London, 05 June 2025 – The Association for Geographic Information, the membership group for organisations and individuals working in geospatial, has presented its 2025 Awards for Excellence. The ceremony, which took place yesterday at GEO Business in London, attracted a vibrant audience with six awards being presented.
Winner of the Chairperson’s Award for Outstanding Service to the Geospatial Community was Ed Parsons a Digital geographer, Geospatial Technology Advisor, and Keynote Speaker. Former Geospatial Technologist at Google, he is vice-chair of the Board of Directors of the Open Geospatial Consortium, a Visiting Professor at University College London, and was awarded the inaugural ‘Professional Geography Award’ by the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) in 2024.
“Ed is the geospatial industry’s ultimate educator and explorer,” commented Peter ter Haar, Co-Chair of the Association for Geographic Information, who presented the award. “He is always exploring new applications and locations, and he is always willing to help people understand the opportunities of geospatial. Ed is a critical friend of the AGI, and of the wider community, and it is my honour to present him with this award.”
Other awards made during the ceremony included the Geospatial Professional of the Year Award. Presented by Liz Fox-Tucker, Professional and Policy Manager at Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), to David Hinton, Senior GIS Analyst at The Crown Estate, this award recognised David’s ability to inspire colleagues while delivering excellent spatial data and analytical expertise to support objectives such as catalysing the UK towards net zero, promoting nature recovery, and optimising value from the marine space.
Early Career Professional of the Year Award was given to Lucy Main, a Geospatial Data Graduate at Ordnance Survey. Tom Perks, Co-Chair of the AGI Early Careers Network, presented the award citing Lucy’s innovation in integrating Machine Learning (ML), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and computer vision into cloud computing, and her ability to deliver impact by sharing her work to date.
Claire Williams, Product Manager at Esri UK presented the Award for Environment and Sustainability to the Ecosystem Management Insights (EcoMI) project. Accepted by Daniel Rex, Lead Technical Consultant at Informed Solutions, on behalf of David Genney, Team Manager for Protected Areas, Innovation and Data Activity at NatureScot, this award exemplifies the use of AI to fuse different types of historical data to monitor Scotland’s ecosystems.
The award for Geospatial Collaboration and Partnership was won by Fife College and made to Stuart Miller, Geospatial Sector Lead. Presented by Kenna Dallaway, AGI Vice Chair, and accepted by Tom Timms, Sales Director of Verisk on Stuart’s behalf, this award recognises the development and delivery of a course that provides a sustainable education pathway, strengthening industry ties, ensuring real-world experience, and addressing the skills gap and workforce demands.
Samuel Richardson, Data Scientist at Natural England accepted the award for Innovation in Geospatial Technology, on behalf of project lead Anne Williams, from Will Robertshaw, Geospatial and AI Engineer at Ramboll. Awarded to the AI4Peat project, this project highlights the innovative use of deep learning to identify signs of peatland damage and track restoration, and addresses real operational challenges and showed strong potential for broader ecological applications.
Fergus Craig, Co-Chair of the Association of Geographic Information, added, “Once again we have been overwhelmed by the quantity and quality of submissions and nominations. We hope that with these awards we have been able to recognise and communicate the innovation, achievements, and best practice that take place every single day across the geospatial sector.”
About the Association for Geographic Information
The Association for Geographic Information is an independent and impartial organisation that represents the UK geospatial sector. Supporting members and the wider community, the Association successfully works alongside government policy makers, delivers professional development and provides a lead for best practice across the industry. Established in 1990, members of the Association for Geographic Information enjoy unrivalled networking opportunities, a framework to learn new skills and the support to progress successful careers. www.agi.org.uk
