The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated an ever-increasing need for improved digital services. Citizens and employees need remote, digital access to nearly every service imaginable. Furthermore, government entities of all sizes are tasked with meeting these needs. Steven Henderson notes how this catapulted spatial awareness. “Questions never pondered are now asked regularly. What Local Government Area (LGA) am I in? How will my shopping delivery get to me? Where can I travel from my home bubble? Where is my nearest testing or vaccination centre? Or: where is the location of that city park? Getting answers to these types of questions and allowing people to access them quickly requires location data.” Ofcourse, these are delivered intelligently with geographic information systems (GIS).

Moving away from Covid

Moving away from the ever-present focus on COVID-19, in his blog, Henderson points out the value of mapping tree assets in the cloud instead, and also, using GIS to take the guesswork out of decision making. In another recent blog, he reminds us how GIS plays a role in helping member countries and organisations to reach the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals.

Smarter GIS software enables better location intelligence
GIS brings sustainability goals within reach