Brisbane is one step closer to becoming the global capital of the world’s $250 billion spatial industry today with the launch of a global summit tackling global issues with big data and spatial technologies. The city will host the inaugural PIVOTAL 2015 International Executive Summit 28 June – 1 July, a spatial industry think-tank which will connect some of the world’s brightest spatial experts and top political minds.

Led by the Spatial Industries Business Association (SIBA), PIVOTAL will show government and business leaders how to harness location data to tackle everything from land-use patterns and emergency support to governance models and open data frameworks.

The summer of 2015 marks the twenty-year anniversary of the International Early-Career Scholars Institutes in GIScience. The organizers and participants in those previous Institutes in co-sponsorship with the Vespucci Initiative invite a new generation of early-career GIScience scholars to with join us to explore Advancing Geographic Information Science: The Past and Next Twenty Years.