October 2021 Summaries

Iacopo Testi was awarded as the Spatial Data Scientist of the Year 2021 for his work at the intersection of Data Science, Sustainability and Urbanism. He applies Artificial Intelligence models to urban environments to advance economic, environmental and social sustainability. Iacopo is a faculty staff member at the Michael Graves College of Public Architecture where he teaches courses on representation and design studio. He has collaborated with other faculty members to structure syllabus framework for students who were shortlisted by the 'Rome Collective Living Challenge' international competition. The Spatial Data Scientist of the Year 2021 award was announced during the SDSC21 conference, which featured talks, workshops and panels by 53 speakers across 35 interactive sessions.

The Spatial Data Science Conference Online 2021 (#SDSC21) is taking place, bringing together thousands of data scientists, developers, academics, and business leaders for four days to discuss the future of Spatial Data Science. The conference offers a platform for networking with speakers and attendees through an event platform and a dedicated Slack channel. Keynote talks will be delivered by leading enterprise organizations such as Vodafone Business, Google, T-Mobile, and TomTom on how they utilize Spatial Data Science. Registration is still open, and the conference kicks off at 09:00 ET / 15:00 CEST. Attendees can connect with others online using the #SDSC21 hashtag.

The Geospatial World Awards, initiated in 2007, recognize exemplary practices in the global geospatial industry. CARTO-powered solutions have won prestigious awards, including Geospatial Excellence in Environmental Protection and Innovation awards. These awards highlight notable initiatives such as Philip Morris International's "Our World is Not an Ashtray" campaign to combat cigarette butt littering, and Clear Channel's RADARView tool for effective Out of Home advertising planning.

We have released a new version of CARTO Spatial Features, including global urbanity, climatology, and elevation data, now available on the H3 grid. The dataset includes variables for urbanity level, elevation, and climatology, allowing users to model location-based context with greater detail. This release supports a new geographic support system, the H3 grid, which enables fast computation of distances between hexagons and neighboring areas. The global urbanity classification has been built synthesizing information regarding population density and urban infrastructure, and is now available as a new variable within the dataset. We have also included global digital elevation data from NASA's Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) Global Digital Elevation Model, and climatology features based on monthly averages from the WorldClim database. The H3 grid supports sixteen resolutions, each composed of cells with one-seventh the area of the lower resolution containing cell. This new version of Spatial Features is available as a premium dataset in CARTO's Data Observatory, or as public datasets for the United States, United Kingdom, and Spain in the Quadgrid 15 and H3 formats.

CARTO and Havas Media Group will present at Big Data & AI World Madrid 2021, exploring the use of geospatial analytics in advertising to better understand audiences. Gemma Díaz Arenas and Jorge de Lara will discuss how Local MX is turning location data into relevant audience insights for leading brands. CARTO will also be supporting the event as a silver sponsor with live demos of spatial analysis workflows available at their stand F64.

Announcing CARTO's Spatial Analytics in BigQuery` has been made generally available, providing a complete redevelopment of the company's leading Location Intelligence platform on top of Google Cloud BigQuery. This integration offers several advantages over traditional GIS platforms, including cloud-native architecture, improved privacy compliance, scalability, and cost-effectiveness. The new platform includes a user-friendly interface with features such as a Data Explorer, Builder for vector map making, Analytics Toolbox with advanced spatial functions, and easy access to public and premium spatial data. It also provides APIs, SDKs, and templates for building custom spatial applications with BigQuery and Google Maps. The release is designed to enable advanced Location Intelligence on the Google Cloud platform, allowing users to visualize spatial data, run location-based analytics, and develop engaging web experiences using cloud-hosted data.

CARTO & Google Cloud announce sustainability partnership to fight Climate Change The partnership aims to support organizations in understanding the impact of climate change by enabling data-driven approaches using Google's BigQuery, machine learning, and Earth Engine products. CARTO and Google Cloud will provide a spatial extension for BigQuery, enhancing geospatial data analysis and visualization capabilities. The solution is designed to help customers analyze various use cases such as catastrophe analytics, climate resilience, extreme weather monitoring, biodiversity analysis, or deforestation tracking. The partnership leverages over 50 petabytes of data from leading sustainability-focused companies, including Climate Engine, Geotab NGIS, and Planet, to support a wide range of sustainability initiatives. By combining their solutions, CARTO and Google Cloud aim to provide the industry's cleanest cloud for practitioners looking to carry out cloud-native GIS, while also addressing climate change through trusted and sustainable data platforms.

The Spatial Data Science Conference '21 has announced new additions to its speaker lineup, including Minori Matsuda from Coca-Cola Bottlers Japan, Denise Pearl from Google, Gerardo Lastra from Vodafone, Rosalie van der Maas MSc from Ellipsis Drive, Bilal Lodhi from Bain & Company, Tova Perlman from Data Science for Social Good, Dan Baeder from Deloitte, Eva Murray from Snowflake, Nik Hengel from Novus Media, and Jan Benetka from Unacast. The conference is taking place on October 25th and has welcomed new bronze sponsors Ellipsis Drive and Kinetica.