Locate Podcast

“I’m engaged in this because I was stuck in the fires with my two brothers. We fought for six and a half hours for neighbours in the house. We saved the property, but we shouldn’t have come out of it.”

Adrian Turner, CEO of Minderoo Foundation Fire and Flood Resilience Initiative, joins us in this impactful, heartfelt and grounded podcast episode that hits home. Tune in to hear the massive cost and impact of natural disasters - societally, environmentally and economically – and about the common-sense and attainable data-driven alternative that spatial data combined with machine learning technologies offers us. We could save billions of dollars and keep communities safe by reducing the harm caused by natural disasters. Learn about the resilience dividend Australia can earn by getting it right, and hear Adrian speak about the the technology, policy and data gaps in disaster response in Australia and globally and the many opportunities that these challenges present.

Join Dr James Johnson (CEO, Geoscience Australia) and Mr Tom Hamilton (Director, Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation) as we hear from this powerhouse duo about opportunities, innovation, and inclusion in relation to government's role in a spatially-enabled Australia. We explore just how fundamental geospatial data is to the work that both of these organisations do, what priorities lie ahead to propel the Australian geospatial forward in this light, how they're equipping their workforces to manage these changes, and how partnerships are paving the way forward. 

Dr Johnson and Mr Hamilton will be presenting a joint keynote at Locate22 on Wednesday 25 May 2022 titled 'Government role in a spatially enabled Australia' - be sure to join us to hear more!

Listen in to hear how innovative drone technology is being used by Emesent to access hard-to-reach spaces and create point clouds, improve safety outcomes, and even being used on the latest 007 movie sets. Dr Stefan Hrabar, CEO and Co-Founder of Emesent, will be presenting his keynote "From CSIRO to global company" at Locate22 on Thursday 26 May in the 'Technical Innovators And Business Leaders' session. Stefan has been at the forefront of drone autonomy R&D for 20 years. Following his PhD in Computer Science / Robotics on this topic, he spent 13 years at CSIRO where he continued his work on vision and lidar-based perception and navigation for drones. He led the development and commercialisation of Hovermap in CSIRO, and co-founded Emesent in 2018 to bring this ground-breaking technology to market.

What makes industry-university collaborations succeed? And why is this vital for our industry, and Australia's economy? Join us as we speak with Dr Wachowicz, Associate Dean of Geospatial at RMIT University and Cisco Innovation Chair in Big Data. She is a world-renowned expert in Geospatial Data Science, with a unique multidisciplinary background in Geomatics Engineering, Geography, and Computer Science. She specializes in machine learning to analyze data streams from the Internet of Things, with the purpose of identifying opportunities and challenges in building sustainable smart cities. She has collaborated in research projects with many high technology companies, such as IBM, Cisco, Orange Communications, ESRI and Siemens, as well as academics from the USA, Canada, Australia and Europe. She has over 300 publications and 50 invited talks and keynote speeches at the United Nations, GIScience Conference and Big Data Congress. Her pioneering work in multidisciplinary teams from government, industry and research organizations is fostering the next generation of data scientists for innovation in green economies. Dr Wachowicz will be joining us at Locate22 to give a keynote presentation to take the ideas presented in this podcast episode further - join her on Thursday 26 May 2022 in the session 'Communities and Collaboration' to hear more!

We're delighted that Australian Statistician, Dr David Gruen AO, joined us on the Locate Podcast to speak about his keynote at Locate22, Building Geospatial data capabilities across the Australian Public Service. Join us in this episode as we explore with him the ways in which geospatial data brings value to the work that the ABS does, as well as what he sees as the future for data in the ABS. 

