GEOFESTO

Where is the question, but how? Geospatial is at a tipping point; this GEOFESTO is a philosophy for our community’s growth.

This is a living document. Expect changes.

Every headline now has a latitude and longitude. Wildfires darken skies half a continent away, supply chains reroute in hours, and satellite images expose current events before diplomats can draft statements. In this high-velocity world, whoever understands “where” outpaces the competition, protects communities, and shapes policy. Geospatial is no longer a specialist’s hobby; it is a critical input to decision-making. This document, a “GEOFESTO*,” lays out the principles and emerging trends that let practitioners ride the wave instead of drowning beneath it.

The Calgary Eleven: Kurtis Broda**, Jon Neufeld, Tammy Peterson, Tee Barr, Ben Tuttle, Cade Justad-Sandberg, Kyle Ryan, Sarah Pryor, Andrew House, Will Cadell, Sam Rondeel

Photo by philippe spitalier on Unsplash

By adopting these principles, geospatial practitioners can both enhance their community of practice and drive geospatial technology into a better and bold future.

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The GEOFESTO

A call to action for the digital geographer of tomorrow.

I. Educate to Make Spatial Literacy Universal

Geo isn’t a specialty but a core way of reasoning about finance, climate, supply chains, and society. Embed it in curricula, metrics, and boardroom dashboards.

II. Choose Collaboration Over Silos

Walled gardens and traditionally siloed GIS offices waste insight, while teams communicating openly are effective.

III. Open Standards Create Opportunity

Open data and model standards invite idea collisions, turbo‑charge scale, and unleash AI innovation the moment a new sensor comes online.

IV. Geospatial as an Approach, Not a Solution

Jargon‑laden “solutioneering” alienate would‑be users. Lead with plain‑language workflows that hide complexity and spotlight outcomes.

V. Obsess Over Outcomes

We measure our successes by solving problems rather than by building technologies.

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Today’s Trends

Why are these important? In 2025, geospatial technology is changing at a rapid pace, and the following trends will define the next era.

1. Spatial information is becoming more important for business intelligence

Geography is not a niche skill but a foundational way of reasoning about the world.

Smartphones, drones, and devices stream location data. Organizations that weave spatial thinking into strategy see patterns rivals miss. Leaders now realize that every KPI hides a “where.” When teams map those hidden relationships, they cut blind spots and find new value. Spatial analysis no longer sits on the fringe; it powers business intelligence.

Humanity’s biggest challenges are spatially located. From climate change to geopolitics, only by understanding where can we understand the critical path forward.

2. From Analysis‑Ready to Decision‑Ready Data

The geospatial community has spent a decade celebrating analysis-ready data, yet end‑users still wrestle with last‑mile analytics.

Decision-ready data will close that gap. That means distilling insights and context so end-users can go straight from data to action. The concept builds on efforts in remote sensing where imagery is pre-processed as Analysis-Ready Data; now, we’re taking it further across the geospatial field. Think of disaster managers getting a flood impact map with population and economic loss estimates instead of just satellite photos. Driving this trend is the need for speed and clarity. In a fast-paced world, few have time to wrangle data or interpret complex charts.

3. Collaboration Beats Silos

Walled gardens hinder fusion; open standards catalyze idea collisions.

The geospatial field has long suffered from data silos caused by agencies and companies guarding data or working in isolation. That’s changing fast, out of both necessity and opportunity. Complex problems like pandemics and climate risks don’t respect organizational boundaries, and solving them requires pooling expertise and datasets. When GIS teams operate in silos, their impact is limited. Open collaboration multiplies the value of spatial data open standards like STAC for sharing imagery, and consortia where government, academia, and industry jointly build mapping solutions. This trend is gaining momentum now thanks to cloud infrastructure and APIs that make data exchange easier, plus a generational change in mindset toward openness. The payoff is huge: better decision-making, less duplication, and the ability to tackle big challenges together.

4. Designing for an AI‑First Era

Do we retrofit AI into legacy toolchains or invent fresh, prompt‑driven experiences that bypass traditional GIS GUIs?

The traditional GIS (Geographic Information System) has been a powerhouse, but it’s historically tied to complex software interfaces and expert operators. In 2025, we are looking at a radically new paradigm of AI-first geospatial workflows. Large language models and other AI can now interpret natural language and generate maps or analyses on the fly. This means a researcher or city official might simply describe a problem or ask a question, and the AI-powered system will handle the GIS tasks under the hood such as data retrieval, analysis, and visualization without the user clicking through menus or writing code.

There’s also a democratizing impulse: to make spatial analysis accessible to anyone who needs it, not just those with specialized training. An AI-first workflow lowers the barrier so a hydrologist, epidemiologist, or journalist can get spatial insights without being a GIS guru. This doesn’t spell the end of the GIS professional; rather, it augments experts’ capabilities and frees them from rote tasks. It’s GIS “after the GUI,” where AI agents handle the heavy lifting (and even some expert reasoning). Imagine vastly shorter analysis cycles and increased innovation as more people can play with geospatial questions.

5. Geopolitics of Pixels: Sovereignty, Security, and the New Spatial Order

Platform sovereignty, export controls, and the slide toward nationalized constellations. This trend is a direct threat to open collaboration and breaking down of silos.

Geospatial technology is deeply entwined with questions of national sovereignty and security.

During Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, ubiquitous satellite imagery empowered a smaller nation and the global public to hold a superpower to account in what has become the most “documented” conflict in history. Nations are taking note, and are asserting control over mapping within their borders. Many countries worry that unfettered open data could expose critical infrastructure or strategic vulnerabilities, prompting debates about limiting certain datasets.

We are entering a new spatial order where owning your satellites, your mapping platforms, and your spatial data repositories is seen as vital as owning your land. Even private companies like map providers find themselves navigating international sensitivities, such as differing border representations and data localization laws. In this landscape, “pixels” (satellite images, map tiles) carry diplomatic weight. Control over them means control over narratives and strategic insights.

The Beginning

Geospatial’s moment is now: location data sits at the heart of decision and AI rips away old interface barriers. And sovereign pixels redraw power maps. The GEOFESTO calls us to meet that moment. To think spatially by default, share before siloing, codify open standards, speak outcomes not acronyms, and measure impact in lives improved, risks reduced, forests saved. If practitioners, vendors, academics, and policymakers embrace these principles, we don’t merely keep pace with change; we shape it and help the world move forward.

These are not rules by any means but more considerations. A philosophy of modern geospatial.

*Paying homage to our community’s insistence on adding the prefix “geo” to almost any word. Note that Sparkgeo cleverly uses a suffix, which is quite different.

**Special thanks to Kurtis Broda for assembling our notes.