Co-Located Events AEC Next, SPAR 3D, and Geo Week Pivot to Virtual Content Series for 2020
Diversified Communications
AEC Next, SPAR 3D Expo and Conference, International Lidar Mapping Forum (ILMF) and Geo Week, scheduled for a July event in Chicago, are pivoting to a series of virtual content for 2020. The change was necessitated by the ongoing health and safety issues stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.
AEC Next, SPAR 3D, ILMF and Geo Week will produce a series of interactive virtual content throughout 2020 including webinars, virtual product showcases, industry reports, weekly news, and a virtual awards ceremony announcing the recipients of the 2020 Lidar Leader Awards.
“While we cannot come together physically this summer in Chicago as we hoped, our staff and advisory board are busy creating virtual opportunities in the coming months to connect with our global community. It’s been made abundantly clear that our customers rely heavily on our events for education and to get quality leads and make business connections, and we will answer that call by continuing to provide opportunities virtually this year,” Event Director Christine Salmon said.
“We are grateful to all of our customers and stakeholders for their patience and support of this move,” imparts Lisa Murray, Group Director, Diversified Communications. “The team is excited to bolster efforts to connect our community virtually until we can be back together physically. The silver lining is, we have unprecedented online engagement which is introducing new audiences to our platform. This will inevitably translate to more new potential customers now and at our next live event in 2021.”
Details about the 2020 virtual content and the next live event in 2021 will be announced soon. In the meantime, free webinars and reports are available online now at aecnext.com, spar3d.com, and geo-week.com.
Commercial UAV Expo Americas 2020 Shifts to Virtual Event in September
FAA Administrator Stephen M. Dickson to Keynote
Diversified Communications
Commercial UAV Expo Americas 2020 is going virtual, according to event organizer Diversified Communications. “Due to ongoing health and safety concerns stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, members of the commercial drone community we serve have made it clear that it would be impossible to hold the live event as originally planned. In the interests of ensuring our community still has an opportunity learn from and connect with each other, we have reimagined Commercial UAV Expo Americas as a fully virtual event taking place September 15-17, 2020,” said Lisa Murray, Group Director at Diversified Communications, organizer of Commercial UAV Expo Americas. These are the same dates the live event had been scheduled for in Las Vegas.
Details will be forthcoming, but the content will include keynotes, panel discussions, and presentations with interactive Q&A and chat features; an AI-powered networking component; virtual exhibits, and demonstrations by UAS solutions providers. “We have stayed in close contact with our customers over the last few months. A huge thank you to all of them. I cannot say enough about their support and collaboration with our team during this time. What is clear is that they want and need the business networking and education normally provided by our event, but travel bans and other restrictions were going to prevent them from attending. We decided to put a stake in the ground and make immediate plans to ensure the broadest participation possible by making the event virtual now. Where a virtual event may not have appealed to many just a few months ago, the world has changed. People are yearning for connections and education. We are excited to offer the key benefits they expect from us: critical, timely education delivered by industry leaders, opportunities to network and engage with peers, and the ability to learn about the newest technology in the space,” said Ms. Murray. She added that the content will naturally address how the industry has responded to the pandemic, as well as the associated opportunities and challenges.
FAA Administrator Stephen M. Dickson, an aviation professional with nearly 40 years of experience, will Keynote the virtual event. Dickson leads an agency responsible for the safety and efficiency of the largest aerospace system in the world. “We are thrilled that Administrator Dickson will be addressing the audience at such a critical time for the drone space,” said Ms. Murray.
Additional information about the event will be announced, but commercial drone solutions providers will have the opportunity to host virtual exhibits, conduct one-on-one meetings, provide product information, share videos and more—all virtually. “We are investing in a robust virtual platform that will deliver high value to companies already signed on for the in-person event. We expect going virtual will naturally attract new companies, further enhancing the array of products and services on offer and attracting new buyers who may not have attended a live event but are more than ready to attend virtually.” said Ms. Murray.
“So much has happened in the drone space since the last edition of Commercial UAV Expo Americas,” said Ms. Murray. “People need an update on the latest developments and the impact on their business. While restrictions on travel are in place, restrictions on business are not. We are dedicated to bringing major stakeholders together to continue to move the industry forward during a particularly important time for drone industry expansion.”
Return to a Live Event in 2021
In 2021, Commercial UAV Expo Americas will take place September 7-9, 2021 at the Mirage in Las Vegas,” said Ms. Murray. “We look forward to the opportunity to connect in person with our customers. In the meantime, we will be their virtual connection to the drone industry.”
The First Virtual Round Table for INTERGEO 2020
“Our time has come!”
Hinte Marketing & Media GmbH
The INTERGEO Round Table is the annual mid-year event for experts to discuss the latest industry trends. The participants of this get-together, which was hosted virtually for the first time, are convinced that our world needs intensified digitalisation and networking to enable us to better overcome challenges. But things don’t end with the Round Table. “We want to showcase our topics live, too, and highlight their critical importance—at INTERGEO 2020 in Berlin!”
“INTERGEO 2020 is going ahead.”
When INTERGEO organiser Christoph Hinte made his announcement at the start of the Round Table, smiling faces appeared on screen. The participants—experts from the worlds of business and science—welcomed the news with open arms. After all, businesses and institutions are eager to attend INTERGEO as the first live event of 2020 to showcase their innovations. “The hygiene and social distancing concept is currently being coordinated. In addition to the live event, this year is the first time we will also offer a virtual twin. Both the conference and the fair will be replicated.” Hinte is optimistic: “By hosting the fair in a virtual format, we expect to attract the same number of visitors as in previous years, if not more.”
The industry’s time to shine
“Where does the geo-IT sector stand in terms of digitalisation and networking?” asked presenter Christiane Salbach from the German Society for Geodesy, Geoinformation and Land Management (DVW) as she kick-started discussions. Professor Jörg Blankenbach, Head of the Geodetic Institute at RWTH Aachen university, has a clear opinion on this matter: “Major existing concepts such as GIS (geographic information systems) and BIM (building information modelling), which previously existed independently of one another, are now merging at an increasing pace. One specific result of this is that georeferencing has been integrated into the latest version of the open BIM standard IFC for the first time. In other words, structural and civil engineering models are finally being docked to their geographical coordinates.”
Industry representatives are saying the same thing. Although they actually come from different camps, Michael Mudra from digital solution provider Hexagon, Ralf Mosler from BIM and CAD specialist Autodesk and Janos Faust from the geospatial company Trimble all stress that reality must now shift to a shared database. For them, it’s about breaking out of silos and ensuring accessible communication across different software platforms, ecosystems and, last but not least, mentalities.
Oliver Milzarek from DB Systel, the IT service provider for Deutsche Bahn AG, takes an even more pragmatic view: “Projects at Deutsche Bahn now fully depend on simulation and visualisation—even for the tiniest railway arch! That’s why we need to step up to the plate. The conditions are right. Our time has come! Deutsche Bahn knows that BIM is the bedrock for sustainable planning, construction and operation. Digital twins are unbeatable when it comes to transparency, too. If we network the data properly, we will reap the benefits in all phases of construction—and still will be 80 years (a realistic lifetime for railway objects as well as for tunnels) down the line.” 