Dr David Gruen was appointed Australian Statistician on 11 December 2019. As Agency Head of the Australian Bureau of Statistics, he is accountable for the functions and operations of the Bureau. David was previously the Deputy Secretary, Economic and Australia’s G20 Sherpa at the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Before joining the Department in September 2014, he was Executive Director of the Macroeconomic Group at the Australian Treasury. David joined the Treasury in January 2003, before which he was the Head of the Economic Research Department at the Reserve Bank of Australia from 1998 to 2002. Before joining the Reserve Bank, David worked as a research scientist in the Research School of Physical Sciences at the Australian National University. With financial support from a Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellowship, David was visiting lecturer in the Economics Department and the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University from August 1991 to June 1993.  He holds PhD degrees in physiology from Cambridge University, England and in economics from the Australian National University. David was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (General Division) in 2022 for distinguished service to public administration, to economic research, to business, and to education.

Join us as we welcome Dr Fiona McKenzie to share with us why we, as an industry, should be thinking a lot more about megatrends. Fiona explores with us the sorts of influences that megatrends have on the process of disruption and innovation, why leveraging them helps us to remain relevant and on the front foot, and what steps we can take to do this. She will be giving a keynote presentation at Locate22  on Wednesday 25 May 2022 in the session 'Technology and Transformation', speaking about "From disruption to transformation: shaping the future in a rapidly changing world".

Dr Fiona McKenzie is the Director of Orange Compass, an organisation dedicated to supporting change makers on their journey to transform systems and build better futures.  With 20 years’ experience working with academic, corporate, government, non-government, and intergovernmental organisations in Australia and Internationally, Fiona and her team are sought after for their expertise in co-design, futures and systems thinking and in navigating complex challenges. Fiona is in- demand as a speaker, for her insights into today’s wicked challenges and trends shaping the future. Fiona has qualifications in Human Geography, a PhD on innovation; and expertise in both public policy and academic research, and has published on a wide range of topics. Examples of recent projects have included working with: CSIRO (Australia); Department of Social Services (Australia); David Suzuki Foundation (Canada); Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System (Australia); United Nations Development Programme - Green Commodities Programme (Indonesia); and the World Health Organisation (Western Pacific) to name a few.

Alexis Smith is the founder and CEO of the automated business intelligence brand, IMGeospatial. IMGeospatial creates market-leading data intelligence products via machine learning, artificial intelligence, automatic feature extraction and remote-sensed data for multiple industries, globally. Alexis is a seasoned entrepreneur, who is passionate about stimulating creativity and innovation to create positive societal change for a better world, along with championing diversity of thought in everything she does.

In this episode of the Locate Podcast, we step outside of our normal structure for a candid, meandering and truly delightful conversation with Alexis, spanning over the course of her life and career so far, and cutting to the core of many issues around the geospatial industry's future, diversity and inclusion, and many more topics. 

Tune in to Alexis's Locate21 Keynote, 'IA not AI', right now: https://cvent.box.com/s/rplh4tq8zdz45qks8h8rfxwhwsw3iis6 

New York State Police's Senior Intelligence Analyst, Kellen Crouse, will provide an inside look at the crucial role of geospatial analysis in solving a missing person case turned homicide in his keynote presentation at Locate21, 'The geography of crime: How the NY State Police catch a killer'. From visualising witness statements, to recovering evidence and organising search teams, GIS helped bring closure and justice to a rural New York town.

Kellen Crouse is a Senior Intelligence Analyst with the New York State Police, assigned to the Intelligence & Analysis Unit. He is responsible for tactical and strategic intelligence products and provides support for major case investigations. He specializes in geospatial analytics for law enforcement, gang investigations and cell phone record analysis. Previously, Mr. Crouse worked as a crime analyst for the Albany Police Department (NY), Baltimore City Police Department (MD), and Camden County Police Department (NJ). Mr. Crouse earned a Master of Science in Criminal Justice from Radford University and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Mars Hill University. Mr. Crouse, will provide an inside look at the crucial role of geospatial analysis in solving a missing person case turned homicide. From visualising witness statements, to recovering evidence and organising search teams, GIS helped bring closure and justice to a rural New York town.

