The International Map Industry Association (IMIA) held its 4th annual Denver meetup on June 13th, 2019. This event gave map industry leaders a forum to network, collaborate, and learn from each other through presentations and side conversations. Xentity was among the lucky bunch of industry leaders who had the privilege of attending, and  also had the privilege of supporting the IMIA in transforming itself into what attendees of the meetup see today.

This year, the IMIA meetup’s best events included a morning session. They discussed big data and its effects on the geospatial economy. In the afternoon, sessions included topics such as location intelligence, web traffic mapping, and geospatial industry developments and achievements. Finally, a new event ended the day in the form of a fireside chat. The chat involved the incoming IMIA president and a few past presidents.

The day ended with a wonderful presentation by Education Manager at ESRI, Dr. Joseph Kerski. The topic was why geospatial data quality matters more now than ever and how we plan to continue making even greater advances in the field. We at Xentity were happy to have attended that presentation, as seen in the image below.

Xentity’s Role

Xentity not only attended this year’s IMIA meetup. We also had the privilege of supporting the IMIA in its transformation from a simple trade organization. The end-result being an event focused on business leaders across geospatial industries. Our goal was to help nurture geospatial groups such as the IMIA. Similar organizations and events are typically focused on subjects such as photography, data, data management, GIS data, spatial software and proprietary software. Furthermore, there are numerous local and municipal GIS groups across the country.  But none of these organizations has been focusing on the business leaders of the geospatial industry, and this has become a niche IMIA filled thanks in part to Xentity’s support. We actively supported the IMIA in filling that niche through setting meetups. This brought geospatial groups together to share ideas, and help strengthen groups of people into something of value. 

Through our combined efforts with the IMIA, we helped bring together leaders in the federal and state data-provider community with business leaders in the private sector to share ideas and updates on the progress the federal government is making in their journey to improve data resources.

Our Hope For the Future

We at Xentity are extremely happy to see how much the IMIA meetup has grown as an event. Of course, we say that as both participant and supporter. Through our combined efforts, we have filled a niche that allows leaders in our industry to connect and share ideas.