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GEO Social February 25th

Craft Beer Market - 345 10 Ave SW Calgary

5 pm - 7 pm

Light Refreshments provided

VOLUME 3 ISSUE 1

GEOTALK OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER OF ALBERTA GEOMATICS GROUP

February 2016

In this issue

1 GeoAlberta 2015

2 SAIT News

2 Map Town

3 SAIT

3 GIS Day Recap

3 Abacus Datagraphics

4 Spatial Technologies

4 Lethbridge News

5 Map to the Future

5 TECNOVATE16

GeoAlberta Update Leah Lilley: Director & AltaLIS Ltd.

Record levels of support shown by the sponsors, tradeshow vendors, keynotes, workshop instructors,

industry speakers and delegates of GeoAlberta 2015, held in Edmonton, October 26-28, are a

testament to the need for a premier Geospatial Conference in Alberta. Despite an adverse

economy, this event brought over 300 industry professionals together to Learn, Share & Network.

Highlights of the conference included an unprecedented lineup of Keynote speakers, highly qualified

Workshop Instructors, facilitated Think Tanks, an AGG Social at the Lion’s Pub, a TECTERRA Social on the

Delta rooftop and Sam Hester’s live graphic illustration (small snip-it show above) which captured the

conference from the eyes and ears of an amazing artist.

GeoAlberta is like a family reunion that unites people from all walks of the Geospatial community and

welcomes new members with open arms. It is incredible to witness moments like a 1st time delegate

chatting it up with a seasoned Keynote speaker, the 3rd year student introducing themselves to a

table of professionals over lunch, or a municipal GIS professional sharing tips and tools with a

neighboring County after a session. You can look around a packed social event and see EVERY

person is engaged in conversation, sometimes with old friends but often with new.

The volunteer team from AGG, URISA & GeoEdmonton spend countless hours collaborating and

planning every detail of the GeoAlberta conference in efforts to satisfy the varying needs of our

sponsors, speakers & delegates. Although the conference is a unique experience for every individual,

there is a passion shared within the organizing committee to improve and raise the bar every year!

After careful consideration, the next GeoAlberta Conference will be held in the SPRING OF 2017. The

venue and location will be announced as soon as a contract is secured.

Questions? Email us at

info@albertageomaticsgroup.ca

Andrew Pylypchuk - President

Verda Kocabas – Treasurer

Scott McHale – Secretary

Brad Ashley – Past-President

Bill Smienk – Director

Carey Prendergast – Director

Leah Lilley – Director

Steve Reed – Director

Matt Wirzba – Director

Steve Myshak – Director

Kyle Nadler – Director

Board of Directors

Mark Your Calendars!

Upcoming Events

@Alberta_Geo

Alberta Geomatics

Group

GEO Social

Calgary - February 25

Map to the Future

Calgary - March 15-16

Lunch Presentation

Lethbridge - March 29th

Calgary - April 2016

TECNOVATE

Calgary - June 22

AGG AGM

Calgary - September 2016

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SAIT News Verda Kocabas, Treasurer & SAIT

The Geomatics Engineering Technology Student Club at SAIT Polytechnic held its GNT Industry Night on January 19th, 2016. The

Alberta Geomatics Group participated with a silver sponsorship. It’s wonderful to see the caliber of companies that took part in the

event: Stantec, WSP, Watt Consulting Group, Boundary Technical Group, EllisDon, Integrated Sustainability, Quest, Shell, Can-Am

Geomatics, Site Energy, Tecterra, Midwest Surveys, Challenger Geomatics, Global Raymac, and Caltech Surveys. There were

approximately 100 people in attendance including industry reps from 16 companies, alumni, students and faculty.

Carina Butterworth and Lance Hummel, both GNT faculty members, are organizing a Geomatics competition this year. The

Geomatics competition has 3 components: Peg finding, geomatics photo contest and geomatics promotion video contest. The

theme of the competition is SURV WARS. Each part is separated out into 3 episodes of SURV WARS. Survey crib support member Travis

Hilliard has been designing the posters and the trophy.

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GIS Day Recap Scott McHale, Secretary

For the second year running, the Alberta Geomatics Group, Calgary Regional

Partnership, and SAIT helped our colleagues and community members, along with

their families, celebrate GIS Day with an event designed for learning and sharing and

generally getting excited about cool things in geomatics: the measurement of the

world around us.

We had some great giveaways – thanks to Divestco, ESRI Canada, IHS, and

Intergraph – for each of the 300 people registered and the “Brad & Verda roaming

GIS Quiz show” helped us to connect a host of great prizes from MapTown and

Blackbridge with deserving winners.

We had 75 kids registered! There was a coloring station, some air-brush tattoos from

FunkyFaces, and lots of interesting displays but it was easy to spot the two kids’

favorites. Abacus Datagraphics, our Gold Sponsor, built and hosted an augmented

reality sandbox to let the kids see the impact on water flows as they changed the

topography in the sand. This was fun for kids and a great opportunity to learn about

geomatics without them even knowing it.

Also, robots! Calgary’s own EZ-Robot brought out their robots and were able to not

only let the kids ( and adults ) remotely control the robots, but also see how the robots

could be programmed to perform certain actions and how they used geomatics to

identify and track the location of people and objects around them.

Thanks to everyone for making the evening so fun and engaging.

See you next year!

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Did you know…

Membership with the Alberta Geomatics

Group helps provide scholarships to

students in Geomatics programs

annually?

Helps provide opportunities for

community events and personal

development?

Allows the AGG to support community

initiatives such as career fairs and

networking events?

Become a member today!

In Sunny (and windy) Lethbridge, the AGG has enjoyed a great

partnership with the Canadian Remote Sensing Society (CRSS)

Lethbridge chapter for a little over two years now, and we are

looking forward to continuing that partnership with an exciting 3rd

year planned. By working together, we have been able to create a

relevant and exciting avenue for networking and learning in our

quickly growing geomatics industry in Lethbridge.

This March we are putting on two great events; the CRSS will be

hosting a 1 day workshop at the University of Lethbridge on March

1st. This very practical workshop will be on Network Branding for

Employment Success.

Following this, on March 29th there will be a Lunch and Learn at

Lethbridge College, hosted by the AGG with support from the CRSS.

Not only will there be a fantastic lunch from the college’s culinary

program, but we are very excited to have the folks from the city of

Lethbridge Electric Utility Administration present on their ArcGIS/

ArcFM enterprise solution that they use to keep the city “plugged in”.

Turnouts for our spring events are always fantastic, so please stay

tuned for more info to come shortly.

Lethbridge News Matt Wirzba, Director & BlackBridge, a Planet Labs Company

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Did you know…

Membership with the Alberta Geomatics

Group helps provide scholarships to

students in Geomatics programs

annually?

Helps provide opportunities for

community events and personal

development?

Allows the AGG to support community

initiatives such as career fairs and

networking events?

Become a member today!

Please join us on March 15-16, 2016

at the Hyatt Regency in Calgary to map out a

path forward for the Canadian geo community

Visit www.GeoAlliance.ca for more information and to register.