How do we create a location-enabled Australia? What are the steps along the way, and why is it important? Join Alison Rose, Geoscience Australia's Chief of Place, Space and Community, as we discuss this and more in this delightful conversation. 

Prior to her appointment as Chief of Geoscience Australia’s Place, Space and Communities Division at Geoscience Australia, Alison led the Border Intelligence Support to Operations branch at the Department of Home Affairs providing integrated intelligence support to the Australian Border Force on migration systems, trade enforcement and border protection priorities. Previously, Alison held senior executive positions within both the private and public sector, including Director of National Government Industry Solutions with Esri – a US-based GIS technology company; delivery of the Department of Defence’s corporate and geospatial ICT programs and projects and enterprise information management implementation; and, leadership of the Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation’s foundation mapping, advanced analytics, training and tradecraft, data and collection management, and customer services.

Welcoming Prof Duffy to our podcast, for a broad-ranging but very thought-provoking discussion on speak about space and spatial. This episode is a teaser for his keynote presentation at Locate21, where he will speak on this in much more detail. As he says - awareness within the academic and industrial sectors of the benefits of Space is at an all-time high and yet, still, far fewer are aware of the sector than use the products from it. The success of Space and Spatial is how ubiquitous it has become. That very success is itself a challenge, and to ensure the greater benefits from new technologies into the future we must ensure the wider community is informed of these developments.  He will explore the awe-inspiring possibilities that these future developments present as AI is deployed across constellations of nanosatellites that fuse SAR and ultra-wideband hyperspectral sensors, all underpinned with 10cm (or better!) precision positioning and ground-sensors. However, handling that data, equity of access and privacy challenges inherent in constant surveillance are all challenges that we as a community must address to realise those possibilities.

Prof Duffy is the Director of Swinburne’s Space Technology and Industry Institute, finding novel uses for astrophysical knowledge in aiding business and society on Earth. In particular, he leverages his experience of creating and visualising large supercomputer astrophysics simulations to explore Remote Sensing opportunities. Alan was recently named Academic of the Year in the 2020 Australian Space Awards. He is also the Swinburne Node Leader in the new national ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics and a Chief Investigator of SABRE, the world’s first dark matter detector in the Southern Hemisphere, at the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory.

What does the future hold for space and spatial coming together, and why will it be faster and better than we can begin to imagine right now? Join some of the brightest minds in this space (pun intended) as we explore these questions and more! Featuring Professor Anna Moore (Director of ANU's InSpace), Professor Alan Duffy (Director of the Space Technology and Industry Institute at Swinburne University), Dr Sarah Pearce (Deputy Director of CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science), Professor Stuart Barr (Director, AURIN at Melbourne University) and Wayne Patterson (Director of Spatial Operations, NSW Spatial Services).

Welcome to today’s episode of the Locate Podcast, where we explore the 2030 Space and Spatial Roadmap and the future of space and spatial with three leaders in these spaces – Peter Woodgate, Eva Rodriguez-Rodriguez and Glenn Cockerton. Today Laura Kostanski and myself, Roshni Sharma, will speak with Peter, Eva and Glenn about what the 2030 Roadmap means for businesses and professionals, and the future of our industry.

Join us next time as we speak with Locate21 keynote Kellen Crouse, who discusses the broad new nature of spatial in his work as part of the New York Police Department. 

In this special episode to round out the year, we take the chance to reflect upon how the COVID-19 global pandemic has and continues to change the geospatial industry, now and into the future.

Join us with Mina Jahanshani (Senior Consultant, GeoPlex), Evan Quick (Digital Engineering Asset Manager, Rail Projects Victoria), Kellie Dean (President, the Institution of Surveyors Victoria), Matt Duckam (Associate Dean, School of Science, RMIT University) and the Locate Hub convenors Laura Kostanski and Roshni Sharma. This episode is a special extension of the Locate Connect Hub Online session, ‘How has the analogue disruptor of COVID-19 impacted our industry?’ which was held on Friday 31 July 2020, taking the discussion and themes further and deeper.

