India is a young nation with a spirit of innovation and a strong startup base. The number of startups has almost doubled since 2021. The collection, production, and dissemination of geospatial data have been democratized. The government is committed to ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ and now it is our responsibility to put in efforts to make that possible. We need to integrate different technology and enhance India’s collective geospatial capability. Nowadays, digital geospatial information provides far more value for societal, economic, and environmental use than just a simple map. It serves as an essential national information resource.”

At the outset, I should say this is a very significant event. Today the world is changing very fast, and technology is evolving so rapidly that those who don’t adopt it, will be left behind. In this context, science and technology development is fostered by certain entities. If there’s any country that has a value system that the world should remain sustainable, it is India. We are at the threshold of change, and each one of us, people at large, including academia and enterprises, need to participate and become actively involved. Things are going very fast, and in this era we can make a difference by going beyond science & technology and focusing on how we can live on this planet sustainably.

Biggest challenge that we face is reducing emission and furthering sustainability. Space plays a very crucial role in achieving the SDGs and decarbonizing the world. The all encompassing geospatial is going to play a very important role to understand our world much better in times to come.

Geospatial technology is enveloping every sphere of life and that is how it is empowering billions at the same time. There’s a need for understanding to collaborate and secure our future. Sustainability is possible, but we must change our priorities. Geospatial apps are becoming pervasive, supporting many types of workflows and management.”

Announcement of Indo ArcGIS Pro was made by him, which is being hosted on a cloud in India and to be made available in India through GeM.

Geomatics has always been the backbone of society. It is ubiquitous and by default in all domains. We have seen this during COVID-19, where authorities relied on Geomatics for quarantining, contact tracing, and social distancing and how identifying the exact location of sick people, tracing their movements, and isolating them minimized the need to impose mobility restrictions or business closures.

ISRO are working on the launch of future satellites like the OceanSat, to be launched this year. The real opening of the space sector has to happen. It cannot happen only by increasing the launch capability or building more satellites, but it will happen only when the space-based service sector is expanding. This involves the creation of user-base industries, which could innovate on the communication, remote sensing, and PNT services and merge them to produce various products and services for various sectors.

India is emerging as a leader in the field of geospatial technology and its application for the service of the common man. Geospatial technologies have been very successfully used in marine and coastal applications. There are several satellites dedicated to oceanography that provide valuable information on ocean and other areas to monitor.

Department of Land Resources has organized it’s geospatial data through unique land parcel identification number (ULPIN) which is a 14 digits – Alpha–Numeric unique ID for each land parcel based on Geo-coordinates of vertices of the parcel. This is of international standard, complies with Electronic Commerce Code Management Association (ECCMA) standard and Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standard

We can empower billions by leveraging the power of standards and collective problem-solving. OGC believes this is possible through our mission – Make location information Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR).

We need to lower the barriers for everyone to use and leverage spatial data. We can do this by investing, contributing, and collaborating to develop and support open standards and innovation. We welcome the community in India to join us and also become active contributors to the OGC India Forum.

Digital technologies provide answers to some key industry challenges surrounding complexity. Survey and mapping profession is going to play a major role.

The space data and the data generated by different sensors – optical or hyperspectral, is a layer to be fused to be merged with in-situ data. The requirement of a satellite should be market driven and user driven who is going to use the data, the frequency that they require or the spatial resolution requirement of the solution.

Advancement in mobilizing AI and Machine Learning enrich the use of geospatial technologies nowadays and in future Quantum Computing i.e. will bring a big change in the speed of receiving satellite data and its processing

All infra is based on data, and it needs to be cost-effective. Accurate geospatial data is critical for telecom networks, for site selection and network coverage. Asset integrity is key along with digital standardization for all the use-cases. Interoperability and ensuring the quality and authenticity of data is also a key factor.

Digital cities and resilient infra of the future are not only a highly relevant application area of frontier technologies and their intersection, but also provides a glimpse of how highly connected, smart urban spheres will look like. Due to population explosion and trends such as migration to cities and the toll of global warming and other ecological hazards, designing resilient, digital cities is an imperative for a sustainable future.

Data-based actionable insights are driving everything today, from the most commonplace applications to highly specialized projects. SAR satellite can capture the ground terrain and shape of infrastructure like building. Data collection, aggregation, refining, processing, and then precise analytics serve as the bedrock of multiple sectors. Spatial data and the capability to make sense of it, is also crucial to ensuring connectivity in the city, and planning smart mobility options for curtailing emissions.”