2019 Esri User Conference (UC) Recap for Engineers, Architects, and Construction Professionals

From the Plenary to the Map Gallery to the Thursday Night Party to the Closing Session– the world’s largest GIS conference, #EsriUC 2019 was absolutely unforgettable. For a great summary of the 2019 Esri UC, you should check out the Big Ideas Poster that highlights the Plenary Session's big ideas, and Esri founder Jack Dangermond’s vision for the GIS community.

Activities for engineers, architects, and construction professionals included: 2019 Engineering Summit, UC Expo & Demo Theater, Technical Workshops, and User Presentations. Hundreds of professionals from the AEC industry learned from innovative peers, discovered best practices and lessons learned. Below is a summary of the top takeaways from the 2019 Esri UC.

GIS – The Intelligent Nervous System

This year's big vision conference theme was "GIS - The Intelligent Nervous System". This meant to draw a parallel between the responsive nature of a nervous system and the emerging capabilities of a GIS. GIS resembles a nervous system in the sense that it brings together data from many sources including traditional systems of record, real-time sensor networks, and historical information. Increasingly, GIS is being used to dynamically integrate, analyze, and transform this data into actionable information that triggers responses across an organization or a community. As a result, GIS helps organizations better understand what’s happening and more effectively respond to situations in real-time. GIS is a fundamental infrastructure for creating “intelligent” organizations (i.e., cities, utilities, etc.) and GIS professionals are essential in creating and managing this infrastructure. Applying The Science of Where is creating digital nervous systems for organizations.

See What Others Can't

The other theme of the conference was See What Others Can't: the ability for people and organizations to apply GIS to find clarity, see patterns, gain insight and understand the bigger picture.

If you missed the Plenary, or want to relive every minute of the day, the recorded Plenary presentation videos are available here.

Engineering Summit

Around 150 people attended the 2019 Engineering Summit this year (30% more than last year). This was a focused summit for architecture, engineering, construction, and surveying professionals. The speakers shared their view of innovation and success strategies to common AEC industry challenges with the examples of creative geospatial solutions.

Integrating Location & Design

A new collaboration between Autodesk and Esri intends to put GIS and BIM (Building Information Modeling) at the center of projects, driving smarter decisions, optimized designs, accelerated project approvals, reduced costs, smarter cities, and resilient infrastructure.

Paul Murphy from GHD delivered a presentation titled 'Integrating Location & Design' as the keynote for the 2019 Engineering Summit (Read his LinkedIn article). He mentioned that the integration of location and design gives us a holistic view of an asset throughout its entire lifecycle from design, construction to maintenance and disposal.

Mobile Solutions

The Field Operations capability of the ArcGIS Platform enables you to optimize efficiency in field activities with the power of location intelligence. Two new field apps were introduced at the conference: Tracker for ArcGIS (location tracking) and ArcGIS QuickCapture (rapid data collection). These are important new apps that will help engineering firms who are regularly doing fieldwork and data collection.

Expo Area

The UC Expo is the place to explore, collaborate, learn, and find inspiration. Esri AEC team was available to enlighten expo visitors on the latest applications of geospatial technology in the AEC industry.

Map Gallery

Out of the 1,180 maps submitted to the Map Gallery, award winners were announced during the Closing Session for the 16 categories. Many engineering firms also displayed their geospatial solutions.

 Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) Awards

The SAG Award ceremony is held at the annual Esri User Conference. Jack Dangermond, president and founder of Esri, personally selects recipients and presides over the ceremony. These organizations set new precedents throughout the GIS community.

An AEC firm Tetra Tech was among the SAG award recipients this year for their robust emergency response geospatial solution for USEPA. Congratulations to Tetra Tech!

Closing Remarks

The Intelligent Nervous System, with Esri Geospatial Cloud, geo-enabled systems and all other tools will help people See What Others Can't. As an engineer, architect, surveyor, construction professional, you can transform your organization through improved workflows, better collaboration, and partnerships to build smart communities and assets for the future. You can guide your clients to maximize The Science of Where to See What Others Can't and make smarter decisions with the power of geospatial technology!