To access the original Locate Connect Hub Online session, visit the Locate Library here - https://www.locateconference.com/2021/connect/.

We’re very glad that you could join us for this insightful and thought-provoking conversation with Dr Zaffar Sadiq Mohamed-Ghouse, diving into his journey from one of India’s premier Universities through to where he is today as Executive Director, Strategic Consulting & International Relations with Spatial Vision and President of the Surveying and Sciences Institute. We spoke about the role of the development of standards for the future of our industry, tech for good, how COVID is evolving the way we all work and ‘Convergence, Collaboration and Community – towards a stronger economy’, the theme for Locate Connect and Locate21.

Dr Zaffar Sadiq Mohamed-Ghouse holds a pivotal role as an adviser to various National and International spatial organisations. He has over 20 years of experience in a wide depth and breadth of facets across the spatial industry, has published a range of scientific journal articles, and is heavily involved in the industry on a global scale. Zaffar is actively engaged with United Nations Global Geospatial Information Management (UNGGIM)-Geospatial Societies, Private Sector & Academic Network.

Join us next time to delve further into how COVID is disrupting our industry and the way we all work, as we are joined by Mina Jahanshahi, Matt Duckham, Evan Quick and Kellie Dean alongside Laura Kostanski and myself, Roshni Sharma, for a peek into some of the conversations that are happening as part of the Hub Digital in Locate Connect.

Join us for this fantastic opportunity to catch up with Melissa Harris, Executive Director, Strategic Land Assessment and Information, Land Use Victoria within the Local Infrastructure group of the Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) and Deputy Chair of ANZLIC, the Australia and New Zealand Land Information Council. She has many incredible gems of wisdom to offer around her perspectives of the spatial industry after working in town planning, what the future holds for our industry, and some great leadership lessons she’s learnt over time.

If you enjoyed this episode, join us on the 17th of August for the Locate Connect session ‘Q&A with Melissa Harris, Deputy Chair of ANZLIC’ – head to the Locate conferences website now to register!

See you next time!

In this episode, we speak with Peter Woodgate, a true leader in our industry, about the 2030 Space and Spatial Industry Growth Roadmap, what ‘tech for good’ means for the future of location intelligence and the opportunities for growth for our industry’s future. Join us on July 22nd for a Q&A session with Peter as part of Locate Connect, to hear more about what lies beyond Agenda 2026 and take the themes of our conversation today further still.

Join us next time as we spend time catching up with Melissa Harris, Executive Director, Strategic Land Assessment and Information, Land Use Victoria within the Local Infrastructure group of the Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) and Deputy Chair of ANZLIC, the Australia and New Zealand Land Information Council. We’ll hear many gems of wisdom from Mel about how other industries can benefit from the work the Australian geospatial industry is doing, the important work that governments are doing to provide leadership in this space, the assumptions people can make about spatial and the challenges our industry might face in the future, and the leadership lessons she’s learnt as she’s moved through her career.

Journey with us as we speak with Maurits van der Vlugt, Chair of the Locate Conferences Australia Board, about where the Locate conferences have come from their beginnings in Canberra in 2014, what the vision for Locate conferences is moving into the future, and how the themes of Locate Connect and Locate21 bring our community together for a brighter future.

Join us next time as we speak with Peter Woodgate about the 2030 Space and Spatial Industry Growth Roadmap, to delve into what ‘tech for good’ means for the future of location intelligence and the opportunities for growth for our industry’s future.

Join us to speak today with Gary Johnson, Chief Innovation Officer with ESRI Australia, who are the Keynote Speaker Sponsor for Locate21. We explored today with Gary how we can think differently about spatial as being fundamentally grounded in business solution-making, and how approaching the work we do to deliver joy can create a broader impact for the way that other industries understand what spatial and surveying are about.

