Location Matters

In this episode of Location Matters, host Nick Chai is joined by Oliver Looker, Director of Transport and Smart Cities at NGIS, to talk about what it actually takes to measure road congestion across an entire city. The average person living in a major Australian city loses around 80 hours a year to traffic, and building more roads is rarely the affordable answer.Oliver explains how TraceMark Flow turns Google's Road Management Insights data into something transport agencies can work with, refreshed every two minutes and covering a whole city or a whole country without putting a single new camera or sensor in the ground. He also covers how the approach compares with SCATS and inductive loop sensors, where AI fits into predicting the effect of storms and big events, a case study from Thessaloniki that measured a 40% travel time impact from a major road project, and why the congestion an agency knows about is often not the congestion costing it the most.Key Topics Covered:[0:14] Meet Oliver Looker, and the plan to become a pharmacist that turned into a career in geospatial[1:42] MapInfo, Arc/Info and ArcView: what GIS looked like in the 1990s[2:58] Conservation and Land Management, the UK, and a knock at the door from NGIS co-founder Richard Bentley[4:24] Winning a Google Maps Platform award for TraceMark Flow[4:59] What TraceMark Flow is: tools built around Google's Road Management Insights data[5:54] A ten year journey, starting with Transport for NSW in 2015[6:21] The cost of congestion, from 80 hours a year in Australian cities to $293 billion across the US and Europe[7:51] Why coverage and scale matter more than any single sensor[9:13] Predictability: the metric transport agencies actually care about, from airport runs to freight corridors[10:05] How TraceMark Flow compares with SCATS, inductive loops and CCTV, and why it complements rather than replaces them[11:47] Where AI comes in: predicting the effect of weather events, storms and big crowds[13:23] Network resilience, and modelling flood and cyclone risk to road infrastructure out to 2040[14:26] Situational awareness today, digital twins next[15:31] Asking the platform a plain-language question and getting the insight back[16:26] Case study in Thessaloniki: measuring a 40% travel time impact from a major flyover project[19:12] Anonymised, aggregated, and refreshed every two minutes[20:04] Why building out a physical sensor network is cost prohibitive, and what happens when half of it stops working[22:07] What implementation involves, and why it is a matter of weeks[23:49] Finding congestion nobody knew about, from traffic light phasing to potholes in New Zealand[25:58] Prioritising roads, incident types and reporting by role[27:15] Where to find TraceMark FlowResources Mentioned:TraceMark Flow, NGIS's transport management platformTraceMark, the wider NGIS product suiteNGISGoogle Road Management Insights, the traffic dataset within Google Maps Platform that TraceMark Flow is built onCreating Smarter Cities eBookSCATS, the adaptive traffic signal control system developed by Transport for NSWGoogle Maps and Waze, the source of the user-generated disruption reports discussed in the episodeITS AustraliaAbout the Guest: Oliver Looker is Director of Transport and Smart Cities at NGIS and an active member of ITS Australia. With more than 25 years in spatial science, he believes location intelligence is the key to the future of transport and sustainability. Oliver studied at Curtin University, began his career with Western Australia's Department of Conservation and Land Management and an agricultural consultancy in the UK, and joined NGIS in 2004. He now leads the team behind TraceMark Flow, which won a Google Maps Platform award in 2025 for its work turning Google's road data into decision-ready intelligence for transport agencies, logistics operators and emergency services.Know someone working in transport, local government, logistics or geospatial technology? Share this episode with them.

