Technics Chairman joins the panel for ‘Tech Trends and the Future of the Geospatial Profession’ webinar

Last Month, Graham Mills, our Founder and Chairman joined the panel for the Tech Trends and the Future of the Geospatial Profession webinar organised by GEO Business. The premise of the webinar was to explore the future of the profession in terms of technology trends and the skills needed to help drive the profession forward.

Graham and the panel of experts gave the audience their thoughts on the latest technologies, processes and innovations set to impact and shape the geospatial profession, as well as offering their thoughts on how to implement these changes whilst encouraging staff and clients to embrace the new ways of working.

At Technics we are committed to investing in new technology and innovative solutions to offer our clients. In fact back in 2019 we completed an award winning  Innovate UK funded feasibility study with the University of Surrey (Dept. of Automotive Engineering) on the use of ground penetrating radar for accurately locating Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAV’s). And Graham himself is no stranger to innovation, having developed the Stay Safe App back in 2012 as a way of keeping surveyors safe whilst working alone. So being on this panel was right up our street!

The session kicked off with the panel giving their thoughts on some of the future trends that are already impacting on the geospatial industry… from artificial intelligence and robotic process automation, the explosion of virtual reality and the importance of moving to the cloud… the panel covered it all. After sharing their thoughts on the impact of future trends, the panel moved on to discuss the main challenges ahead.

A common challenge raised by the panel and one that sparked a number of questions from the audience was the fact that so much geospatial data is so readily available to the general public. This data is available from multiple sources and is often not produced by professional surveyors. Society is demanding more and more data to be available quicker than ever before, but how do we know it’s reliable and fit for purpose? The panel discussed this at length recognising that as a profession we have a responsibility to ensure that standards are upheld.

As Graham said “The surveying profession needs to value themselves higher. There is a lot of free geospatial data out there available to the public, but it’s often not reliable or fit for purpose. We need to have faith in the quality of the data we are providing and have more confidence in it’s value.”

Graham’s words are echoed here at Technics. We pride ourselves on delivering high quality reliable data to our clients that is checked and verified by our in-house Quality Assurance team before it is issued. This ensures that clients’ projects stay on track, risks are minimised and avoids any unwanted surprises during excavation and construction. Our clients trust us to provide the correct information first time, and by remaining committed to doing just that we are confident we can overcome the challenge of the vast quantity of data already out there.

If you would like to hear the panel discussion in full then visit the Geo Business website to watch the full recording.

For help and advice on data that is suitable for your project please get in touch.