May 19, 2014 – Indianapolis, IN: The 2014 Indiana Geographic Information Council (IGIC) Annual GIS Conference was held on May 7th and 8th at the Sheraton Indianapolis Hotel at Keystone Crossing. Phil Worrall, Executive Director of the Indiana Geographic Information Council, reports that 325 GIS Professionals attended this year’s conference with 21 exhibitors, 8 sponsors, and 45 speakers helping make this year’s event a great success.
Conference Proceedings:
This year’s conference theme “Mapping a Difference” focused presentations on where Geographic Information Systems (GIS) data and technology is “Making a Difference” across Indiana, and how GIS mapping initiatives; from the small to the large, and from local, regional to statewide – are making a difference in our communities’ infrastructure, services, safety, health, economy, efficiencies and in our lives!
The Opening Session featured Indiana’s Lt. Governor Sue Ellspermann as the Keynote Speaker. That same day during lunch, IGIC’s 2014 President, Dave Estes from Allen County IMAP, and second Keynote speaker Jim Poyser, Executive Director of Earth Charter Indiana, delivered presentations. Later that afternoon, a General Session featured Jim Sparks, Indiana’s Geographic Information Officer, who challenged Indiana’s GIS Community to embrace change and the emerging challenges of Open Government Data, Data Visualization / Business Intelligence (BI), and leveraging GIS data to build Community Resiliency. The second General Session on the following day allowed IGIC Sponsors (39 DEGREES NORTH, Becks Hybrids, Cannon IV, Esri, Seiler and Woolpert) the opportunity to share their insights into emerging trends in the geospatial industry.
Annual GIS Awards:
IGIC annual Excellence in GIS Awards are made to six different kinds of organizations to recognize their use of GIS technology. This year’s awards were given to the following organizations: the Indianapolis Department of Public Works, the Town of Lowell, the DeKalb County GIS Department, the Kosciusko County Historical Society, the Indiana Department of Transportation, and 39 DEGREES NORTH.
IGIC gives the Senator David C. Ford Special Achievement Award to recognize historic accomplishments and/or lifetime achievements in support of the Council and the “greater” GIS community of Indiana. This award honors Indiana State Senator David C. Ford (1949-2008) of Hartford City, who represented District 19 for four terms and served as Assistant Majority Floor Leader and chair of the Senate Committee on Economic Development and Technology. IGIC continues to recognize Senator Ford for his vision and understanding of the potential that GIS data and technology hold for Indiana and for co-sponsoring legislation passed in 2007 to institutionalize its support. This year’s David C. Ford Special Achievement Award recipients were Anna Radue (GIS Specialist with the Research Technologies Division of UITS, Indiana University Bloomington) and Sol C. Miller (Retired, Co-Founder of Mid-States Engineering and CEO of MSE Corporation, Indianapolis).
IGIC’s Annual GIS Student Poster Contest provides a forum for undergraduate and graduate students from Indiana universities to present their work to the entire Indiana GIS community. Students are invited to submit posters illustrating the uses of GIS. Our 2014 first-place prize went to Heather Foxx, Jennifer C. Latimer, and Stephen Aldrich of the Department of Earth and Environmental Systems at Indiana State University. The second place winner was Alex Elvis Badillo, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Anthropology, Indiana University. The third place winner was Jeffrey Ashby, Geography Major, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis.
For more information about our award winners and copies of conference presentations, please visit http://www.igic.org/conference/