Episode Description:In this episode of Location Matters, host Nick Chai sits down with Aditi Kale, who works on sustainability strategy for Google's consumer electronics division and its Nature & Biodiversity pillar. Aditi walks us through a case study from the industrial Red River Delta area of northern Vietnam, developed alongside NGIS's TraceMark™ platform, which shows that factories and industrial sites can be genuine, thriving habitats for local wildlife.A note on the regulations: At around 6:30–7:30 we refer to the EU regulations discussed as having been pushed back. To clarify: those delays apply to the CSRD and CSDDD. The EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) has not been pushed out and remains on its current timeline.From the EU's evolving deforestation and sustainability regulations, to the species ecologists have found living at “purely industrial” sites, to simple, low-cost “no regrets” actions any company can take today, this conversation makes the case that protecting biodiversity and running a resilient, cost-effective supply chain can go hand in hand.Key Topics Covered:[0:56] Meet Aditi Kale and the Red River Delta case study[1:05] Aditi's path to sustainability, from national security to Google's Nature & Biodiversity team[2:17] How the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) sparked Google's partnership with NGIS on TraceMark™[5:04] EUDR, CSRD, and the growing “alphabet soup” of EU sustainability regulation[7:22] Why getting started is easier than most businesses expect (Correction: the delays discussed here apply to CSRD/CSDDD. EUDR has not been pushed back.)[10:30] Reframing biodiversity as supply chain risk management[12:12] How TraceMark’s geospatial data pairs with on-the-ground species monitoring[13:52] Nature at work: the impact of green landscaping on factory worker wellbeing[16:31] Second-order wins: pollinators, local farmers, and surrounding communities[17:01] The proof: over a decade of native landscaping data from Google's own campuses[19:54] How industrial sites become accidental habitats, from marine jetties to factory floors[21:10] Getting started with TraceMark™, its new API, and licensing options for suppliers[22:11] “No regrets” actions: simple, low-cost wins any company can implement today[23:10] A new, free ecological-planning tool, and why it works for backyards too[25:55] Inside the biodiversity monitoring manual: affordable, privacy-first acoustic and eDNA sensors[28:25] Aditi's closing message: move past the doom and gloom, and take small actionResources Mentioned:TraceMark™, NGIS's geospatial sustainable sourcing platform, built on Google CloudNGISGoogle's Biodiversity White Paper: the Red River Delta, Vietnam case study referenced throughout the episodeGoogle's Biodiversity Monitoring Manual: an overview of affordable, privacy-centred monitoring devices (including passive acoustic and eDNA sampling)Second Nature Ecology and Design, ecology partner on the case studyEU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR)Google Earth EngineAbout the Guest: Aditi Kale leads sustainability strategy for Google's consumer electronics division, covering environmental and social responsibility for products and platforms including Pixel, Nest, Android OS, Chrome OS, Google Play, and Google Photos. She leads Google's Nature & Biodiversity pillar within its supply chain, working with partners like NGIS and Second Nature Ecology and Design to bring the same native-landscaping approach used at Google's own campuses to manufacturing sites around the world. Aditi has been at Google for over 15 years across a range of teams, and previously worked in the national security sector.Know someone working in sustainability, supply chain, or geospatial technology? Share this episode with them.

HERE Technologies has just been recognised as the top ranked location platform by industry analysts at Strategy Analytics. The annual report benchmarks the world’s largest location companies and ranks HERE, Google, Mapbox and TomTom across seven categories. We were lucky to speak with two experts in the location technology industry recently, and our discussion dives into why HERE Technologies outperforms other companies when it comes to data and maps for the emergency services industry. This episode of Location Matters features guest Jeeten Chauhan, General Manager from Next Mile Location Technology and Nick Preston, ex-HERE Technologies Product Portfolio Manager. With podcast host Claire Wilson, they discuss the unique challenges that emergency services face in data ingestion, storage and updates. HERE Data is imperative for emergency services organisations to have the most up to date data feeding into their CAD system and due to their commitment to quality data and regular updates—HERE Data is the best available on the market to fulfil this requirement. With up to date data, customisability features and real-time traffic visualisation, the HERE Geocoding, Routing and Map Data products are the best available on the market for emergency services organisations. Listen in to this episode to find out why. Read more: Data with benefits: Optimise your emergency management CAD system

Location Matters welcomes CEO of FrontierSI, Graeme Kernich to the podcast for the first time to get the scoop on the updated Coastal Risk Australia, climate modelling tool which was first built in 2015. In partnership with FrontierSI, NGIS developed Coastal Risk Australia to illustrate the severity of rising seas based on the latest scientific modelling, via an interactive map accessible to the public. On today's episode we'll be chatting with some of the people responsible for this game changing app - NGIS Executive Director, Nathan Eaton, and the CEO of FrontierSI, Graeme Kernich. Learn how this team used the 2021 IPCC data to update Coastal Risk Australia to show the public how rising sea levels may encroach on their community and wash away iconic Australian beaches by 2100. Coastal Risk AustraliaIPCC reportCOP26

