Top 10 Intelligence from Beyond Geographies

TOP 10 INTELLIGENCE FROM BEYOND GEOGRAPHIES

SCIENCE

Issue 05 Summer 2018

Alexei Poliakov Co-founder & CEO Locomizer Alexei Polyakov Co-founder & CTO Locomizer

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The Finer Points of Mapping From an Industry Leader’s POV P.24

Understanding the Art of Mastering Geospatial Analysis with Python P.34

Everything Sings: An Article on using Maps for a Narrative Atlas P.54

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EDITOR’S CORNER

T

he importance of Geography is beyond comprehensible for an individual. Throughout history, geography has played a massive part to influence our lives for the better. It is responsible for determining the winners of the world war, the construction of industries, the development of cultures and the prosperity of citizens. It has influenced our choices and has been a key driver of technological advancements. Technology has enabled businesses to leverage the power of geography; turning maps into tools and applications, enabling quick decision-making and effective planning and strategizing. The surging rate of growth of GIS has made incorporating and implementing the same a prudent move. The emergence of new and innovative companies into the GIS domain, has further steered the industry popularity. Realizing this rising importance of GIS solution providers, Beyond Exclamation has come with its new issue titled “Top 10 Intelligence from Beyond Geographies,” which are adding value to the industry with their cost-effective and flexible GIS solutions.

Featuring as our Cover Story is Locomizer, a company that created a biology-inspired, patent-pending mobile user profiling technology called AffinityBI, one which is revolutionizing personalized targeting. The resolute founders of the company, Alexei Polyakov and Alexei Poliakov, are eager to execute their vision of building a global geo-behavioral interest solution.

Aside from this, this issue also features Augview, which has established a name for itself as the world’s first augmented reality asset management application; Caliper, a company which is recognized as the leading consulting and R&D provider offering professional services in quantitative management consulting, transportation, and decision support system development; Genesys, a company with over two decades of experience and has executed the most complex projects in the Geospatial industry and continues to break new grounds; Maps4News, which provides the perfect solution from Map Creator with its robust maps for alternative use in any sort of online narrative piece from news to stories; sensewhere, a world leader in the hyper-local and indoor positioning solutions with its technology underpinned by an extensive patent portfolio; and what3words, an innovative company that has developed this disruptive idea of using 3 words to track down a particular location.

Editor in Chief CHRISTINE [editor@beyondexclamation.com]

Managing Editor JACK [jack@beyondexclamation.com]

Art Director VIJAYKUMAR [design@beyondexclamation.com]

Graphic Artist NICK [nick@beyondexclamation.com]

Project Manager JENNIFER [jennifer@beyondexclamation.com]

Development Manager JUSTIN [info@beyondexclamation.com]

Let’s dive deep into the world of Geographies and Beyond!

CONNECT!

Jack London www.beyondexclamation.com BeyondExclamation @BeyondEx Beyond Exclamation beyondexclamation

In addition to our print magazine, we also provide relevant industry news and updates, as well as some thoughtprovoking articles and blogs on our website. Make sure to follow the same as we at Beyond Exclamation are looking forward to interact with our readers. Let’s connect on the web!

What’s Inside...

Business Boulevard

B E O N 08

Cover Story on a Company that Matches its Audiences to Locations

Omniscient Voyage

48

The Story of the World's First AR Asset Management Application

54

Everything Sings: An Article on using Maps for a Narrative Atlas

Excellence Causeway

28 Highlighting a Technology that Senses where you are

34 Understanding the Art of Mastering Geospatial Analysis with Python

Newsmakers Locale

60 When Legacy Meets Technology: A Dive into Caliper's History

Younick Corner

Y D

24 The Finer Points of Mapping: From an Industry Leader’s POV

42 How a Company made Mapping Easier than Ever Before

DeďŹ nitive Destination

18 A 3-word solution at making addressing simple

66 The Journey of a twodecade old Company specializing in GIS

Alexei Poliakov Co-founder & CEO Locomizer Alexei Polyakov Co-founder & CTO Locomizer

Matching Audiences to Locations

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et’s picture the Internet marketing landscape 10 years ago. It was a clutter of ad items, every one of them competing to be the loudest voice in the room. At the point when brands started to acclimate themselves with geo-targeting and the possibility that they could customize messaging based on a potential client’s location, it seemed an appealing alternative. Here was an ad strategy concentrated on relevance. An approach that made sense.

It’s these qualities that have kept geo-targeting going solid in the years since. Case analyses and industry articles frequently tout its advantages, from boosting conversation rates to expanding ROI. In any case, a marketing plan can’t flourish if it doesn’t develop, particularly in a digitally dynamic environment. Reaching consumers through the desktop is no longer a sure thing, and their inclination for an omni-channel experience requires a strategy move.

Enters Locomizer with biology-inspired, patented mobile user profiling technology called AffinityBI, which is revolutionizing personalized targeting. It translates individual historic

geo signals into user interest profiles - a new way to understand a user’s affinity to real world activities. These can then be used for relevant targeting and recommendations to maximize marketing ROI. Helping everyone achieve better results Locomizer proudly serves outdoor advertisers, global advertising agencies, brands and media owners.

Having proved the effectiveness of its technology in advertising sector, Locomizer has leveraged its competitive advantage of being cross-market agnostic to enter other markets that can benefit from location intelligence solutions that understand consumer behavior for business-to-consumer marketing, business intelligence and analytics.

These include but not limited to ecommerce, mobile payments, insurance, retail, security and surveillance, crowd management and urban planning markets. Locomizer’s technology fits with a confluence of windows of opportunity. It enables companies to be more cost-effective in achieving better results when measuring message impact reaching the right audiences. Additionally, Locomizer’s Audience Discovery Platform is GDPR compliant by design in contrast to multiple USbased competitors who were not and have retreated from the European market.

When working with the advertising industry, the founders had a eureka moment and realized that the Locomizer technology of user and place profiling would solve their everlasting goal of making their

advertising relevant to target audiences by matching Locomizer profiles with the right message (WHAT) at the right moment (WHEN) and at the right location (WHERE). They liked the advertising industry as a test bed for their technology because advertisers were open to innovation and willing to pay for data-driven solutions that delivered good results and gave them a competitive edge to discover their target audiences. That is why the founders initially chose this vertical as the entry point for proof of concept trials to prove the effectiveness of their location intelligence platform before expanding to other sectors such as real estate and retail.

An accidental mail that paved way for a future leader The story of how the founders of Locomizer, Alexei Polyakov and Alexei Poliakov met is quite funny and coincidental at the same time. It was meant to happen, and when it did, the foundation of Locomizer was laid.

They both got to know each other by accident thanks to their identical names. At the time, they had email accounts with just one letter being different and, inevitably, the email intended for one Alexei ended up in the other’s inbox. Realizing the error, both connected and, after laughing about this coincidence of their names, the duo started to chat about interests and professions.

Subsequently, they talked about Alexei’s business acumen in mobile, wireless and telecoms and his idea of collecting geo signals from mobile devices to analyze this data to better understand people’s behavior in the physical world. Agreeing that the concept filled a muchneeded gap, they bootstrapped it for more than a year in their spare time. Eventually, they decided that if they were to create a successful business, it required full time commitment and proper investment. Thus, they applied to several start-up accelerators and incubators and were accepted by Collider, a London-based B2B accelerator who provided initial financing and mentoring. They took a daring step, quit their full-time jobs and started a new journey (and new names) as Alexei (in London) the CEO and Alex (in Tokyo) the CTO. Since then, Locomizer has steadily grown from two cofounders to a ten-member strong team that is highly motivated to execute their vision of building a global geo-behavioral interest solution. Team members have a perfect and complementary mix of business, technology

and scientific backgrounds and strong domain expertise in mobile, algorithms and behavioral science.

