30sec (870 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 08 2019