We are excited to have Karen Joyce, She Maps Founder and Senior Lecturer in Remote Sensing, back on the Location Matters podcast this week! Karen sat down with our Senior GIS Consultant, Marty Rocks, and Winyama IT Coordinator, Time Cable, to talk about everything drone mapping. Tune in to this episode to learn about some of the coolest places Karen, Marty and Tim have flown drones, and how they have used drones for surveying land in the Kimberely with Indigenous Ranger groups, to gathering data about sea cucumbers on the Great Barrier Reef. Karen also shares some great drone mapping tips for those just getting started! She MapsWinyamaAn Introductory Guide to Drone MappingGetting started with drone mapping

Find out what ‘rubber-ducking’ is. Hear why Khia has been crying happy tears and celebrate the perspective that women bring to the table in this special edition of Location Matters, curated in lieu of International Women's Day. New Location Matters host, Claire Wilson, is joined by guests Kate Kirwin, founder of She Codes, Daphne Yu, Graduate Developer at NGIS and Khia Emslie O'Brien, Winyama Digital intern. The discussion centres around why programs like She Codes are helping to upskill women with the technical skills required to land careers in the tech industry.  According to the ABS in 2020 only 13% of women made up the total employees in the STEM workforce. We would like to change that statistic and raising awareness is one way to do so.  This episode was planned to air before this year’s International Women's Day, but unfortunately was held up. Though, we are advocates for women every single day of the year and this episode is just as relevant today as it was on that day. We hope it inspires you and empowers you to reach new heights in your tech career. **Please forgive the unusually quiet sound in this episode**She Codes International Women's Day Coders for causesFemale coders collective Perth JuniorDev

In this week’s episode we are excited to welcome two colleagues from our new Brisbane office onto the Location Matters podcast to talk about the Esri ArcGIS utilities upgrade. Alex Geer, NGIS Queensland General Manager, and Conway Pene, Principal GIS Consultant have worked on many utilities GIS projects and give us some insight into what this Esri upgrade will mean for utility companies, what the process looks like and some of the roadblocks they might face. NGIS contact us page

We’re back with a brand new season of Location Matters! To kick off the first episode, we’re joined by Andrew Dowding, Managing Director of Winyama, and Yvonne Fong, Data Scientist at EO Data Science, to discuss the importance of First Nations Earth Observation and how Winyama are working towards seeing more Indigenous communities utilise Earth Observation (EO). Andrew and Yvonne also touch on some of the interesting ways EO is being used across the world - sometimes without people even knowing!Winyama Indigenous Mapping Workshop AustraliaEO Data Science  Google Earth Engine tips Blog: What is First Nations Earth ObservationWeb portalsSea Level Rise - Coastal Risk NAFI - North Australia and Rangelands Fire Information MyFireWatchDigital Earth Australia Hotspots Atlas of Living Australia

This is the final episode of season three of Location Matters! Thank you to all of our listeners who tuned in this season to hear about the latest trends and technologies in the GIS industry. In this week's episode our podcast host and Marketing Manager, Sarah Butler co-hosts with our Marketing Coordinator Claire Wilson and Principal GIS Consultant Nicholas Chai, to discuss a game changing solution built at NGIS by our very own Senior GIS Developer, Rick Huang. To avoid the regular headaches of upgrading ArcGIS Enterprise, Rick developed a solution; the NGIS Upgrade Solution which minimises production downtime during an ArcGIS Enterprise update to only 40 minutes, where it would otherwise take upwards of 400 minutes. We discuss how this benefits companies in not only reducing downtime but also reducing mistakes! Tune in to learn more about this solution. Blog: An NGIS upgrade solutionContact NGIS

This week’s episode is brought to you from Costa Rica, Colombia and Perth, Australia! We hear from Rafael Monge and Ivan Gonzalez, two project winners of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) - Google Earth Engine (GEE) program. Our host, NGIS’ Sarah Butler and Yvonne Fong, Data Scientist at EO Data Science chat with the guests about how their projects are tackling important environmental challenges using Earth Observation data in Central and South America. From developing an early warning system to provide alerts of deforestation in Costa Rica, to generating an Ecological Integrity Index in Colombia—if you love seeing mapping tools make a positive impact, then this episode is for you. GEO-GEE project: Ecological Integrity IndexGEO-GEE project: Tackling deforestation and forest degradation in Costa RicaEO Data Science TwitterEO Data Science LinkedIn

