During this COVID-19 crisis there have been many examples of businesses helping the community through this crisis by providing their special expertise and tools. Esri, a BeSpatial Diamond sponsor, has offered the following expertise and tools to our BeSpatial community.

1. Free webinar series on GIS technology, data, and resource optimization for public safety. Register here: https://www.esri.com/en-us/industries/public-safety/webinars
2. Free webinar series on business continuity for infrastructure and utilities. Register here: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/7848304509437309965
3. YouTube video on resources and GIS solutions for emergency managers and business continuity planning. Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtfFJ4d6L5Q
4. Free Coronavirus Business Continuity Solution to help businesses, utilities, and governments understand the capacity of their workforce and operational status of their facilities. Learn more here: https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/arcgis-solutions/business/coronavirus-business-continuity-solution-released/
5. Donation: Esri is making the following resources available at no cost.
   1. Access the Esri Canada COVID-19 Resource Hub
      • On the COVID-19 Resource Hub, your members will find a collection of data, maps, applications and other resources available to assist in monitoring, preparing for and responding to this rapidly changing situation. These resources are being curated for the Canadian health and business communities to use and share as the pandemic unfolds. These materials will be updated with new content as it becomes available.
   2. Build Your Own Hub Site with a Free Template
      
      • Esri is providing the ArcGIS Hub template at no cost. Organizations can use it to visualize and analyze the crisis in their own community/asset context. If your members do not have ArcGIS Online, Esri will donate ArcGIS Online with ArcGIS Hub Basic for six months; to activate the donation, please request through the Esri Disaster Response Program. Otherwise, we are asking ArcGIS users to contact their Esri Canada account manager.

In response to the evolving situation regarding the Corona Virus,  we want to make you aware of the COVID-19 Resource Hub Esri Canada has developed for public use:

 https://resources-covid19canada.hub.arcgis.com/

This GIS hub is a collection of data, maps, applications and other resources available to assist in monitoring, preparing for and responding to the rapidly changing situation. You may be aware of some of these resources already, such as the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 dashboard, as they have been featured on many news media outlets over the past couple weeks.    These resources are being curated for the Canadian and global health community to use and share as the pandemic unfolds.

These apps and web services are for your use with your applications, as part of your emergency response operations and or as stand-alone dashboards.  Esri Canada is already working with many municipal, provincial and federal organizations to operationalize these applications for their use.   If you would like any help, please reach out to Esri Canada at: https://esri.ca/en/contact-us

Dear colleagues, 

The current situation involving COVID-19 emphasizes the importance of having timely and accessible information available to the public at all levels of government. As important collaborators and supporters of Canada’s open government activities we are reaching out on behalf of our colleagues at Statistics Canada’s Linkable Open Data Environment Initiative, which aims to enhance the use and harmonization of data from municipal, provincial and federal sources.

In order to increase public awareness of available health facilities across the country, Statistics Canada is looking for relevant data to support an up-to-date open database. The attached email outlines additional context, including the data sources that have already been compiled for this initiative. Our colleagues at Statistics Canada are requesting any updated or additional open or publicly available datasets that contain information on location and type of health facilities. For reference purposes, we encourage you to look at a similar initiative that was completed for educational facilities at this link.

In hopes of expediting a response to our colleagues, we encourage you to reach out directly to Alessandro Alasia from Statistics Canada at alessandro.alasia@canada.ca/   We hope that you will find a way to support Alessandro and his team in their efforts as they move quickly to compile this information by the end of the week.

 Kind regards,

 TBS Open Government Team

As the situation surrounding coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic continues to evolve geospatial data and technology is being widely used to support a wide spectrum of government and other organizations with mapping, location intelligence and business insights. This helps to monitor, manage and communicate the impact of the outbreak.

Below is a link to the Geospatial Knowledge Platform showcasing examples of Covid-19 related information dashboards.

https://www.geospatialworld.net/covid-19-dashboard/

For information specifically related to the outbreak in the Province of Ontario please refer to the link:

https://covid-19.ontario.ca/index.html

Kessey-Dewitt Publications, in Association with URISA, has recently released the second Edition of the GIS Management Handbook—a major revision of the 2009 edition. Below is a brief description and the attached flyer provides additional information. Contact: URISA to order this book

Description of Book:

Published by Kessey Dewitt Publications in association with URISA, 460 pp., 2019

ISBN13: 978-0-9824093-1-2

This book is a comprehensive guide and reference to the field of GIS management. It provides practical information on the development, implementation, and operation of GIS programs and projects—for a full range of public sector, not-for-profit, and private sector organizations and companies. This book takes a practical approach providing clear descriptions of concepts, issues, and practices that may be used in operational to improve and maximize the efficiency of GIS programs and projects.