Simple and intuitive dashboard focusing on usability & people, not paper.

Locomizer’s patented consumer profiling technology puts anonymized location data through behavioral algorithms that make precision targeting possible by matching content with the right audiences in the right locations. Its key competitive advantage is having strong and innovative IP that the company has patented in the USA and Japan. Locomizer has invented a new method of audience discovery and segmentation (that is GDPR/EU data protection laws compliant). “We believe

that people’s location reflects their identity. In other words, our real-life interests and preferences are a product of our local footprint. Our solution analyzes behavior (where and how long you spend your time) to understand your real-life interests and preferences and match them with relevant services and offers,” Alexei says.

Locomizer’s Audience Discovery Platform dramatically enhances the way that companies can discover and segment places, audiences and demographics, anywhere in the world! v TARGETING: Locomizer’s proprietary consumer profiling technology is

revolutionizing audience discovery and targeting. The platform tells you where and when a target audience spend their time so that outdoor physical or digital advertising can be placed in the most effective locations at the most appropriate time and day part, anywhere in the world. v MEASURMENT: Each person’s profile is entirely unique, and contains location-time information and proximity indexes, which Locomizer makes equivalent to behavioral patterns. By comparing profiles, Locomizer can find those with similar behavioral patterns, and establish a rank of similarity for matching

people. Not only can the platform define a profile for each person, but can also define a profile for groups of people. v ANALYTICS: At Locomizer, they believe it is not enough to build geo-location profiles based just on where someone is, or has been. It’s about what that place represents to them, who else is there, and where are they going next. The irrationality of human behavior makes these insights very hard to predict for most artificial intelligence and machine learning analytics tools. Locomizer deciphers irrational human behavior because our artificial intelligence is based on natural science and biological behavior. The platform then provides enhanced and supercharged behavior analytics. v PRIVACY: Locomizer creates profiles without the need of 1st party data, user ID’s or telephone numbers. The user interest profiles they create are accurate but totally abstract and therefore Locomizer’s data is GDPR compliant. They can take publisher or operator 1st party data and transform it into Locomizer user profiles which they can resell to advertisers without contravening privacy policies or laws. v POINTS OF INTEREST: Locomizer maintains and constantly improves its proprietary database of points of interests that is used in order to pin-point each Lat/Lon/Time reading from individual historic records on a map to identify and understand the surrounding context of a place. v DATA-AS-A-SERVICE: Locomizer’s ADP researches and discovers relevant audiences for planning of Out of Home (OOH) and digital ad campaigns. It’s a dashboard self-service tool that can be provided on an individual or company-wide subscription basis. The ADP provides detailed, rich and contextual knowledge of any given place at certain points in time. The platform is currently available in UK and Ireland to select customers.

Revolutionizing personalized targeting Talking about AI, Alexei asserts, “Our contribution to pushing the AI acceptance by our customers is in proving that Locomizer technology is picking up where AI left off – that is, explaining and predicting the irrationality of human behavior. Locomizer IP is built on the idea that collectively, crowds of people move through their days with a singular intelligence – the sum of all intent. With millions of individuals making up the collective intelligence as a ‘system’, we can isolate sub-systems and better understand human behavior by location.”

“Validate the business idea with prospective customers as soon as possible. Get their initial feedback and incorporate it into your MVP. Finding a product/market fit earlier and generating first revenue will give you a stronger hand in negotiating the company’s valuation with investors when you need investor money to grow the business on your terms,” advices Alexei to young entrepreneurs in this sector.

Going further, Locomizer has a solid plan to bring its technology to the market by developing and launching a cloud-based SaaS product to provide detailed, rich and contextual knowledge of any given place by the level of customer interest to a certain activity at certain points in time.

“Besides we are very serious about investing time and resources into ongoing R&D of location intelligence and related areas of AI, machine learning and blockchain technologies. We are working on several promising ideas and aim to patent them in near-term,” Alexei concludes.

“A map is the greatest of all epic poems.

Its lines and colors show the realization of great dreams.�

Gilbert H. Grosvenor

Addressing became Simple

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o specify any given location to an accuracy of 3 meters using GPS coordinates, you need 16 digits, 2 characters, 2 decimal points, and a space or comma or a new line. That’s more than enough for the computers and mobile devices to locate coordinates when humans aren’t involved. However, when humans get involved for collecting coordinates and communicating them to each other, it’s a whole other thing. The coordinates are not so easy to remember and therefore human errors are expected. Then, what is the solution? There is and it’s a lot easy than having to remember difficult coordinates. What if you are given 3 words to remember a specific address? That would be awesome, wouldn’t it? what3words is the company that has developed this disruptive idea – a fixed global grid of 57 trillion 3 word addresses each referring to a 3m x 3m square. You don’t have to worry about new or changing street addresses. It is fixed already and will stay that way. And because the 3 word address system is fixed, and it’s impossible to change it, there is 100% certainty that all instances of the system running everywhere in the world will provide the same 3 word address for the same location.

3 word addresses are unique, unlike street names which are often duplicated, and they are easier to remember, use and share with others. Most alternatives also require each address to be created or generated, whilst 3 word addresses already exist for everywhere on earth, meaning they can be used immediately, without needing to be set up. Also, what3words system is based on an algorithm, rather than a database, so it works offline in regions where there is no connectivity. Compared to current street addressing systems, 3 word addresses are far more accurate, as they refer to a specific 3m x 3m square on the ground.

They provide universal coverage, so can be used to communicate any location, not just a building.

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Chris Sheldrick Co-founder & CEO what3words

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The beginning of something incredible Chris Sheldrick, Co-founder and CEO of what3words worked in the music industry – organizing live music events around the world.

When bands and equipment constantly got lost trying to find venues and festival locations, it became clear that addressing just wasn’t good enough, and the problem was universal. He tried giving out GPS coordinates, but they were hard for people to input into their car or device, and near enough impossible to communicate correctly over the phone. Mistakes

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were easy to make and hard to pick up on until it was too late. So, he sat down with a friend to see if they could find a solution that was as accurate as coordinates, but concise and memorable too. Together, they devised a way to turn accurate GPS coordinates into user-friendly word combinations, and was born, the first 3 word address algorithm on the back of an envelope. Since then, what3words hasn’t looked back with over 1000 businesses, government agencies and NGOs across 170 countries now using 3 word addresses in sectors including automotive, e-commerce, logistics,

mobility, travel, post and emergency services.

From large corporations to individuals, everyone is served The long list of what3words’s varied customers include Mercedes-Benz, who recently launched the world’s first car with built-in what3words voice navigation. With this application, drivers are able to navigate anywhere in the world by saying three words to their car. The another global logistics giant, Aramex has integrated what3words to optimize its last mile operations

in the Middle East, increasing efficiency by over 40%.

Meanwhile, Domino’s Pizza are delivering food hotter and faster to 3 word addresses around the world.

And numerous humanitarian partners are using the technology to help people in need. The United Nations has adopted the technology for disaster response and relief, in addition to the Red Cross. Futurefacing companies have been quick to adopt what3words, such as IBM’s AccessibleOlli. The autonomous vehicle built for people with disabilities uses what3words to navigate passengers to precise destinations, increasing their ability to travel independently.

Similarly, drone delivery companies, Hylio and DXC Technology are using 3 word addresses to help customers specify precise drop-off locations.

Furthermore, not only companies, but individuals are also using the what3words app to navigate the world more easily and to meet friends in places without addresses such as parks, beaches or at crowded festivals. 3 word addresses are being used by running clubs to set meeting points, by off-roading fans in the deserts of the Middle East, and by hotels to guide guests to their entrance without complicated written directions.

The open and egalitarian culture at the core of transformation What started in March 2013 with just three people has now turned into over 85 employees across the world and they are growing fast.