The Indigenous Data Network (IDN) promotes the access and sharing of data within Indigenous organisations, enabling them to manage and utilise data in more sustainable ways. Our host, Sarah Butler, discusses with Darren Clinch (National Coordinator) and James Rose (Data Analytics Coordinator) of IDN, about ways in which they are working with data and geospatial technology to empower Indigenous organisations and communities. Darren shares with listeners some recent work in using health data to synthesise patterns and behviours in the Indigenous population’s access to our public health system, enabling better reporting on Aboriginal health and wellbeing. Collectively the speakers chat about the future of data visualisation; what social and cultural impacts they hope to achieve with this technology in coming years. If you are keen to learn about the way data sovereignty affects Indigenous organisations and how geospatial technology can be utilised to provide insightful visualisations, take a listen to this episode. Indigenous Data Network Indigenous Data Sovereignty SymposiumWinyama Services 

Open source software is changing the world and growing a strong community from around the globe. In this episode of Location Matters, we speak with two Australian open source GIS enthusiasts, Nyall Dawson and John Bryant. Heavily involved in the open geospatial community, Nyall and John chat with our host Sarah Butler about everything open source related - from QGIS being used by Indigenous people to care for country, to the online communities built for like-minded Geospatial enthusiasts. If you are looking to get involved in the open geospatial community, this podcast is for you! Geodesy blog: Positioning Australia for the futureIndigenous Mapping Workshop (IMW)QGIS.org Geogeeks PerthQGIS Open DayMaptime Oceania Slack group: join hereQGIS Australian User GroupJohn Bryant TwitterNyall Dawson Twitter

It is common in GIS to work with companies and on projects where large amounts of data have been captured across disparate systems. On today’s Location Matters episode, we welcome back Senior GIS Developer, Nicholas Chai, to speak alongside our Principal GIS Consultant, Jack Green, about integrating different data sources into a single platform. Tune in as they discuss the process of integrating these data sources into a single platform, and if seeing each department's dataset in near-real time is possible.

Welcome back to another episode of Location Matters! On today’s episode we jump into the world of 3D photogrammetry with our friends over at Aerometrex. Our Marketing Manager and podcast host, Sarah Butler, sits (virtually) with NGIS’ Senior GIS Developer, Nick Chai and the Chief Operating Officer at Aerometrex, David Byrne to find out what photogrammetry is, and some of the cool ways it's been used in not just the construction industry, but in the gaming and movie industry. Aerometrex YouTube ChannelAerometrex BlogAerometrex GalleryMetroMap 3D StoreAn Interactive 3D Model [ Denver ]

We have another cracker Location Matters episode this week covering two winning projects from the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) - Google Earth Engine (GEE) program. Our host,  NGIS’ Sarah Butler & Yvonne Fong, Data Scientist at EO Data Science, are joined by project leads Nicholas Murray from James Cook University, and Dimos Traganos from the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) to discuss how their projects Remap and Global Seagrass Watch are tackling important environmental challenges using Earth observation data. If you love hearing about cool mapping tools that make a positive impact -  tune in to this episode! Group on Earth Observations and Google Earth Engine program announcementGEO-GEE Project: Mapping the status of ecosystems with Remap (Nick’s project)GEO-GEE Project: Coastal ecosystems  (Dimos’ project)Remap

We are excited to have Chad Jennings, Google Cloud Product Manager for BigQuery, back on the Location Matters podcast, speaking alongside our very own Executive Director, Nathan Eaton. In this episode, Chad and Nathan discuss Google Cloud geospatial updates, including developments with running Esri ArcGIS within Google Cloud. They also touch on some of the cool sustainable supply chain initiatives they have been collaborating on, and the noticeable increase in popularity they’re seeing when it comes to businesses harnessing the power of Google Cloud and GIS technology together - which are outside of the typical industries you’d see using maps. If that sounds interesting to you, tune in! Carto Tiler BlogChoropleths in Data StudioBigQuery GIS IntroGoogle and ESRI:Google BlogEsri BlogBigQuery OmniPublic Issue Trackers (search this page for BigQuery)Carto BigQuery Tiler General Availability Blog

When you’re working in GIS, you can’t always tell people that their data governance structure is less than ideal or even scary to look at. On this week’s episode of Location Matters, we sit down with NGIS' GIS Analyst-Developer, Stafford Smith, Senior GIS Consultant, Joy Miles, and Principal GIS Consultant Nick Chai. We get their perspective on what a good data governance framework looks like, and times they have seen data go from ugly to great!