Join us next time as we hear from Maurits van der Vlugt, Chair of the Locate Conferences Australia Board. We’ll take a deep dive with Maurits to understand how far the Locate conferences have come from their beginnings in Canberra in 2014, what the vision for Locate conferences is moving into the future, and how the themes of this year’s conference bring our community together for a brighter future.

In this episode, we speak with Paul Reed, Convenor of the Locate20 and Locate21 Conferences, Chair of SSSI QLD and Principal Surveyor and owner at East Coast Surveys (Aust) Pty Ltd. We have a delightful conversation with Paul about what makes Locate Conferences unique, how Locate is designed to make a tangible difference to the future of the industry, and what the themes of this year’s conference mean. Along the way, we speak about the strengths of our industry, how we can embrace new ways of thinking as we move into the future, and why it's a great industry to be part of. 

Join us next time as we hear from Gary Johnson, Chief Innovation Officer with ESRI Australia. ESRI Australia is the Keynote Speaker Sponsor for Locate21, and who are a valued part of the conference. We explore with Gary how we can think differently about spatial as being fundamentally grounded in business solution-making, and how approaching the work we do to deliver joy can create a broader impact for the way that other industries understand what spatial and surveying are about.

Join the CEO of Cross River Rail Delivery Authority, Graeme Newton, to hear about some real-life examples of how convergences take place, why collaboration can create better business outcomes and why innovation brings it all together. 

Graeme Newton has led a number of large-scale, high profile and complex infrastructure projects during his career that spans over 25 years. He was appointed to the role of CEO for the Cross River Rail Delivery Authority in June 2017. Here, he is responsible for leading the State’s top priority infrastructure project: creating Brisbane’s first underground rail line. Cross River Rail will unlock a bottleneck at the core of the city transport network and provide social and economic benefits across South East Queensland. Graeme has previously served as the Director-General and Coordinator-General for the Department of Infrastructure and Planning, the CEO of the Queensland Reconstruction Authority following the 2011 Brisbane floods, and Lead Partner for Deloitte’s Queensland public sector advisory practice.

While catching up with Graeme, we explore how Cross River Rail is leveraging innovation and collaboration to deliver Brisbane’s first underground rail line and make a real difference for the future of the state.

Join us next time as we speak with Paul Reed, Convenor of the Locate20 and Locate21 Conferences, as we speak about what makes Locate Conferences unique, how Locate is designed to make a tangible difference to the future of the industry, and what the themes of this year’s conference mean.

In a world with an increasing rate of technological advancement around location technologies along with automation and machine learning, the spatial industry is moving ahead in leaps and bounds. We already see how spatial underpins every other industry on earth and is no longer special. So the question is - how do we navigate these new waters confidently and retain our place as custodians of quality location data without better telling our story?

Adam Ferrier is one of Australia's leading consumer psychologists, a brand strategist and an authority on behavioural economics – and we are excited to welcome him to Locate21. As geospatial professionals, custodians of all things related to the creation and management of location data, we are used to thinking in very logical ways. Understanding how everyday people make decisions - people who make up our current clients and the future client base we are seeking to engage with - can pose huge business benefits to us, not only financially but in terms of business development and employee satisfaction. While historically, we have been great at telling our story to ourselves, it takes another way of thinking to put ourselves in the shoes of those who are not from or within our industry, and this is one that we may sometimes find challenging to grasp. With his many years of experience in solving this sort of challenge, Adam provides sage guidance around broadening our ways of thinking about the story we tell about ‘geospatial’ when we approach new and diverse clients as we innovate, and how we can expand our ways of doing business to collaborate.

Join us next time as we speak with Graeme Newton, CEO of Cross River Rail, Queensland’s top priority infrastructure project: creating Brisbane’s first underground rail line. Cross River Rail will unlock a bottleneck at the core of the city transport network and provide social and economic benefits across South East Queensland.

We’re excited to be joined today by Bruce Thompson, one of Locate20’s plethora of interesting and engaging plenary keynote speakers.