The what3words team is a very special bunch of people. what3words hires people who stand out as creative, forward-thinking and driven individuals. With its open and egalitarian culture where anyone can add their ideas to a conversation, test a new product or suggest a marketing idea, no matter which team they are part of, what3words supports their knack for creativity and makes the most of their talents. “We also get together as a team to share activities and interests from outside work in our ‘Wednesday Lunch Series’. Talk subjects have ranged from ‘The semantics of lying and misleading’ from a member of our language team, to ‘Living on a narrow boat in London’ from one of our copywriters. It is good fun, helps us get to know each other, and sparks off interesting conversations,” explains Chris.

But to get here from where they started, it needed an energy into seeking out the right investors to bring the business credibility, contacts, experience, and knowledge as well as funding. And that’s what what3words did. They also invested heavily in language development from the outset, as this needed to be a globally accessible solution.

Currently, what3words is available in over 25 languages, and this will soon increase to 28 including Chinese and Hindi. “When our 28th language launches, 3.8 billion people will be able to use 3 word addresses in their home language,

which is 51% of the world,” Chris adds.

Celebrating the milestones and preparing for the next wave Going ahead, what3words’s longterm goal is to be a global addressing standard, so everyone in the world has a simple, accurate and reliable address they can use whenever they need it. The what3words team want businesses, governments and services worldwide to use 3 word addresses to become more efficient, and improve their customer experience.

At the same time, they look forward to showing how better addressing can reduce businesses’ environmental impact, ease pressure on crowded cities, fuel economic growth in developing nations and save lives.

“This year Mercedes-Benz have launched the world’s first car with built-in what3words voice navigation. It’s a huge achievement for us and we expect the next couple of years to see our technology integrated by lots more global brands of a similar caliber.

On the product side, we have exciting new features for our core what3words app and also the newly launched 3WordPhoto app, as well as new products working with speech recognition and OCR technologies. We also expect to open more local offices to add to those we already operate in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and Johannesburg, South Africa and the USA,” concludes Chris.

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Diana Shkolnikov CTO & Co-founder StreetCred

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aps hold tremendous power and have significant consequences.

We trust maps to tell us what exists out there in the world because we can’t be in all places at once. Think back to how you learned geography and trusted that the world map was a complete, unbiased representation of the physical globe. Think back to when you searched Google Maps for a coffee shop to meet a friend and trusted that if Google didn’t list it, it didn’t exist. Therefore, those who control the map effectively control the way we see the world.

So What’s the Big Deal?

Map misrepresentation has significant consequences that can ripple through an entire community.

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The Finer Points of Mapping This effect is true for roads and buildings, but is especially critical with points of interest (POIs): the restaurants, doctors offices, stores, and other establishments we need to live our lives. POI data drives the way people discover the world around them. Those who control this experience control how consumer attention and money flows through the economy. That’s an awful lot of control for a single proprietary entity! “…as a society, no one company should have a monopoly on place, just as no one company had a monopoly on time in the 1800s. Place is a shared resource, and when you give all that power to a single entity, you are giving them the power not only to tell you about your location, but to shape it.”

Serge Wroclawski, “Why the world needs OpenStreetMap”. The Guardian Currently several companies manage this data and make it available under expensive and restrictive commercial licenses.

The best dataset in existence belongs to Google but is not available as a direct data product and can only be accessed via costly and restrictive APIs. Since Google owns the data, they get to decide what’s in, what’s out, and in what order. Google also gets to decide what developers can and cannot do with it. The world deserves a more open and accessible alternative.

How Did We Get Here?

After almost five years of building open-source mapping solutions at Mapzen to help create alternatives to these tightly controlled resources, we

walked away feeling like the services layer is in a good place. Mapzen built an engaged developer community across search, turn-by-turn navigation (hi Tesla!), map rendering and vector tile services, among other awesome things, which are all now part of the open-source / opendata ecosystem and can be used by anyone who has enough data to fuel them. You can probably already see where this is going… #dataproblems Sadly, there’s currently no high-quality, open POI dataset to power these tools. Several projects like OpenStreetMap, Who’s on First, and All The Places have made good strides towards this goal but none have succeeded for a variety of reasons. This dataset is very dynamic and requires getting the key conditions just right to create a sustainable, comprehensive solution.

We’ve seen data collection efforts that started strong but failed to engage contributors over the long-term due to lack of compelling incentive models. Others focused on incentives that appealed to a narrow group of contributors or only applied to a handful of contribution scenarios, so the resulting data was incomplete. We’ve seen open data projects struggle with concerns over trust and validity of the data. And we’ve been entirely underwhelmed with quality and coverage analysis of existing POI data across the industry. There are few tools out there for driving targeted contributions based on statistics and even fewer that allow the consumers of this data to have insight into where and what data exists.

How Do We Get There?

The StreetCred team has set out to build a system for creating and maintaining the most comprehensive and objective map the world has ever seen. We’re focusing our attention on one layer of the map, specifically the POI layer. From years of experience in mapping, we know the problems inherent in this dataset well. Other layers on the map, such as bodies of water, country borders, and road networks are relatively static; they rarely change and are easy to observe using satellite imagery or street view. POIs are unique: they open and close all the time, it’s hard to tell how many there are in a building just by looking at it, they may not have websites, their hours of operation change regularly… you get the idea. There is currently no truly representative, complete dataset containing all the POIs

in the world, including restaurants, gyms, doctors’ offices, daycares, landmarks, and many other places you’d want to search for and navigate to. StreetCred is going to build this dataset and we’re going to do so by focusing on the areas where other projects have stumbled.

We’re focusing on attracting a broad and diverse contributor base using accessible tools and approachable materials that will bridge the gap between technology and the general public. A comprehensive and representative map can only be created by a diverse and equally representative pool of contributors, like your cousin and your mom and all their friends.

We’re focusing on removing barriers to keep the data free of bias and avoid censorship. We believe the world must be allowed to represent itself, without gatekeepers or restrictions on the types of truthful data that gets included. Objective, observable ground truth is not subject to opinion and must aim only to represent reality.

We’re striving to ensure that the data is contributed and validated by those who are right there next to it, wherever the place may be.

We’re focusing on providing insight to our contributors and data consumers alike into current quality and coverage. Contributors can only create a comprehensive dataset with sufficient awareness of the gaps that need filling: whether regional gaps, such as a rural neighborhood in India, or those in different categories of data, such as gynecologist offices or locksmiths, or shortcomings in data freshness, where records have gone months without updates.

With these principles at the core, we’re laser focused and excited to build this new map in the open with your help!

We hope you’ll follow along as we continue to share more of our vision and thinking along the way.

The article is originally published by Diana Shkolnikov, CTO & Co-founder of StreetCred at www.streetcred.co., and is republished with her permission.

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Rob Palfreyman Co-founder & CEO sensewhere

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sensing where you are

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W

e have seen technology developing at rocket speed and changing our lives for the good. Living in a world where we rely on mobile devices for finding, connecting, communicating, organizing, and playing, it is only fair that the services don’t stop as soon as you enter buildings – because, as we know, GPS doesn’t work in built up areas. A number of innovative technologies out there are trying to provide the universal location and navigation data where satellite signals are blocked, and there are indeed many ways to fill that GPS gap. Some of course better than others: relying on magnetic fields, using beacons, manually surveying extensive areas and so on.

But a team of researchers at the University of Edinburgh combined with commercial experts from leading technology companies and with support from the Scottish Government pioneered a technology that is today known as sensewhere. Rob Palfreyman, Tughrul Arslan and Zankar Sevak were among the first to figure that in order for the solution to be truly universal, there has to be a key ingredient – scalability. The best way to go about ensuring scale is by using what’s already available; in sensewhere’s case it was crowds of people who moved around using their smartphones, essentially automatically crowdsourcing any indoor area globally.