We’re back with a new season of Location Matters! To kick off the first episode of season three, we’re joined by David Kroodsma, Director of Research and Innovation at Global Fishing Watch, and Brian Sullivan, Program Manager at Google Earth Outreach. David and Brian look back at how Global Fishing Watch started and how the platform is utilising Google Cloud and Google Earth Engine to identify fishing vessels with high risk of forced labour, track illegal fishing in North Korea, and so much more.  Global Fishing WatchGoogle Earth OutreachIllegal fishing in North Korea study

This is the final episode of season two of Location Matters AND the last episode for 2020. What a rollercoaster of a year we've had and I'm so proud of how far this podcast has come. In this week's episode, we have some powerhouses in the geospatial industry, Chad Jennings, the Product Manager for BigQuery, Google's Cloud-based Enterprise Data Warehouse; Matt Forrest, the Director of Spatial Data Science at CARTO; Dion Fleming, the CARTO team lead and Customer Engineer at Liveli and Sarah Butler, NGIS Marketing Manager and a great podcast host. Today we dive into Google Cloud's focus on next generation spatial infrastructure, looking at the new CARTO BigQuery Tiler API and CARTO BigQuery connector, as well as what the roadmap looks like for BigQuery Geovisualisation in the future.BigQuery sandbox  Getting started with SQL in CARTOTwitter search for #BigQueryGISTransform, store and analyse your GIS data with FME and BigQuery

On today's Location Matters episode, we're joined by Filip Eldic, the Co-Founder of the innovative geofencing platform, Bluedot, and Senior Account Manager at Liveli, Dion Fleming. We find out what geofencing is, how the likes of McDonalds and Dunkin Donuts are using this technology in current campaigns and we debate the co-existence of location data and privacy with the likes of the Netflix documentary, Social Dilemma, so topical at the moment.BluedotPrivacy DeclarationWhat is geofencing?

Do you have to understand everything about geographic information systems to listen to this podcast? Nah, as long as you get the GIS(t) of it! On today's Location Matters episode, we're joined by the Manager of SLIP Location Services, Kylie Middleton, Senior Account Executive and Business Development Lead at NGIS, Krystle Dobson, and Senior GIS Consultant, Joy Miles. For those devoted Location Matters listeners, you may remember last year we had the Director of National Geodesy at Geoscience Australia, Nicholas Brown, on the podcast to discuss what GDA2020 is, how GDA2020 will impact businesses and the benefits of adopting it. A year on, we get to chat with the people helping businesses migrate from GDA94 to GDA2020 about the pain points businesses are facing, the resources out there to help businesses migrate and how to ensure your business is set up for a successful migration.Landgate GDA2020Landgate GDA2020 Implementation StatusSLIP Data Update APIData.wa.gov.auGDA2020 explained for non-GIS peoplePositioning Australia for the future

Happy Tuesday to our favourite Location Matters listeners! On today's episode we have two new voices on the podcast, Senior Developer at NGIS, Clinton Kimsing and Cloud Solutions Architect, Brendan Downes. Brendan and Clinton discuss how organisations are combining static and dynamic data sources, how data pipelines work, the differences between cloud providers and how to combine all this information to build great maps.What cloud data warehouse is best for geospatial processing?Analyse data quickly with BigQuery Geo VizGetting started with Google Cloud PlatformTraffic incident response planning

We can't believe we've reached the milestone of 50 episodes of the Location Matters podcast! We are completely shocked and blown away by the support of our listeners and how the podcast has grown over the past two years. We have come a long way since Adam Mullett pioneered the podcast back in 2018 and in this episode we look back over the past 49 episodes to see how we've grown as a business - into a group of businesses, how our technology partners have grown, the increasing participation of Indigenous communities and women that are participating in STEM and in particular, GIS, and how our partners have coped with the crazy year that is 2020 in our iso mini series.

On this week's episode of Location Matters, we're chatting to the General Manager of EO Data Science, Sam Atkinson and Marketing Manager at NGIS Australia, Sarah Butler. We dive into spatial finance - What it is and how financial practices and organisations can use spatial technology to monitor, plan and mitigate risk across their assets portfolio.EO Data ScienceDigital Agriculture ServicesOrbital InsightOMFIFWWF and Investec ReportDetecting palm oil plantation land use in Myanmar