Bruce Thompson, Executive Director of Spatial Services with the NSW Government. Bruce is responsible for the State of New South Wales’ geodetic and positioning infrastructure and for its spatial and mapping functions. Bruce has twenty-five years’ experience in the spatial sector, in the Queensland, Victorian and New South Wales governments. He is the Chair of the Australia New Zealand Land Information Council (ANZLIC).

While speaking with Bruce, we delve into the many ways in which spatially-enabled digital twins will revolutionise and change the future of the ways in which other industries work.

Join us next time to speak with Adam Ferrier, one of Australia's leading consumer psychologists, a brand strategist and an authority on behavioural economics. We’ll discuss with Adam how we, as an industry, can get better at telling our story to others, and ways in which we can become more outward-facing to better engage in new ways with existing and future collaborators and clients.

Today we have Dr Karen Joyce joining us, who we’re excited to hear from during out plenary keynote presentations at Locate20. Dr Karen Joyce is a scientist, academic, educator, and business co-founder who loves to prove that science is more than lab coats and test tubes. She has a diverse history in geospatial science spanning academia, industry, government, and military over the past 20 years. As a Senior Lecturer at James Cook University in Cairns, she focusses on research and education into acquiring and processing drone image data for environmental monitoring, particularly on the Great Barrier Reef. Her She Maps STEM ‘education on location’ programs are taught around the world engaging thousands of students and teachers in drone and geospatial technology.

While catching up with Karen, we explore a plethora of topics ranging from rethinking the way we measure success, diversity and inclusion in the industry, and the ways in which we can come together as industry to support academia and the future of our industry.

Join us next time to speak with Bruce Thompson, Executive Director of Spatial Services with the NSW Government, where we will explore the many ways in which spatially-enabled digital twins will revolutionise and change the future of the ways in which other industries work.

With us today is one of our Locate20 plenary keynote presenters, Nyall Dawson. Nyall has been a developer with the QGIS project since 2013. During this time he has contributed over 5000 additions to the project, and today is one of the most active developers on the project. Nyall’s contributions cover a wide range of areas – from improvements to the map rendering and symbology engines, enhancements to labelling and print layout functionality, right through to optimisations of the underlying spatial processing algorithms utilised by QGIS. Nyall is also the proprietor of North Road Consulting, an Australian based spatial development consultancy which predominantly utilises international co-funding and crowdfunding campaigns to finance development into open source GIS applications.

We’ll speak with Nyall about why open data is important for the future of the industry, what the future of the industry could look like, and more!

Join us next time to speak with Dr Karen Joyce from SheMaps, as we delve into rethinking the way we measure success, diversity and inclusion in the industry, and the ways in which we can come together as industry to support academia and the future of our industry.

I’m very pleased to introduce you today to Dr Nadine Alameh, our guest for this episode and one of our plenary keynote presenters at Locate20.  Nadine takes us through a whirlwind of an episode covering wide-ranging topics from why the world needs interoperability, the challenges industries all over the world are facing with innovation, why diversity is so important for preparing for a better future, and more.

Dr Nadine Alameh is the recently appointed CEO of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). She is a recognized leader in the GIS field, having built a career out of her dedication to interoperability and innovation in several domains including Aviation, Earth Observations, Public Safety and Defence. Prior to OGC, she held various roles in industry from Chief Architect for Innovation in Northrop Grumman’s Civil Solutions Unit; to CEO of a small international Aviation data business; to senior technical advisor to NASA’s Applied Science Program. Nadine graduated from MIT with a Ph.D. in Information Systems Engineering and 2 MS degrees. She holds a BS degree in Computer Engineering from the American University of Beirut.

Join us next time for to speak with Nyall Dawson, a long-time developer on the QGIS project and proprietor of North Road Consultancy. We’ll speak with Nyall about why open data is important for the future of the industry, what the future of the industry could look like, and more!