Almost a decade later, sensewhere is a world leader in hyper-local and indoor positioning solutions with its technology underpinned by an extensive patent portfolio. It has based its headquarters in Edinburgh and has expanded its operation with offices in California, USA and in Shenzhen and

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Beijing, China. The company currently has 22 full-time staff overall with over 80% based in Edinburgh, Scotland, two thirds of whom are in Research and Development (R&D), plus it continues to benefit from access to key academics’ technical expertise direct from Edinburgh University. With the goal to connect the world in a way that is relevant, advantageous, clever and seamless to the consumer, sensewhere has grown rapidly over the years. filing the GPS gap The way sensewhere connects the world is through the indoor positioning system (IPS) determining indoor positioning on a mobile device using available signals from Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and motion sensors. The mobile Software Development Kit (SDK) and cloud-based servers then use automatic crowdsourcing to build a global database of transmitter locations in order to extend coverage and improve accuracy where GPS satellite signals are weak or blocked such as indoors or in dense urban areas.

In a scenario where a customer approaches a shopping mall for instance, sensewhere enabled apps may use GPS to determine location information. Once they enter the building those same apps automatically switch from GPS to sensors and wireless signals such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. No need for special equipment or action. Anyone with a sensewhere enabled device or app on their smartphone will continue to have accurate location information seamlessly. As the shopper moves around the mall, sensewhere’s priority algorithms triangulate the position of the smartphone by automatically mapping wireless transmitters within the building and each new signal is referenced to the last via motion sensors in the device. All of this data is instantly processed by sensewhere’s

algorithms by using extensive georeferencing to create a virtual electronic picture of the mall. So, as data is gathered for more devices, a detailed map is built of the wireless signal sources and common paths used by visitors and the system continually self improves over time. location at the tip of your finger Through its journey through the last decade, sensewhere has progressed to deliver better, lower cost, scalable and highly accurate universal indoor positioning. Over the years, the company has established open partnerships with Tencent Holdings Limited (“Tencent” SEHK 00700, China) and technologies like TomTom (Europe) to give its partners a competitive edge in location positioning systems.

Due to its sheer size and reach, China in particular is well positioned to exemplify how well new technologies perform at scale, so aside from Tencent, there are other Chinese corporate giants running sensewhere on their platforms in the FinTec/AdTec markets for Store Visit Confirmation and mobile payment fraud detection.

Their business offerings benefit from indoor positioning because sensewhere opens up opportunities to allow their users access to: open location information, fraud detection, personalized services and even strengthened communities, all enhancing the desirability of their services.

Moreover, sensewhere has spent over two years in R&D work to address the limitations of GPS in tall buildings, and it can be seen with its recent release of what they call 3D-Grid. The 3D Grid System is an approach to level detection utilizing machine learning and device intelligence to automatically build a vertical grid in

any building. The system cross-references the crowdsourced grid with known ground level indicators, through entrance and boundary detection. It then successfully tags floors both below and above ground level.

When combined with up to date point-of-interest data, floor aware mapping and attribution is now a reality. connecting the world in a relevant, advantageous, clever and seamless way sensewhere has a range of existing products and use cases all designed to support retail marketing platforms and smarter consumerism, better security and safety measures for people and assets, sharper payment protection and faster emergency services. All of its web dashboard tools are Cloud-hosted and used to create and manage personalized geo-fences, visualize reports, and display analytics including store visit confirmation, footfall and heat-maps. sensewhere supports its clients in the creation and management of geo-fences for their mobile advert targeting and visit confirmation services using indoor maps. This is particularly useful in retail as precise location data can be combined with point-of-interest (POI) data to determine a user’s context and intent. It goes further and includes persona development and improved targeting accuracy. This essentially means that venue owners, retailers, and advertisers can use the position and activity data gathered to evaluate dwell times and footfall, and analyze customer profiles, enabling them to plan product positioning and marketing, and publish location-sensitive offers. a visionary leader making his way Co-founder and CEO, Rob has provided the commercial direction for the company’s technology since the beginning. sensewhere was nurtured into the company it is now through Rob’s sheer passion and strong visions of the future. Rob has dedicated himself fully to piloting the company through leadership, securing investment, building partnerships, and ultimate deployments around the world since its early conception in 2009. His 25+ years’ of experience in the wireless, components and location markets added greatly to the fundaments on which sensewhere was built on. He has shown the appreciation for the importance and the demand for location intelligence and has always believed in the future of location-based advertising. As is now evident, the industry revenue growth cultivates a lot of interest and encourages more businesses to invest. continues to maintain its global leader position while going beyond! sensewhere’s collaboration with Tencent Holdings Limited,

a leading investment company that specializes in mobile applications in China is one of the proudest moments for a small scale up from Edinburgh. Responding to billions of location requests daily and delivering position information at speed was a true testimony to what sensewhere is capable of achieving. sensewhere is proud of the promise it makes of an improved life quality and the major knock-on effects an industry can have on the economy through increased business opportunities.

The continuing demand for dynamic interaction between consumers, sellers and producers results in an evercontinuing integration of technology into business and lifestyle. sensewhere continues to see significant growth opportunities based around indoor positioning and seamless automated services, which enables to the company to see itself as a global leader in this field and it will strive to maintain this position while going beyond!

Fun fact: sensewhere in literal terms means “to sense where you are” through location. Any modern device fitted out with several sensors is compatible with the company’s software and can be used to help you determine just where you are with high precision.

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“The application of GIS is limited only by the imagination of those who use it.�

Jack Dangermond

How to Master Geospatial Analysis with Python

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ost of today’s geospatial jobs require coding skills. These jobs combine elements of data analysis, cartography, web development and database management, among others. A new resource called “Mastering Geospatial Analysis with Python” helps you in learning all the necessary skills to become a geospatial analyst that serves as an indispensable reference book for beginners and professionals alike.

For a long time, there was no reference book available with the most-used geospatial Python libraries, nor one that marks the transition from Python 2 to 3 — an important landmark because Python 3 has fixed many issues under the hood, which is why it’s a major language update. Finally, a book that included both raster and vector data analysis using Jupyter Notebooks was very much needed as this has become the new standard for writing code and visualizing spatial data in an interactive web environment, instead of working with a code editor.

A new book, called “Mastering Geospatial Analysis with Python” (Packt Publishing), tries to fill this gap. Whereas other geospatial Python usually cover only a small sample of Python libraries, or even one type of application, this book takes a more holistic approach covering a wide range of tools available for interacting with

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geospatial data. This is done through short software tutorials that show how to use a dataset for realworld everyday data management, analysis and visualization problems.

A geospatial analyst toolkit The book starts with an introduction the most powerful Python libraries. One example is GDAL, whose read and write capabilities are used throughout the industry on a daily basis, whether as a part of desktop software or as a standalone solution. Also included in the book are new, more Pythonic libraries built on top of GDAL, such as Rasterio, GeoPandas and Fiona. Brand new geospatial libraries such as Esri’s ArcGIS API for Python, Carto’s CARTOFrames and Mapbox’ MapboxGL-Jupyter that haven’t been covered anywhere else yet. These libraries are examples of how geospatial companies are releasing APIs to interact with a cloud-based infrastructure to store, visualize, analyze and edit geospatial data.

It´s no surprise that geospatial companies release these types of APIs. Taking Google and Amazon’s platforms as an example, spatial data only makes sense if you have the right platform and tools to manage that data. This book enables you to try out different geospatial platforms and APIs, so you can compare capabilities of each one. Raster and vector data analysis are another important topic. Vector and raster data analysis is still performed on a

daily basis and therefore should be part of every geospatial analyst’s toolkit. Apart from spatial analysis, the book teaches you how to create a geospatial REST API, process data in the cloud and create a web mapping application.

