VIP visit at spatial@gov conference

We’ve spent the past couple of days at the spatial@gov conference in Canberra, and while overall it’s been a fantastic conference, we had a particularly exciting start to Day 2, with a very special VIP visit to our stand!

Our MD Brett Bundock, Maree Wilson from our Technology Services department, and I were lucky enough to get a visit from the Honourable Martin Ferguson, the Minister for Resources, Energy and Tourism, and the Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Australia, Dr Michael Witter.

Minister Ferguson and Dr Witter stopped by our stand as part of a VIP tour. They were interested in finding out what we do, so we spent some time on Wednesday morning giving them a brief demo of some of our software and talking them through the exciting world of location intelligence.

We showed them a demonstration on the very cool Microsoft Surface Table that featured the Esri Cloud app.  (We think they were impressed!). This cool app from the US is called the Police Dispatcher. Police Dispatcher is an application that simulates a police dispatch system with real time incidents and the tracking of police vehicles. 

I think it’s safe to say they were pretty fascinated when we showed them what it could do – they definitely saw the potential and proceeded to ask us lots of questions about the benefits of using GIS in wider emergency response, like ambulance or fire. 

They were also curious about the Defence side of things, so we explained how our solutions  are used to show blocking of logisitics routes with  landmines or where there’s enemy weapon installation, or troops or hardware. We explained how the Esri system aids in the planning or changing of plans to avoid or engage with the enemy.

Minister Ferguson was particularly interested in hearing how wide spread the use of these types of apps are in emergency response across the globe.  

They loved the concept and saw that it was feasible. They walked away interested in location intelligence solutions, and could see the benefits for its applications in Australia

Overall, it was an exciting morning and a great opportunity to showcase the many dynamic applications of location intelligence!

Thanks for stopping by Minister Ferguson and Dr Witter!

 - Craig S.