On this week's episode of Location Matters we dive into the world of location intelligence in marketing with Marketing Manager (and usual podcast host), Sarah Butler and CARTO team lead at Liveli, Dion Fleming. We discuss how marketers are using location intelligence platforms and spatial data to help glean insights into buying behaviour of their customers and, in particular, look into a webinar Liveli recently hosted, alongside Google Cloud partner, Data Runs Deep and experiential gift company, Red Balloon. In this episode, we go a bit deeper into the sorts of data marketers collect, how this can be supplemented with third party data streams, how we can ingest the data into Google BigQuery and then visualise this information using CARTO. We also look at how this location data can dictate where we allocate advertising spend and how, in a world of Covid-19, we can use this information to make business decisions.Webinar: Understand your product demand: Your Google Analytics data visualised with CARTO and BigQueryBlog: Google Analytics spatial data visualised with BigQuery

We have another cracker Location matters episode this week covering the Group of Earth Observations and Google Earth Engine program winning projects. Today we unpack the process behind choosing the winners, our favourite projects and how countries can use Earth Observation technology for cases such as disaster management. We'd like to welcome, Executive Director at NGIS and Director at EO Data Science, Nathan Eaton, General Manager at EO Data Science, Sam Atkinson and Data Scientist at EO Data Science (and new to the podcast!), Yvonne Fong.EO Data ScienceGoogle Earth EngineGroup on Earth Observations (GEO)GEO Biodiversity Observation Network (BON)Coastal Risk AustraliaUnited Nations Environment ProgrammeThe University of EdinburghEarth BloxFood and agriculture organisation of the United NationsEuropean Space AgencySERVIREO Data Science Google Earth Engine data catalogueFor the full list of winners, read the GEO-GEE announcement

Happy Tuesday! On this week's episode of Location Matters, we have Andrew Dowding from the Ngarluma traditional owner group and Managing Director at Winyama, and Merindah Bairnsfather-Scott, Noongar woman that was born and raised on Whadjuk Boodja country and a GIS Analayst at Winyama. We dive into how Indigenous people are using maps to communicate their culture, both the good and the bad. We look at how maps can begin to cover dispossession of Indigenous people over time, temporary uses of how people are using traditional lands, how maps can help with reclamation of Indigenous spaces through language, as well as ways to share knowledge across generations. Both Merindah and Andrew are full of so much wisdom and this episode will leave you wanting to learn more.WinyamaIndigenous Mapping Workshop Digital copy of The real map of BatchelorIndigenous iconography

Welcome back to season two of Location Matters! On today's episode, we discuss neural networks - What they are? What sorts of problems can be solved using neural networks? How important is having a good training dataset? And finally, how often do marketers and salespeople misuse and abuse the term 'AI' (artificial intelligence) when discussing machine learning. To unpack the world of neural networks, we welcome the General Manager, Sam Atkinson and Senior Data Scientist, Ammar Mahmood from EO Data Science.EO Data Science career opportunitiesDeeplearning.aiGEO - GEE Program announcement

Businesses across Australia and New Zealand are now opening their offices back up to staff and employees. Our team here in Western Australia are especially grateful to be moving back into the office in our teams however, for many parts of Australia, this is the start of introducing staff back to the office.MapsIndoors Lite, a product created by the MapsPeople team, gives businesses the opportunity to map out a safe plan of action through their indoor navigation platform that takes into account where people are moving and sitting, alerting people to safe distancing measures and removing areas of foot traffic congestion.Listen to our latest Location Matters episode featuring Oliver Looker, General Manager of our technology partner, Liveli and Christian Muggler from the indoor mapping team, MapsPeople.MapsIndoors Lite

The Indigenous Mapping Workshop (IMW) Australia has announced a launch date of the 22nd of September 2020 for the Indigenous Mapping Workshop Australia On-Demand.The IMW team has been working hard to launch an online learning platform and we can finally hear all about it from Andrew Dowding, Managing Director at Winyama and part of the steering committee for IMW, Sarah Butler, Marketing Manager at the NGIS Group and IMW committee member and Merindah Bainsfather-Scott, GIS Analyst at Winyama and leading the curriculum for IMW Australia On-Demand.