If you interact on a daily basis with spatial databases, Python has got you covered. With some scripting experience under your belt, you’ll learn how to manage databases such as PostGIS, SQL Server and Spatialite. It´s no surprise that PostGIS is gaining more territory and is mentioned more often in job ads for geospatial analysts.

The future Finally, some last words about the future of geospatial analysis. The adoption of AI, machine learning and blockchain technology is already transforming geospatial technology. Expect even more data types, formats, standards and converging technologies where geospatial as-we-know-it will have its place. It’s only recently that geospatial technology has been gaining interest from other domains. This book hopes to cross the bridge between different domains, showing that Python is an excellent way of getting into the geospatial domain and discover its many great tools.

Meet the Author Eric van Rees was first introduced to Geographical Information Systems (GIS) when studying Human Geography in the Netherlands. For 9 years, he was

the editor-in-chief of GeoInformatics, an international GIS, surveying, and mapping publication and a contributing editor of GIS Magazine. During that tenure, he visited many geospatial user conferences, trade fairs, and industry meetings. He focuses on producing technical content, such as software tutorials, tech blogs, and innovative new use cases in the mapping industry.

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SCIENCE

Connecting Geographies through Information

Mapping Made Easy

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Christian Erades CCO Map Creator

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W

e have used maps for more than 13000 years. A map which illustrates geography, gives direction, identifies precise landmarks and helps achieve various other goals, is essential for one specific reason – it is very useful. It is therefore maps translate well as infographics and offer familiar illustration that your audience can identify with. Irrespective of whether you’re sharing information on regional, national or international level, maps can always help you express data in an engaging and visual way. With visuals becoming a preferred method of reading for millennial generation, incorporating maps is the ultimate solution to convey a location-intensive narrative.

Enters Maps4News – the perfect solution from MapCreator providing robust maps for alternative use in any sort of online narrative piece from news to stories. Having licensed HERE maps for use in their API, Maps4News is an essential map service where journalists can create mapping content for editorial platforms like newspapers, magazines and their websites. The company is already working with more than 100 publications across the world, including De Telegraaf in The Netherlands, Süddeutsche Zeitung in Germany, the Financial Times in the UK, and the Washington Post and CNN in the US. The perfect companion in the digital landscape Maps4News provides a variety of map types to choose from that be created to support your article perfectly.

Maps4News’s most exciting map model is undoubtedly the “dynamic map” model. These maps are the most interactive, allowing for clickable

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locations, complete with built-in descriptions of the highlighted points of interest, and pictures to call out specific features one might find there.

Next is locator model which is widely used to highlight particular areas within the context of the bigger picture. Simply putting, consider if you wanted to show secreted places throughout New York City, then you can highlight these within the confines of the city limits. When you are typing in a location, Maps4News gives you various region options to decide which works best for your piece. Another map type is annotation map, which is primarily used for exploration or tourism articles, because these maps allow you to highlight various areas using icons, arrows and various other functionalities that help you make a simple map more interactive and engaging. On the whole, the varied range maps with which Maps4News operates, is the reason why it is the perfect companion in the digital landscape, allowing maps to be visually interactive and fun.

The journey and the rise from beyond exclamation Maps4News’s parent company is Falk – a large cartographic company in the Netherlands and Germany. Around 15 years ago, the company decided to automate their production environment for the rapid definition and automatic generation of high-quality cartographic output, and to ease this process they needed a workflow tool. Soon, the team developed cartographic production software which proved its significance instantaneously. This software turned out be very useful for the company as it allowed to acclaim the biggest part of the cartographic market in the area and also the reduction in costs and manpower.

Fast forward to 2007, with Christian Erades joining the team, MapCreator

was founded as a new company to help other companies with this mapping solution. After helping different kind of markets with its mapping technology, the team started to work more and more with newsrooms. By working closely with the newsrooms, the team reinvented its mapping platform and made it a perfect fit for newsrooms helping them with all their editorial cartography needs. And that’s how Maps4News was started as the mapping service to the news media industry. At present, more than 300 companies are using this Maps4News, ranging from national newspapers to all kinds of newsrooms like broadcasting, local news and news websites. Maps4News is also used by real estate companies, touristic publishers and legal oriented companies. The Maps4News support team is dedicated to help all its users in the best possible way and nowadays the company also has a journalist on board helping with featured content on top of the maps for relevant news stories. This all in an easy and accessible online map tool.

Dedication to take the extra mile for clients Talking about the young and dynamic team, everyone shares the same vision and love for mapping. Everyone works passionately with a strong focus on journalism and dedication to take the extra mile to help all its users on the platform to get the most out of our mapping capabilities. Moreover, Maps4News’s strong connections with its world-wide local representations helps the team to give the most to its user base and make sure they stick with the company for a long time.

There are numerous advantages of using Maps4News tool and the news editors and journalists are surely using it to its fullest. Below are some of the

advantages that Maps4News provides: ·

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Create detailed maps of every location in the world: Maps4News allows anyone to create basic story locators or data-rich map visualizations with the best mapping data in the world.

Use your own brand and design elements: Maps4News can design everything for you from colors to fonts, labels and markers to match your visual identity and publications.

Visualize your data: With Maps4News, you can visualize your data by uploading or copying & pasting your spreadsheets and databases (Excel, CSV’s).

Export to various formats: Maps4News gives you the option to annotate and export maps dynamically to various formats including static

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images. (SVG, PDF, EPS, PNG, JPG) Publish on every device: With Maps4News at your help, you can use responsive embeds and powerful downloads, and publish your production-ready maps in minutes.

One place for all your maps: Maps4News has the most fully featured and detailed map editor available online.

You need a detailed street map? A country map? Print or online? Maps4News got you covered!

So, what does the customers have to say about Maps4News’s services?

Let’s see!

“Having a tool like Maps4News allows us to get the state-of-the-art maps without having a cartographer or graphic specialist on staff. We went from having no mapping in our papers and on our web sites, to using more than 100 in many of our publications

last year. This wouldn’t have been possible without Maps4News.” – Jon Wile, ACBJ “Maps4News is an easy to use interface that has taken hours off our weekly map production time. They are an extremely dedicated team, who are constantly improving their products to make sure they deliver exactly what the customer needs for their tool.” – Steve Bernard, Financial Times When asked about the future prospect of the company Christian said, “Our future focus with Maps4News is to help them with editorial content. So not only a tool that helps the newsroom but also the data and stories on top of them making the maps fit to actual leading news items. We see more journalistic content in our featured maps, improved functionality and a better integration into newsroom workflows.”

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Mike Bundock Founder & Director Augview

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Geographically Augmented 49

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he emergence of Augmented Reality has ushered-in a wave of excitement and growth across different industries. AR has waved its magic wand to ameliorate various business domains, including travelling, media & entertainment, education and beyond!

Now, AR Is quickly establishing its ground as an effective solution for visualizing location data in the field, whether it be for navigational purposes or managing underground construction. But this potential of AR technology in the GIS arena was identified and leveraged upon by a company named Augview.

The journey for Augview officially started in 2012 when the development was first seeded by the company’s founder Mike Bundock and his small team of GIS technology specialists. Ever since then the company hasn’t looked back and has established a name for itself as the world’s first augmented reality asset management application.

The Beginning Mike has been working in the GIS industry for almost 39 years. During this period, spanning close to four decades, Mike has worked with utilities, telcos, municipalities and governments, and has even analyzed requirements, architected solutions and delivered operational systems.

By 2010, desktop solutions were sufficiently sophisticated to support large databases, managing complex network topologies, and a large number of concurrent users

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performing complex analytical functions. However, in the field, the teams planning, installing and maintaining the network infrastructure were still operating almost universally with paper maps, tape measures and pencils. To compound the issues of the everincreasing density of underground assets, the utility and telco industries had undergone a period of corporatization and privatization.

