Geo Week 2024’s Conference Program features looks at the USGS, core surveying practices, and more

With the new year upon us, we are now just over a month away from the start of Geo Week 2024, being held February 11-13 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado, for which you can register here. Following up on last year’s highly successful event, this year’s Geo Week is poised to bring the same kind of energy bringing together the best the industry has to offer. Each of the first two days will kick off with insightful keynote discussions, and the exhibit floor will be packed with some of the biggest companies in the geospatial industry along with a special track of content on the Exhibit Hall Theater stage. 

In addition to all of this, the three days will also be packed with informative and fascinating content in the form of presentations and panel discussions featuring thought leaders from across the geospatial industry. Throughout the event all of the most important topics that are top-of-mind for all professionals will be addressed, with something to offer for everyone. Below we will highlight just a handful of the sessions Geo Week attendees can experience next month in Denver.

Plenary Session - Updates from the USGS (Feb. 13, 9:00-10:00 AM MT)

After the first two days are opened up by the keynotes mentioned above, the third and final day of Geo Week 2024 will kick off with a plenary discussion from the United States Geological Survey (USGS). This hour-long discussion will be led by Dr. Jason Stoker, a physical scientist and Elevation Science and Application Lead for the National Geospatial Program with the USGS, and he’ll be joined by Cindy Thatcher, a geographer with the USGS, and Brian Hadley, Elevation Data Acquisition Lead for the USGS. In this session, attendees will learn about new innovations in the lidar space and how they are being implemented in the USGS’ work.

Essential Surveying Practices (Feb. 12, 2:00-3:30 PM MT)

Surveying is always one of the core topic areas of Geo Week, and this session in particular will be zeroing in on the most important talking points in the industry today. This session will be moderated by Dr. Stewart Walker of LIDAR Magazine and will feature presentations from James Gillis of VeriDaaS Corporation, Mohamed Mostafa of Trimble Applanix, and Brian Shaw of NOAA National Geodetic Survey. Following presentations, in which presenters will focus on things like the importance of ground control, datum and projections, and identifying the right tools, the three will come together on stage with Walker for a conversation outlining best practices for surveyors.

What Will the Construction Lifecycle of the Future Look Like? (Feb. 11, 2:00-3:00 PM MT)

For years, discussion regarding the construction industry revolved around its ability (or sometimes more aptly, inability) to embrace new technology. While those issues still exist in some corners to some extent, for the most part firms are embracing new tools at a rapid pace. That, of course, doesn’t mean innovation has stopped, and now a whole new generation of technology is coming to once again disrupt the space. In this session, our panel of industry insiders will be discussing how these new tools will once again change the industry. This conversation will be led by Carlos Femmer of HDR Engineers, who will be joined by Stefan Hrabar of Emesent, Steve Jones of Dodge Construction Network, and Ramesh Sridharan of Autodesk.

Critical Complexity: Inspecting, Repairing and Maintaining Utilities (Feb. 13, 2:00-3:30PM MT)

With the United States Congress recently passing legislation to provide massive amounts of funding directed towards the nation’s infrastructure, the space is seeing a lot of attention right now. It’s good timing for this as well, with much of this infrastructure aging and needing consistent inspection and maintenance, which is assisted by many emerging technologies like reality capture. This is the topic of this Critical Complexity session, with presenters showing how they’ve taken advantage of this technology to help keep our infrastructure safe and effective. Presenters in this session will be Ian Berdie of NV5, Courtney Malott of Fugro, Alex Pestov of vGIS Inc., Santosh Kumas Saride of GeoCal LLC, and Malek Singer of Teledyne Geospatial. Following their presentations, the group will come together to discuss the evolution of the space and impact of these new technologies.