We've had CARTO's Marketing Manager, Florence Broderick on the Location Matters podcast before and what a pleasure it was to chat to Florence again. The CARTO team has adapted to the pandemic rapidly with the launch of CARTO Grants, giving access to the CARTO platform to help people fight and contain COVID-19. In this episode of Location Matters, Florence covers some of the incredible and inspiring use cases that have come out of the CARTO Grants and we can't wait to share them with you.CARTO GrantsCARTO 5 newsletterWebinar: Understand your product demand: Combining Google Analytics data with CARTO

From primary to high school and at a tertiary education level, Dr Karen Joyce is empowering students to make decisions about the environment around them using remote sensing tools and techniques. We're excited to have guest speaker, Dr Karen Joyce on this episode of Location Matters to cover how her career evolved into becoming a senior lecturer in remote sensing at James Cook University and her work in forming the She Maps initiative, encouraging young girls to get excited about STEM subjects.Homeward BoundIndigenous Mapping WorkshopSheMap's Map My School project

Traditionally, maps have been used as an outdoor navigation tool to help guide you from point A to B. MapsPeople has changed the game by enabling people to have outdoor through to indoor navigation. But what about security concerns? How do we implement this in our organisation? How are other industries using this technology? We've got you covered in today's episode with guest speakers, Liveli's General Manager, Oliver Looker and MapsPeople's Regional Sales Manager, Christian Müggler.Liveli MapsPeople page

Satellites orbiting the Earth are returning an unprecedented amount of data that both enables and encourages better decision making about the world we live in. When considering the petabytes of data collected, working as a data scientist is no mean feat. On today's episode of Location Matters, we're covering the challenges of working with Earth observations technology, and the way the end-users interact with multiple cloud providers and content sources. We're excited to be joined by two wonderful guests, Manager of Earth Observations at NGIS and EO Data Science, Sam Atkinson and Director of the Remote Sensing Research Centre, President of Joint Remote Sensing Research Program, Professor at the UofQ School of Earth and Environmental Sciences and much more, Stuart Phinn.EO Australia

An equal world is an enabled world and technology is a means for enabling change in the world. On today's Location Matters podcast we're diving into why diversity in the workplace is important, how organisations can encourage a diverse representation and what steps need to be put in place to inspire young women to take up STEM-based careers. Today on the show, we have three GIS analysts and very impressive women joining us - Usha Johnston from NGIS, Merindah Bairnfather-Scott from Winyama and Nat Raisenbeck-Brown from CSIRO.Homeward BoundIndigenous Mapping Workshop - https://www.imwaustralia.com/Board of Directors videoInternational Women's Day

With the recent Australian bushfires and Corona Virus covered in a lot of global media outlets, maps are becoming a frequently used tool to communicate the impact of such events however, there are maps being shared that are either factually incorrect or have features that may alarm people in non-alarming situations. On today's episode of Location Matters, we are joined by NGIS Consultant, Chris Hoar and Managing Director, Paul Farrell, to discuss what makes a map accurate and effective in these situations.Corona Simulator

Mapping is one opportunity to tell a story, however, with the data collected by social groups, community services, environmental groups and government agencies, there are many more opportunities to interpret data and visualise this for non-technical audiences and users. In this episode we're joined by Mel Flanagan, Founder of Nook Studios, a community of story-tellers and Dion Fleming, Liveli’s Senior Account Manager with a background in GIS, to discuss how stories can be imparted across different mediums.Open Government partnershipCommon GroundPlastic Free JulyCoastal RiskGlobal Forest Watch

Australian farmers are known for their resilience farming in the harsh Australian climate and more recently operating through devastating environmental conditions, particularly across the Eastern States. In this episode of Location Matters, we invite the CEO of Decipher, Anthony Walker, Technical Product Manager at Decipher, Frank D'Emden and EO Data Science General Manager, Nathan Eaton to discuss the recent advancements in earth observation technologies and how this has enabled farmers to gain powerful insights and make decisions for improving their crop yield and profits.DEA Labs grant

Remote sensing technology enables us to understand the environmental change over time and gain insights into the extent of deforestation or environmental impact of a mine from exploration through to rehabilitation. In this episode of Location Matters we're joined by Sam Atkinson, General Manager at EO Data Science and Krystle Dobson, Senior Account Executive for Resources at NGIS Australia. We cover the key challenges faced using remote sensing, the role that remote sensing can play in preventing tailings dams failures and how Krystle and Sam see the resources industry evolving with the advancements in cloud technology.3vGeomatics

One of the most common misconceptions in the world of location intelligence and geographic information systems is that you need to be an expert to use the tools of the trade. CARTO has enabled non-geospatial users to benefit from location intelligence in their day-to-day business operations. In this episode of Location Matters we're joined by Florence Broderick, Vice President of Marketing at CARTO and Dion Fleming, Senior Account Manager and Liveli's team lead. We'll be looking into the evolving partnership of Liveli and CARTO and the benefits that come with having local support, as well as covering the latest news from their Spatial Data Science Conference.CARTO 5 newsletterFree two week trial

The Geo for Good summit brought together change makers, not-for-profits and scientists to share and collaborate on initiatives to create a sustainable planet. In this episode of Location Matters we're joined by two attendees from this years' summit, Nathan Eaton, Executive Director at NGIS Australia and Sam Atkinson, Manager at EO Data Science. We'll be covering the stand out initiatives, what they both learnt and the exciting new announcement made by the Google Earth Outreach team. 