This resulted in asset owners employing contractors to perform the design, construction and maintenance of the networks. Today, this is a deep hierarchy of subcontractors, where at the bottom of the hierarchy are poorly trained field staff, competing on price, with little training and short term employment expectations. The experienced engineers are long gone, the ones who boast a wealth of knowledge about the networks, geoschematics, engineering drawings, etc.

was a mobile AR solution, which was primarily designed for online usage.

Back in 2011, a prototype was developed and it was presented at GIS exhibitions to gain feedback.

The general response was universally positive.

The Journey The journey of Augview can be characterized as a waiting game; the wait for hardware capability to catch up with the Augview software. Up until recently, smart phones and tablets have not had the technology to reliably and accurately determine location and orientation to operate precisely. The addition of the expensive, cumbersome GNSS antenna and processor was necessary to provide sufficient accuracy to the same. With the latest round of devices released by Apple and Samsung, this is increasingly no longer the case and Augview can operate unhindered.

“A new solution was required that was easier for the new workforce to use, one which provided rapid comprehension and eliminated the bottlenecks associated with hand drawn records and transcription processes,” Mike recalls. The answer

Furthermore, development of Augview has now taken it to the point where it can track user movement without the aid of GNSS, thereby enabling it to function indoors and in places where GNSS signals are weak or unreliable.

“Now, after years of trialing and testing with prospects and clients, the Augview product is now largely fully developed.”

As a result of this development, there has recently been a surge of enquiries and demand for trials, from a range of organizations around the world.

Augview is therefore poised for growth with early adopters, prior to the anticipated mass adoption forecasted in two to three years.

The Leader Augview is led by one of the market’s leading experts and visionaries in GIS, Mike Bundock.

With an extensive portfolio of experience in the GIS market, Mike has led the company from its inception to what it is known as today. He holds previous experience with multiple start-ups and GIS product development, including Smallworld Systems. Mike was involved from its product inception in the UK, assisted in growing the customer base throughout Europe prior to establishing Smallworld within Australia and NZ. Mike has been the key visionary and driver of Augview throughout the company life and will continue to be so. As the company seeks to strengthen its management team to cope with the global interest in the Augview product, Mike will be able to focus more on the technology without having to worry about dayto-day business administrations.

The Benefits One of the most exciting and integral aspects of Augview is that it delivers benefits to a range of industrial

sectors. The benefits depend largely upon who is using the application.

For organizations contracted to carry out installation and maintenance of utility infrastructure, there are three clear benefits which are stated below: 1. Augview provides the potential to reduce collateral damages, i.e. accidentally digging into underground cables or pipes when excavating. A study by the University of Birmingham in UK estimated the cost to be at £4,500 per strike in actual damage alone, plus unquantified cost in lost time and economic disruption.

One contractor in the UK reports an average of one strike per day, which hold a cost of over £1.5m per annum.

2. The second benefit provided

by Augivew is time saving.

Using paper-based plans to find underground cables is difficult and time-consuming and often leads to inaccurate excavation. Augview enables an operator to quickly and accurately identify where to dig. Using their GPS functionality, operators are able to know where they stand and can immediately see where the underground assets are relative to their location.

3. The third benefit is improved health and safety, one which is hard to quantify. What price would you put on a field worker not electrocuting themselves?

However, reduced insurance costs might be the best way

to convince the accountants of the financial benefits.

The Market Competition and the Future The company is believed to have a clear first mover advantage in the market, creating a gap which will take a potential competitor 18 months to 2 years to close.

“Remarkably, there are very few actual competing products on the market for immediate commercial use. This does not mean to say there aren’t companies working in this space or that there are claims of products that offer similar functionality,” mentions Mike.

At present, Augview’s greatest competitor is its existing methodologies and the inertia that accompanies it. The emergence of rival technology would actually be a welcome sight according to the company itself, as this would undoubtedly help them accelerate the conversion from paper to AR. The simple biggest event that will encourage mass adoption of AR in the industry will be the launch of user-friendly augmented reality glasses. Mike claims that “These devices will allow the users to experience applications like Augview with their hands free, replacing smart phone and tablet technologies.”

Augview has already architected for AR glasses, and the company anticipates that appropriate devices will be available in the market later in 2018, while moving to mass market adoption starting in 2020.

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“Geography is a subject which holds the key to our future.”

Michael Palin

Everything Sings Maps for a Narrative Atlas

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n 1974, I began teaching environmental perception to landscape architecture students at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. I used mapping as a way of selectively focusing their attention on those aspects of the landscape that, in the instrumentality of their training as future professionals, they were apt to overlook: the way the land smelled, the way it felt in their legs when they walked it, the sound of the wind in the oaks after all the other leaves had fallen, the way twilight made all the difference. At least this was all useless knowledge — nothing a developer or a bank could

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monetize — and the maps were fun to make. And because landscape architecture students are design students, there was both an attention to polish and an imaginative drive to find the less “mappable” things that, from the beginning, set their work apart from that of cartography students who were more concerned with “getting it right.” Even so, I couldn’t get them to leave the streets off their maps.

As they mapped the nearby neighborhoods — Cameron Village, Cameron Park, Deveraux, Brooklyn Heights and Boylan Heights — the streets seemed to

Denis Wood geographer

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be the irreducible subject, the whatit-was that made neighborhoods neighborhoods. If you’re laying out subdivisions, as many of these students would end up doing professionally, streets really are all you have to play with, which is exactly why I was all the more eager to get rid of them. The streets seemed to inhibit the other qualities to which I was trying to draw their attention. The streets always emerged in the foreground no matter how far into the background you intended them to recede.

the edges, and one night, armed with a camera, we scaled a fence and climbed a radio tower on the edge of Boylan Heights hoping to catch the night lights on film. What a disappointment! The view from above was nothing like walking in and out of the pools of dappled light on the streets below. But I had a pochoir brush at home, and when Carter Crawford — who’d put himself in charge of atlas graphics — used it to draw the circles, it was magical. That was the way it felt to be walking the streets at night!

“That’s when I knew we could write poems in maps, and I began thinking seriously about a poetics of cartography.”

Nothing but blotches of white. The usual “efficient” map would have located everything on the street onto a single sheet — that is, different marks for lamp posts, fire hydrants, street signs, trees. Our inefficient map concentrated on a single subject, and, rather than lamp posts, it brought the pools of light into view. No legend, no north arrow, no neat line, none of the usual apparatus. At last, a modernist feel!

Then in 1982 we were working on Boylan Heights, on a whole atlas of Boylan Heights, specifically a map of street lights, and we began paring away the inessential, the map crap (the neat line, the scale, the north arrow), the neighborhood boundaries, the topography, finally the streets: first the scaled streets, then a schematic grid of the streets, and finally, even a hint of a grid of the streets. Daylight went too — that default daylight that most maps take for granted — so that we were fooling around with circles of white on a black background. It became clear that the map wasn’t about the lamp posts, but about the lamp light, and light was something we weren’t sure how to deal with.

Certainly, the uniform white circles we’d been drawing caught nothing of the way the light was fringed at

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That’s when I knew we could write poems in maps, and I began thinking seriously about a poetics of cartography.

One way of thinking about Boylan Heights is as a place in Raleigh, North Carolina, bounded by a prison and an insane asylum and some railroad tracks and a little creek. But there are other ways of thinking about it too. You could think about it as a neighborhood, that is, as some sort of community, or as a marriage of community and

place, or as those people in that place, their relationships, and their ways in the world; and thus, less a place than a process, a life process, a metabolic one. That would take an atlas to unravel: what a neighborhood is, what a neighborhood does, how a neighborhood works.

“If this weren’t such an ordinary, everyday thing, you’d think it was magic, but it’s just the transformation of the impossible, inaccessible space of the city into the possible, accessible space in which you live.”

When you look really hard at a neighborhood, it’s impossible to miss how uncertain its edges are.

This is because neighborhoods aren’t about being distinctive, or rather, they’re not especially about being distinctive. The most important thing about neighborhoods is how similar to the rest of the city they are, how undifferentiated, how ordinary.

Neighborhoods are part of the city.

They’re most of it. What neighborhoods do is make the city real. They transform the common, ordinary stuff of the city — water and sewer, electricity, streets — into the real stuff of our lives. This is the part the neighborhood plays in the life of the city, the part of a Proteus capable of turning a perfectly ordinary lamp post or crab apple tree or stretch of sidewalk into that power pole whose cables hum and sing at night as you fall asleep, that crab apple

beneath which you played as a child, that stretch of sidewalk in which your kids wrote their names while the concrete was still wet. It transforms the stars that shine on everyone alike into the stars that you wish on.

If this weren’t such an ordinary, everyday thing, you’d think it was magic, but it’s just the transformation of the impossible, inaccessible space of the city into the possible, accessible space in which you live; the transformation of the city as a whole — the abstracted “too many miles, too many people”— into you, into me, into us. (From the other side, of course, we are the “too many people.”)

Let me hasten to say that, by no means, has all of this made it into the book Everything Sings or the slideshow presented here. These are maps for a narrative atlas, not the atlas itself. I have included four new maps drawn for Places, along with a selection of maps from the book. The threads began to twist themselves into an epic poem whose structure may someday shoulder the burden of its argument. But the project is not finished, and it may never be. What you see here is a piece of a dream: a collection of maps as a poem, or fragments of a much longer poem out of which a passable semblance of the whole has been reconstructed.

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Howard Slavin Founder & President Caliper Corporation

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Legacy meets Technology

F

ounded in 1983 and headquartered in Newton, MA, Caliper Corporation, is a tech-giant in the development of geographic information systems (GIS) and transportation software. Recognized as a leading consulting and R&D provider offering professional services in quantitative management consulting, transportation, and decision support systems development, Caliper software products are supported with extensive technical services in GIS applications and training, database development and software customization. Moreover, Caliper’s notorious

software, TransCAD is the first and only Geographic Information System (GIS) designed specifically for use by transportation professionals to store, display, manage, and analyze transportation data.

The beginning of this journey started with Howard Slavin and his collaborators developing TransCAD built on the capabilities of the emerging field of GIS. In developing TransCAD, Caliper sought to embrace and incorporate various research advances throughout the US and beyond, including an early version of an algorithm devised by Evans, S P. in 1976. TransCAD

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was first released as a MS-DOSbased transportation GIS package in 1985. The software enjoyed considerable success in the US during the 1990s and is now the dominant software for transportation planning in the United States.

Because Caliper had created an easy-to-use mapping and GIS interface as part of TransCAD, it made sense to spin this off as Maptitude, but without the niche transportation planning tools. This made the Maptitude software a powerful mapping tool for business users who are not GIS professionals but who still need to utilize location intelligence. As part of this pivot, Caliper was the first company to provide a comprehensive nationwide dataset of US Census demographics and geographical data (such as tract boundaries) as individual and seamless layers, integrated with a GIS interface. Such integration included tools such as the intuitive and unprecedented Map My Own Data Wizard.

The most effective solution for business mapping In the early 1990s, Slavin, noticed a disconnect between the rapidly increasing processing power of desktop PCs and the expensive, specialized hardware being used for political redistricting in the USA. Caliper had been producing mapping software for tasks like transportation planning and market analysis, but the company saw an opening. Slavin originally planned to market the company’s standard

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mapping software for redistricting, but he soon realized that a modified product tightly tailored to the needs of groups drawing lines on a regular basis would do even better, and Maptitude for Redistricting was born. At first, the company sold it to groups such as the NAACP and Southern Christian Leadership Committee that wanted to check if the lines drawn by politicians were biased against the constituencies they represented.

Over the ensuing years, Maptitude became the industry standard for redistricting.

Today, Maptitude is the most effective solution for business mapping combining ease of use, broad functionality, and valuable datasets the value of which alone greatly exceeds the price of the software. With the lowest price for a professional mapping application, Maptitude provides unlimited geocoding, flexible pin mapping, drive time bands, and a variety of route planning and territory tools that meet the varied needs of organizations, at an affordable price for even the smallest businesses. It has tens of thousands of users who can be found in almost any business or organization that you can imagine from Fortune 50 companies through to mom and pop shops and the local pizza delivery guy. Maptitude mapping software is used in retail, real estate, restaurants, franchises, healthcare, banking, and business in general.

The most advanced and powerful Besides developing TransCAD

Transportation Planning Software and Maptitude Geographic Information System Software packages, Caliper, over the years, also developed TransModeIer Traffic Simulation Software. Today, TransCAD and TransModeler are the best applications worldwide in their category and are relied upon by thousands of transportation planners and traffic engineers in more than 70 countries. Billions of dollars of public investment in transportation infrastructure have been guided by the analysis enabled by these products for transportation professionals.

This TransModeler application enables more efficient navigation for individual road users and more effective management of traffic flow and congestion mitigation on a wide area scale. It also provides a solution for effective evacuation planning and work zone management. TransModeler is a system for traffic data, asset

mechanisms, including dynamic tolling of highway facilities; and can be used to analyze futuristic systems, such as autonomous, selfdriving vehicles (AVs).

management, and traffic simulation that is based upon a 4-D geographic information system (GIS) database, with lane level and intersection area detail. TransModeler traffic simulation software provides a realistic representation of traffic flows and an effective means of analyzing and improving traffic flow through network enhancements and improved traffic management.

Caliper describes TransModeler as being the world’s most advanced and powerful traffic simulator, which is capable of simulating large regional transportation networks at the individual vehicle level. The software simulates individual vehicles with 0.1 second fidelity; models various types of driver behavior, including aggressiveness in car-following and lane-changing; simulates pre-timed and actuated traffic signals, message signs and other intelligent transportation systems (ITS)

The continual focus on customer needs If the success of this legacy has to be attributed to something, then it is Caliper’s constant focus on the customer needs. Time and again, the company has believed that it is the best way to grow your market and be in fortuitous situations. One such moment when Caliper felt its focus – to listening to customers and developing software based on their requirements – has paid off, is when Maptitude became the obvious choice for businesses looking for a MapPoint replacement after Microsoft discontinued the MapPoint software. Complimenting to the services Caliper provides, its team that thrives on being challenged and in using their expertise to imagine, innovate, and explore has always been the biggest advantage of the company. “At our global headquarters in Newton, MA, we are privileged to work with some of the best and brightest experts in transportation planning, traffic simulation, and GIS/mapping as we create cutting-edge software to solve some of the world’s toughest problems. Each team member is encouraged to realize their potential, through endless learning opportunities, a culture committed to driving innovation, and a friendly and respectful work environment,” asserts Slavin on his team.

The future outlook Going ahead, in addition to expanding the user base and feature set of TransCAD and Maptitude, Caliper will continue to develop lane-level routing of individual and multiple vehicles through regional transportation networks.

TransModeler will be extended to recommend and evaluate alternative lane-level routings for individual vehicles. Unlike systems that rely solely on current and/or historical conditions, the use of simulation to evaluate navigation recommendations will provide more reliable, consistent, and efficient routings. It will also provide the basis for more effective pre-planned and real time traffic management systems.

The frontrunner Prior to the formation of Caliper Corporation, Slavin was the Director of Marketing Research at Charles River Associates. In that position, he directed the company’s marketing research projects for clients in a wide variety of consumer and industrial markets.

Early in his career, Slavin was also the Chief of the Evaluation Branch of the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center and served as the Chief of the Information Systems Development Branch of the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center of the U.S. Department of Transportation. His diverse experiences drive him to develop cutting edge mapping software for businesses and transportation planners.

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Geospatial Legacy T

he convergence of Mobile, Big Data, IoT, AI and VR has opened up unprecedented possibilities for business optimization and newer revenue streams. ‘Smart’ is the new phenomenon. Smart infrastructure, Smart Utilities, Smart city, Smart cars etc. The confluence of IoT, Machine Learning, AI and VR herald a new age of productivity. It also heralds a new age for mapping services and geospatial content. Enters Genesys – the only company which can claim to be an end-to-end partner for its customers – be it aerial survey and Pano imagery based development of 3D Smart City platform or feature extraction from LiDAR point cloud for creating HD Maps for Smart Cars.

With over two decades of rich experience, Genesys has executed the most complex projects in the Geospatial industry and continues to break new grounds. Genesys International Corporation Ltd, established in 1995, is a global IT Services company specializing in Geographical Information System (GIS) and Geospatial Engineering domain. Headquartered in India and with state-of-the-art infrastructure, Genesys operates 5 Geospatial production and software development centers in India. Genesys has operations in USA, UK, Europe and UAE. Genesys has been delivering services to growing list of Fortune 500 and SME clients in USA, Europe, Africa, ANZ, UAE and India with most of its client engagements running into multi-year relationships. The firm has a unique blend of understanding the emerging consumer applications of mapping technology in addition to offering solutions based on traditional applications of the state of art Remote Sensing, LiDAR, Aerial Survey and Photogrammetry.

The rise and shine of industry giant Genesys has seen significant growth from its formative years to reach close to 2000 employees today. The first phase of its two decade of journey saw Genesys being the first non-government company in India to start photogrammetric mapping.

Starting from small offshore projects in photogrammetry and Geo-spatial mapping, Genesys made a big leap in 1997 by doing a large scale mapping of an entire country in the Middle East. Genesys came to be counted amongst the largest

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Kuldeep Moholkar CEO Genesys

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photogrammetry and orthophoto service provider in the Middle East. By 2000, the company had established itself in US while partnering with US companies on their mapping projects. In 2001, Genesys carried out the conversion of land parcels for the entire state of Tennessee (US). The challenging job of completing more than 3 million tax parcels was accomplished in less than 3 years. The company’s process driven approach made it India’s first GIS company to get ISO 9001 certification.

The following phase of its journey saw Genesys becoming the first Indian company to adopt LiDAR Mobile Mapping setting new standards in terrain mapping; the reason being LiDAR technology produced highly precise and accurate maps compared to other conventional sources. Genesys started providing LiDAR based services & solutions to many industries such as urban planning, telecom, infrastructure planning and management, forest, rail/road engineering, survey assessments, disaster management and volumetric calculations. Genesys was also the front runner to have entered the navigation mapping way back in 2006.

Pioneering the BOT model, the company partnered with NavTeq to produce HERE maps (mobile based navigation maps) for Nokia. Furthermore, the large fleet of LiDAR scanners accompanied with 360 degree panoramic imageries has enabled Genesys to map more than 2,75,000 km in India in last couple of years and create the street maps of 54 Indian cities.

The final and current phase of Genesys’s journey is perhaps the most exciting one for the company. As spatial technologies play a key role in all smart technologies, high precision content is essential for a high precision world.

LiDAR is emerging as a key new technology in creating the next generation map content and applications. Highly accurate maps are now required for the next generation of applications. Genesys has been at the forefront of smart city applications, advanced navigation maps and smart infrastructure. On the Autonomous Driving front, Genesys is already developing HD Map content which will become an integral part of the autonomous car ecosystem.

Pioneer of unique GIS services Genesys provides conventional GIS services along with the latest new age technologies to wide range of industries – Urban, Transportation, Utilities, Infrastructure and Commerce. Its broad range of services include: ·

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PHOTOGRAMETRY: Pioneer in Photogrammetry, Genesys has processed over 1.2 million sq km of Orthophotos / True Orthophotos

at varying resolutions from multiple sensors.

Genesys has executed Aerial Photography and GPS data collection in 15 countries across 4 continents - North America, Africa, Europe and Asia. Genesys is a trusted provider of photogrammetry services for aerial triangulation, terrain modeling, orthophoto generations, DEM/DTM generation and 3D City Modelling.

The company’s photogrammetry services enable clients to get highly accurate map and spatial. ·

LiDAR ENGINEERING: Genesys has the highest number of LiDAR equipment in the entire sub-continent, a dedicated team of experts for conducting Mobile, Terrestrial and Airborne LiDAR survey. Like photogrammetry, Genesys is a pioneer in introducing LiDAR technology for Telecom, Road, Rail, Urban Planning and Management, cross-country O&G pipelines, irrigation, mining and forestry applications in India and overseas.

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MAPPING: Genesys has vast experience in creating 2D & 3D Maps for host of industries. One of the most significant growth areas in the world of data is the area of data visualization hence the Geospatial industry is observing a shift from traditional 2D mapping to 3D rendering. The vast expertise and experience of Genesys to integrate GIS, CAD and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) services to produce 2D maps is now embracing technologies like LiDAR & VR to allow 3D visualization. Genesys has built significant capability in High Definition (HD) mapping for Autonomous Driving which requires very high accuracy levels.

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BIMS: To meet the demand for better work in less time, Architecture, Engineer and Construction stakeholders want accurate building information.

BIM is much more than just 3D visualization; it rather provides a complete process for creating and managing a building. It is a digitally supported process for planning, constructing and operating buildings.

Vision that keeps them exploring At a macro level, Genesys’ resources are broadly aligned with its priorities. However, there is always a scope for reallocating the company’s resources in the portfolio to drive greater growth. The overall vision for the company is

spread over 3 Horizons for concurrently managing current and future growth opportunities.

Horizon 1: Over next 4-6 quarters, Genesys will Extend and Defend its core business that generates today’s cash flow (ROI, Profits). This means consolidating the India market share with core offering – Survey & Mapping with sharp focus on Infra, Urban, Telecom – largely driven by Government policy.

Horizon 2: Horizon 2 spread over 6-12 quarters is all about building Emerging Businesses and establishing Geo presence that will form a solid platform for tomorrow’s

cash flow. Genesys sees several whitespaces for its differentiated offering in 3D Mapping and basic GIS services in the International markets.

Horizon 3: Horizon 3 is really looking at creating viable growth options by selectively looking at emerging highgrowth business opportunities. This also includes identifying new market transitions proactively and partnering with or investing in or outright acquiring relevant disruptors across verticals of interest. For that, Genesys will be leveraging its Technology Partners, and/or by becoming part of ecosystems in the Silicon Valley or the Automotive OEMs to stay most relevant for its customers.

Meet a seasoned business leader Recently joined Chief Executive Officer of Genesys, Kuldeep Moholkar is a seasoned business leader with over 21 years of experience across Consulting, IT Services and Engineering Services. Kuldeep joined Genesys from Wipro Ltd. where he spent the past 14 years in leadership roles across Sales, Delivery, Consulting, Competency Management and Business Operations. In his most recent assignment, he was the COO of Wipro Japan. Additionally, he also headed Strategy and Sales Transformation function for the Growth Markets Unit within the organization.

Kuldeep comes with a proven record of incubating and scaling up new businesses in his previous organizations. He has led multi-cultural teams across US, Europe, ASEAN, Japan, Middle East and India. Kuldeep's appointment is a clear reflection of the company's ambition: gearing up for the future and high on confidence on Genesys' capabilities to address international business. Genesys is poised for a major push in the overseas markets with diverse service offerings and the company is excited what Kuldeep's unique experience in the market can bring for them. There is enormous opportunity for Genesys that lies ahead, and they want to transform themselves to make the most of it.

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