Learn what I Learned!   A BeSpatial - Eastern Ontario Regional Event 

When: TBD

Where: Queen's University, David Gordon Conference Centre, Kingston, ON

 421 Union St W, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6

It is a great opportunity to connect to GIS professionals in Eastern Ontario and learn how people are using GIS at their organizations.

Register

• Registration, Continental Breakfast, Networking and Opening Remarks
• "Next Generation 911" Alex Brossault, Program Manager, GIS and Info, City of Guelph with Barry Costello, Esri
• "GIS in Infrastructure Project Lifecycle" Phil Healey, Manager, Enterprise GIS, City of Kingston
• "Creating a Culture of Change: Open Government and the Ontario GeoHub”  Mike Dunkley, Land Information Ontario
• Buffet Lunch and Networking
• Keynote: "Thoughts On Adding Geo-Records To The Pilot Study On Best Practices For Citizen Access To Public Records.",  Dr. Barry Wellar. C.M., GISP, Past President, URISA.org (1978), Professor Emeritus, University Of Ottawa, President, Information Research Board. 
• • Discussion: Are GEO-Records the key to better citizen access to public records? Based on what they represent , there are reasons to say YES.  Learn more. Review the attached presentation and plan to come to Kingston on March 26 to discuss further!

• Closing Remarks

LEARN WHAT I LEARNED - A BeSPATIAL EASTERN ONTARIO REGIONAL EVENT

Interested in showcasing your GIS program?

If your educational institution provides a unique and meaningful experience that will help the growth of future GIS professionals, please send us a profile of your program.

Coming soon! We are planning to introduce a dedicated Education web space that will showcase geospatial and information programs, provide information and updates on our student mentor program and feature opportunities for students to volunteer. 

Please email your submissions to our President, Susan to be featured on our website and eNewsletter.

H

The Data Driven Intelligence Working Group & the Public Sector Service Delivery Council is excited to share the Analytics Playbook. 

The Analytics Playbook will be an effective tool for sector organizations to get started on their analytics journey as well as advance up the maturity curve to implement more advanced tools and methodologies.

"We have already heard the document has had an impact in helping jurisdictions advocate internally for leadership buy-in and resources to build analytics capacity. Our plan is to keep this document evergreen and incorporate leading practices and cases as the sector and environment evolves. We look forward to keeping you up to date in the future. We ask you to provide us with relevant use cases you feel would be pertinent."

BeSpatial issued a poll on August 14 seeking your input on program topic areas

We've heard back and the results are below;

BeSpatial / urisa ontario will be reviewing these topics of interest at our upcoming strategic planning session. Your feedback on this poll is much appreciated!

Below are geospatial and Information focused topics identified from our BeSpatial'19 post-event survey:

• Archiving information and digitizing things for future generations. Fun themes like ways of convincing higher ups to buy into a new GIS system or feature.
• ArcGIS Online and ArcPro demos, other municipalities with their mapping process.
• AR, leveraging open source software/ GitHub, municipal uses for lidar.
• Banking industry.
• BIM/CIM sessions or workshop.
• Broad swath of speakers that will be working with GIS data (multi-agency dispatchers & responders - OPP, municipal police/fire/paramedics; Bell 9-1-1; CRTC TIF committee; NENA; Esri Canada; dispatch software providers).
• Commercial business as a theme.
• Data and application of GIS with data.
• Education industry.
• Employee Focused Forum.
• Environmental topics, include sessions on emerging industries that will affect and/or collaborate with GIS, such as AI.
• Field Data Collection, Internet Mapping, Methodology/SOP.
• GIS Management sessions or balancing the advanced technology with departmental stability.
• Lessons Learned - more content about mistakes we have made in the past / what are our concerns with the directions we are headed into the future / more information on how to educate public better / more information on how to get council and government on board with implementing new ideas.
• Lidar and drones acquisition.
• Lightning presentations... an hr session with ~5-10 minute presentations showcasing successful GIS projects.
• Open Government Open Data AI/Machine Learning in the spatial world.
• Privacy and data, Future of GIS, Transit / transportation planning, new or soon to release data science tools time saving methods community engagement / partnerships.
• Smart Cities - How/who should be involved in smart cities
• Unconventional/expanded uses of GIS software beyond mapping.
• Utility focused presentations would add interest.
• What’s trending? - impacts on business decisions Artificial Intelligence and Internet of things, for example and from a Geospatial perspective. Also, intelligence driven by information through analytics / Geospatial solutions.
• Webinar or 1/2 Full day session opportunities - Sessions were very high-level due to their short time. Would like to see some longer sessions with more detail offered.

If you have an presentation that would appeal to our geospatial and information community, please complete the presentation submission form or contact John to discuss. Program content is to be public sector and/or industry recognized and non-corporate aligned.

If you are a private sector partner, please consider inviting a public sector client to co-present with you. Sponsored opportunities for the private sector are available.