GISfest 2023 is a conference that unites geospatial experts and enthusiasts from Africa and beyond for insightful discussions on the applications of geospatial technologies across various industries.
This year's event aims to shine a prominent light on Geoinnovation and its pivotal role in shaping Africa's future. Our goal for GISfest is to curate a diverse range of trending topics that highlight the transformative power of innovation in shaping people, patterns, processes, and places (4Ps) throughout the African continent.
By doing so, we aim to inspire participants to gather ideas for their own unique use-cases and potentially identify untapped opportunities to create new business or social solutions.
This two-day physical event will include workshops, presentations, panel discussions, as well as opportunities to connect with community members from across Africa.

Session Types

We are accepting abstract submission for the following session types and their associated tracks:

Lightning Talk

The lightning talk is a concise and fast-paced presentation format where speakers deliver a short, focused talk on a specific topic within the geospatial industry.
The purpose of the lightning talk is to convey key geospatial related research points, business ideas, or insights in a succinct and impactful manner, to serve as a teaser or pitch for a business solutions.

Timeframe : Within a limited time frame, typically ranging from 10 to 15 minutes

Workshop

An interactive and collaborative learning session where participants actively engage in practical activities, discussions, and hands-on exercises to develop or enhance specific skills, knowledge, or expertise in geospatial domain. Emphasis is on hands-on learning, allowing participants to apply theoretical concepts and techniques in real-world scenarios through practical exercises and activities, collaboration, and providing quick hacks or best practices.

Timeframe : 1 hour

Session Categories

A. Geoinnovation and Lightning Talk

Share innovative/enterprise use case of geospatial technology currently applied to solve real world complex challenges. For this session, we want to focus on Geo-Innovation. We are looking for startup and enterprise in the following, but not limited, sectors:

• Transportation and Logistics
• Fintech and Blockchain technology
• Ocean conservation and Management
• Security and Defense
• Utility Distribution
• Retail and e-commerce
• Health
• Emergency Management
• Climate change and Green transitioning
• Urban planning and Smart City
• Resource Allocation (Population and Social Safety Net Initiatives)
• Oil, Gas, and Solid Mineral
• Food Security, Forestry, and Agriculture
• Telecommunication - Waste Management - Others

B. Workshop

Technical deep dive into tool and techniques implementation. We are looking for a workshop focused on any of the following tracks:

• Geodev utilizing WebGIS / Python / JavaScript etc.

As our spatially enabled society grows, so does the need to create functional and usable webmaps, visualizations and expand coding capabilities. The geospatial development workshop is designed to teach and expose conference participants to different techniques for geospatial development by utilizing different tools such as Python, JavaScript etc.

• Spatial Analytics – Methodologies such as ML / UAV data processing etc.

Spatial Analytics remains the backbone of all decision-making. In order to fully reach an appropriate conclusion, we utilize location as the connective thread to uncover hidden patterns, improve predictive modeling, and create a competitive edge. For the Spatial Analytics section, participants will get to interact with case studies that evoke critical spatial cognition thinking to create appropriate geo visualization that is backed by solid geostatistical theory.

• Geo AI / data Science – Machine learning, Deep learning etc.

The science and technology of Geo AI/data science have come a long way. Today’s executives are thinking about areas including market planning, site selection, product selection, price optimization, where they want to use Geo AI to better anticipate outcomes for their business and make better decisions based on these insights. For the Geo AI session, participants will get to learn different Geo AI techniques and tools that can be useful to them as an individual or corporate entity.

• Cloud Computing – GEE / Cloud platform etc.

With the growth of data in every sphere of our life. Data can be mined and stored by virtually all sensors around us making the amount of data for processing too much to handle by a standalone computer. To mitigate these issues and provide scalability, cloud computing has become an on-demand tool for data storage and processing. In the geospatial industry, this comes as a collection of geospatial datasets and satellite imageries with on-the-go scale analysis tools. In this section, participants will get to learn, interact and utilise the most popular cloud computing platforms and resources.

Timeline