January 2019 Summaries

Geoawesomeness has released an updated list of the Top 100 Geospatial Companies and Startups, featuring a diverse range of international companies from Singapore to Spain, including CARTO. The list was curated by a panel of 16 experts and showcases the diversity of geospatial technology companies across various scales. To visualize the list, Geoawesomeness mapped and visualized every company on the list using CARTO's design library and Vue.js, creating an interactive map that filters companies based on location and zooms in on specific countries. The map also highlights companies on hover, providing easy access to each company's details.

Meet us at MWC: 1 Month To Go` With Mobile World Congress just around the corner, CARTO is excited to attend this year's edition of the GSMA's flagship conference. The company will be showcasing its strategic partnership with Vodafone and its latest release of the Vodafone Analytics solution, which has been used by Jones Lang LaSalle as part of their business strategy. CARTO will also be discussing how geospatial technology can help the mobile industry find new business lines and optimize operations. Key speakers include Xavi Perez Trufero, Head of Strategic Partnerships at Vodafone, who will showcase the latest release of the Vodafone Analytics product, while Florence Broderick, VP Strategic Solutions & Data at CARTO, will give a talk on driving smarter cities through location intelligence in Telefónica. Additionally, Luis Sanz, CEO at CARTO, will participate in a panel discussion on growth strategies in B2B, and several members of the CARTO team will be available to meet with potential customers throughout the week.

I am pleased to announce that Luis Sanz has been appointed as CARTO's new CEO, effective immediately, bringing strong experience founding and growing disruptive companies to the table. Luis is a technologist turned growth CEO who will bring new energy in his mission to scale up the business, seeing product and innovation as key drivers, and is not just a great cultural fit for CARTO but also for the community. The company has grown rapidly over the last 7 years, positioning itself as an industry leader in Location Intelligence platforms, and is now poised for its next phase of growth, with Luis at the helm.

The market for "Smart Cities" solutions is expected to more than double over the next five years, driven by growth in Location Intelligence technologies and solutions that provide a deeper understanding of 'where'. This technology is making cities not just smarter but stronger and faster, with applications in disaster relief and reconstruction, traffic optimization, and citizen access to city data. By leveraging location intelligence, cities can improve their resilience, optimize their infrastructure, and empower citizens to better understand and engage with their urban environment.

The "Smart Cities" market is projected to grow significantly, from $308 billion in 2018 to $717 billion by 2023, largely driven by the expansion of Location Intelligence technologies. These technologies enhance urban resilience and efficiency by offering spatial insights that aid in disaster relief, health services, and traffic optimization. In the aftermath of the 2017 Puebla Earthquake, Mexico City implemented Platforma CDMX, a data-sharing platform that empowers citizens to report damage and communicate with officials, showcasing the practical applications of Location Intelligence. Furthermore, Open Data portals are becoming increasingly important, allowing citizens to engage with environmental, health, and criminal data, although technical barriers remain for non-experts. The ongoing advancements in data science and visualization tools continue to support the evolution of cities, aiming to improve safety, health, and overall quality of life for urban populations, with efforts like those by NYC Planning labs working to make such data more accessible.