The annual spatial@gov conference is nearly here for 2012, and there will be a host of exciting and relevant industry speakers, including Nunzio Gambale, CEO of an Australian-created ‘local positioning system’ that offers an alternative to relying on the US’ GPS satellites.
“The dependency that we are building on this technology is actually now becoming a sovereignty issue,” Mr Gambale said. “We have no local control of GPS satellites and no viable back-up for them. This is a critical vulnerability, and a serious problem.”
If the GPS system fails – or is deliberately interrupted through an act of economic sabotage – critical infrastructure ranging from the telephone system to automated teller machines and other financial services, all the way through to the electricity grid, would be at risk of catastrophic failure.
Mr Gambale is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Locata Corporation, a developer of location systems that complement the GPS system in urban environments and other signal ‘canyons’. He will present a keynote address at the spatial@gov conference entitled ‘An Inconvenient Truth – GPS is a ticking time-bomb’.
Now in its fourth year, spatial@gov is the largest spatial technology event in the region, to be held in Canberra over three days at the National Convention Centre from November 20-22. The event is expected to attract more than 500 spatial professionals.
spatial@gov is firmly established as one of the most important events on the Australia ICT industry calendar. In 2012, it is being held in conjunction with the first face-to-face meeting of the Open Geospatial Consortium Forum for Australia and New Zealand. The OGC is a major international standards consortium of more than 465 companies, government agencies, research organisations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards.
Also speaking at spatial@gov is US Air Force GPS specialist Chris Morin, from the 746 Test Squadron at the Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, who will address denial of service vulnerabilities in a presentation titled ‘Delivering the Truth in a GPS-Denied Environment’.
Other international speakers at spatial@gov include Mark Reichardt, President & Chief Executive Officer, Open Geospatial Consortium, and. Dr Paul Smits from the Institute for Environment and Sustainability at the Joint Research Centre for Digital Earth and Reference Data Unit of the European Commission
Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson – whose portfolio includes the Australian Government’s recently established Office of Spatial Policy – will also provide to the welcoming address at spatial@gov, along with New Zealand Land Information Minister Maurice Williamson.
The team at SpatialSource and Position Magazine look forward to seeing you at spatial@gov this November.
For more information, visit www.cebit.com.au/spatial.
