GeoNext 2013 wraps up

By Simon Chester on 12 March, 2013

GeoNext has now finished up for 2013, with the conference being confirmed for its return in 2014.

The event was held on 27 February, at the Australian Technology Park in Sydney. The conference saw some of Australia’s biggest location pundits attend, present, and contribute to the electric energy experienced on the day.

GeoNext was started in 2012 as a place for traditional spatial practitioners to meet up with the new wave of web- and mobile-based mappers – the neo-geos. As such, the event attracted delegates from both the private and public sectors, and from many different industries – from mobile and web-service companies, to data and hardware suppliers.

The highlights of the day included:

Presentations from Greg Storey from Visa, Bill Simpson-Young and Chriss Cooper from NICTA, Rob Manson from buildAR and MOB. Hamish Petrie from Ingogo, John Barratt from Trendsmap, Dr Robert Dahni and Dr Andrew Woolf from the Bureau of Meteorology, and Ryan Caudle and Daniel Chu from Google.
The panel session “Location Data Sharing: Policy and Practice” – where representatives of the private and public sectors talked about the ways in which policy creates new commercial opportunities, as well as the barriers in government that are still preventing more open data sharing.
The Startup showcase, where three of Australia’s newest location-based startups pitched their ideas to compete for the favour of the judging panel and the audience alike.
And the mapping gallery, where some of the most creative, attractive, unusual, and softest (thanks to Fransisco for his Open Street Map baby blanket) maps were on display to attendees.

None of this would have been possible without the generosity of the GeoNext sponsors including: