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St. Louis is Defining th its Niche in the 4 Industrial Revolution
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orld Economic Forum Founder and Chairman Klaus Schwab observed in a 2016 article, The Fourth Industrial Revolution: What is Means, How to Respond, “We stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In its scale, scope, and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before.” Schwab suggested, unlike the First, Second, and Third Industrial Revolutions, there are unique aspects to this Fourth Industrial Revolution: its velocity; scope, systems impact, evolution at an exponential pace, and the fact that this Fourth Industrial Revolution is disrupting almost every industry in every country. “The breadth and depth of these changes herald the transformation of entire systems of production, management, and governance.” While he did not explicitly call this Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) “geospatial technology,” I believe it is fair to say that, in the ensuing six years, this clearly has revolved around the disciplines and capacities of geospatial and geospatial intelligence (GEOINT). 36 | www.geospatialworld.net | May-June 2022
US Senator Roy Blunt, joined Westway President Jack Pryor, Plum Run Managing Partner Keith Masback, and Dick Fleming at SCIF Groundbreaking
The next big opportunity Fast forward to 2022, Geospatial World CEO and Founder Sanjay Kumar documented the scale and scope of the 4IR, observing in the GeoBuiz 22: Global Industry Outlook Report that the “geospatial industry is the next ‘big opportunity’ for technology companies both as an ‘advancing market in itself’ and ‘augmenting business processes’ of mainstream IT, Engineering, and Autonomous industries.”
federal government to build the 3,100-job, 100-acre, USD 1.75 billion new western headquarters of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) at the heart of the 1,500-acre NorthSide Regeneration Mixed-Use Development, several blocks north of St. Louis’ downtown, the community has assessed the potential of the city to become a global hub for geospatial intelligence — both defense and commercial applications.
“This will result in geospatial getting by default embedded in Digital Twin and Metaverse, which will inturn impact how humans interact with [the] digital and physical world in near real time,” says the report.
St. Louis has identified five overall business and civic initiatives in the GeoFutures Plan to fulfill its potential to become a global geospatial hub:
The global geospatial economy is projected to be USD 681 billion by 2025, and to geometrically grow by 2030 to USD 1.44 trillion. As was the case with the IT sector in the latter half of the 20th Century, and the focus by communities on economic development in the biotech sector in the past two decades, today, cities and regions are beginning to focus on their economic development and quality of life by emphasizing on the geospatial sector.
So it is with St. Louis Since the 2016 decision by the
Scale up talent/workforce development; Raise innovation capacity; Accelerate entrepreneurship; Support the advancement of public/private partnership development in GEOINT-related innovation districts and surrounding neighborhoods; and, Brand and position St. Louis as a national & international GEOINT thought leader. St. Louis is focusing on geospatial in four industry sectors — national security; digital/precision agriculture; logistics; and healthcare delivery. With regard to the key public/
