The inaugural WGIC Horizons 2025 unfolded at the Denver Art Museum in Colorado, welcoming over 130 attendees to an intimate, in-depth and high-energy exploration of the geospatial industry’s most pressing innovations and future trajectories. With the theme “Beyond Boundaries,” WGIC Horizons 2025 offered not just a neutral industry platform, but a collaborative template—linking geospatial technology with emerging technologies and global business sectors to co-create new opportunities.
Attendees engaged in a dynamic series of conversations that emphasized both the diversity and underlying unity of the geospatial field. From foundational industry overviews to visionary applications of AI and quantum technologies, the atmosphere buzzed with forward-looking ideas, cross-sector insights, and calls for collaboration.
Here are some of the key themes and highlights from the sessions:
Building the Foundation: The Mission of WGIC
Kicking off the event, WGIC President Bryn Fosburgh (Trimble) presented the historical context and genesis of the Council, emphasizing its role as a collaborative platform to address the long felt but unmet needs within the geospatial sector. His message underlined WGIC’s mission to amplify industry impact through advocacy, business development, and cross-industry partnerships.
Geospatial AI and Digital Twins – NVIDIA
Sean Young of NVIDIA unveiled a powerful vision of geospatial AI and digital twins, showcasing dramatic performance leaps using GPU-accelerated computing. From real-time flood modeling to no-code object-detection tools, Sean underscored how AI is fundamentally transforming geospatial workflows and compressing processing timelines from weeks to hours.
Technology and Innovation in Construction – McKinsey & Co.
José Luis Blanco highlighted the construction sector’s push toward digitalization amidst pressing labor shortages and infrastructure demands. His session stressed that while technology adoption is gaining traction, broader productivity gains hinge on upskilling, tech integration, and project portfolio-level improvements.
Generative AI for Geospatial – AWS
Kate Zimmerman from AWS presented the expanding role of generative AI in the geospatial realm—from enhancing satellite imagery to supporting urban planning and disaster response. Her session demonstrated how cloud-native AI tools can scale analytical capacity while democratizing access to advanced geospatial intelligence.
Geospatial + Cloud – Accenture
Jefferson Wang of Accenture explored the symbiosis between cloud and geospatial technologies. With cloud as the operational backbone, his talk illustrated how AI and edge computing are enabling real-time spatial awareness — crucial for everything from smart cities to climate monitoring.
The Quantum Leap – Elevate Quantum
Jessi Olsen introduced the Elevate Quantum Tech Hub, America’s first federally funded regional quantum initiative. Emphasizing Colorado’s strategic position in quantum innovation, her presentation connected the dots between quantum computing and its long-term implications for geospatial analytics and infrastructure.
Geospatial Beyond Boundaries – Taylor Geospatial Institute
Nadine Alameh took participants on a personal and professional journey through the evolution of geospatial — from early software APIs to today’s AI-infused, no-code tools. Her story mirrored the broader arc of the industry’s transformation and its embrace of interdisciplinary innovation.
Engineering the Future with AI – Microsoft
Eve Psalti laid out Microsoft’s Copilot ecosystem and shared enterprise-ready best practices for AI integration. Her session highlighted how geospatial professionals can leverage generative AI responsibly and efficiently unlocking new layers of insight while safeguarding data and privacy.
Geospatial and Water – Water Foundry
Will Sarni delivered a compelling case for integrating geospatial analytics with water management and spatial finance. From biodiversity protection to risk mitigation in global supply chains, his talk emphasized water as a globally connected yet locally governed resource that demands smarter data-driven policies.
City-Scale Climate Action – Global Covenant of Mayors
GCoM’s Andy Deacon introduced how geospatial technologies help cities overcome critical data and capacity gaps in climate action. While cities are at the forefront of mitigation and adaptation, many lack the tools to implement plans effectively.
In a dedicated breakfast session, Andy Deacon and Benjamin Jance IV expanded the conversation, highlighting insights from the WGIC–GCoM white paper. The discussion focused on practical applications of geospatial solutions to support emissions reduction, resilience, and energy transitions through stronger collaboration between cities and the geospatial industry.
AI and Environmental Insights – Google
Melody Olson illustrated how Google is leveraging sensor data and AI to enhance city planning and sustainability. From predicting floods to mapping EV infrastructure gaps, her examples showed how accessible and actionable geospatial insights are reshaping urban ecosystems.
Imagery Meets Intelligence – EagleView
In a joint presentation, Joe Oddi and Tim Horak from EagleView, demonstrated how high-resolution aerial imagery is transforming the application of artificial intelligence. By combining orthogonal and oblique imagery with advanced AI, they showcased how geospatial intelligence is becoming more precise, timely, and scalable. Their case study on Hurricane Milton illustrated how imagery-driven insights support rapid emergency response and infrastructure evaluation—paving the way for autonomous systems to act on spatial data with minimal human intervention.
A Glimpse into the Future
Horizons 2025 was more than an event—it was a declaration that the geospatial sector is ready to lead in an increasingly interconnected, data-rich world. Designed as a single-track experience, the event fostered a focused environment where every attendee participated in the same powerful conversations.
Panel discussions brought together diverse voices to address the most pressing issues at technological, business, policy, and operational levels. These dialogues went beyond presentations—they opened space for deeper conversations, candid insights, and the exchange of bold ideas.
Horizons 2025 also created meaningful opportunities for cross-industry networking. Attendees engaged directly with peers from across sectors, uncovering shared business opportunities and co-developing solutions for the complex challenges our world faces today. With every session, it became clear: the boundaries between geospatial, AI, climate science, construction, and quantum are not walls, but bridges.