Location information enables the ridesharing industry to accurately quote customers based on driving time and distance, track drivers and most importantly maintain the driver and passenger's safety. In this episode of Location Matters we're joined by JD Veldsman, the founder of Perth ridesharing company, Shofer and Oliver Looker, General Manager of Google Premier Partner, Liveli. We'll be covering the regulatory and technological challenges that ridesharing companies have been faced with over the past five years, as well as improving the sustainability of ridesharing in the future.

Since 1994 Australia has moved 1.8 metres due to plate tectonic motion. The GDA2020 is the latest set of coordinates available for organisations to use that provides closer alignment to the Global Navigation Satellite System (eg. GPS). We welcome Director of National Geodesy at Geoscience Australia, Nick Brown to break down what is GDA2020, how will it affect us and what we need to know to be prepared for the changes.ICSM: Datum

Maps are used as a tool to communicate and document the culture and language of Indigenous communities and help us to preserve our Indigenous history. To acknowledge NAIDOC week this week we have Ngarluma man and Winyama's Managing Director, Andrew Dowding and Director of Digital Navigators, Moka Apiti on the podcast to explore how maps are impacting their Indigenous communities and discuss the upcoming Indigenous Mapping Workshop that will be held in Perth from July the 16th to 18th.The Firelight Group: https://firelight.ca/

Providing strong customer service is at the forefront of NGIS and Liveli. In this episode of Location Matters we announce the launch of Liveli with guest speakers, NGIS and Liveli's Marketing Manager, Sarah Butler and Liveli's General Manager, Oliver Looker. We'll be covering who is Liveli, what this new company means for our Google Maps Platform, Google Cloud Platform and CARTO customers and the opportunities Liveli has moving forwards. 

Combining the power of cloud technology with geospatial data is becoming a common business practice. We now have the capability to process large datasets in order to gain insights and make informed business decisions. In this episode of Location Matters, Google Customer Engineer, Alex Barron and NGIS Google Cloud specialist, Richard Greene discuss the capabilities and challenges of incorporating your geospatial data into the Google Cloud Platform and share some tips on getting started.Google Maps Platform OverviewSpecific meetups for GISData Analytics blog from Google

When you apply geographic context to data, you gather insights that cannot be replicated on a simple piece of paper. Digital maps provide a way to visualise data that can help guide decision making and create positive social change. In this episode of Location Matters, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Western Australia, Professor Dawn Freshwater and Managing Director of NGIS, Paul Farrell discuss the vast amount of data available here in WA, how location intelligence can be applied to data and what these insights could mean for the future.Square Kilometre ArrayNGIS Customer Success StoriesUWA Oceans InitiativeCoastal Risk Australia 

Location is inherently a core part of Australia's First Nation's culture and GIS technology is now assisting in the education of all Australians by providing additional insight and context to aboriginal heritage through maps. Andrew Dowding and Paul Farrell discuss the connection between GIS and aboriginal communities, the importance of digitally documenting indigenous knowledge through maps and their joint venture, Winyama.Muru View Aboriginal Heritage Inquiry System (AHIS) Gambay languages map Atlas of living Australia The Anthropological Society of Australasian Survey - Aboriginal place

When you map the right data, you can find fascinating insights. Simple analyses shown on a map can help you see patterns you couldn't see elsewhere, which can help you make decisions. Adam Mullett and Dion Fleming join Sarah Butler to discuss their analysis which uses a map to help answer the question of where it is best to use ride-sharing instead of a taxi.Open data sources from governmentCARTO 5 newsletter80 Data Visualization Examples Using Location Data and MapsUber developer console

Open source software is changing the world and growing a strong community from around the globe. Free software that is contributed to by the developer community underpins many of the spatial solutions that we build and Paul Ramsay, co-founder of PostGIS, explains why we all need to pay attention and start contributing to the project.Maori Maps cultural mapping