Vanessa Lawrence: Understanding ‘where’ improves decision-making
A conversation about the challenges and opportunities to promote the use of geospatial information and its innovation globally.
It is our pleasure to introduce to you Dr. Vanessa Lawrence CB, a senior strategic geospatial advisor to governments, inter-governmental organizations and the private sector. As the longest-serving Director-General and Chief Executive of Ordnance Survey — Great Britain’s national mapping agency since 1875 — as well as the first woman to hold that position since it was founded in 1791, Dr. Lawrence helped to transform the organization to be a leading provider of geospatial data, before stepping down in 2014, after 14 years at the helm. She was also the founding co-Chair in 2011 of the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM) and remained as a co-Chair until 2015; UN-GGIM is an intergovernmental body and sets the agenda for the development of global geospatial information and promotes its use to address global challenges. Today, amongst other appointments, she is now a Non-Executive Director of the Satellite Applications Catapult who focuses on fostering innovation in the use of satellite data. In 2008, HRH Queen Elizabeth II honored Dr. Lawrence as a Companion of The Most Honorable Order of the Bath.
In this Q&A, Dr. Lawrence reflects on promoting the use of geospatial information and innovation amongst organizations working to address environmental and socio-economic challenges.
“Today, I am just as inspired by the power of location and how it can transform people’s lives as well as the fortunes of nations, as I was when I first discovered its power as I graduated from my first degree. I am inspired by how diverse the usage of geospatial data is today — from its pervasiveness in our daily lives, to underpinning governmental activities and now underpinning global activities.”
You have been recognized globally on various occasions for your pioneering work in promoting the use of geospatial information in global development. What got you interested in the sector, and how do you stay inspired?
My love of Geography first started at school when I was 13 years old. A particularly enthusiastic Geography teacher, Mrs Dover, was able to beautifully illustrate every aspect of our studies with real-world stories, maps and photographs; which on reflection, was key to my interest and choice of Geography going forward.
Having graduated from University with a Geography Degree in 1984, I could see even then that a better understanding of the use of location-based information really could be transformational when making decisions. My thinking was that if you could add the ‘where’ aspect to other data, then you could get much more meaningful insights from the information. As a result, I enrolled for an MSc in Satellite Remote Sensing and its Applications as there were no GIS MSc courses in those days! As a result, I joined a very small cadre of people in the UK in the 1980s who understood that location-based information really could make a difference to decision-making but only if ‘the decision-makers realized that this possibility existed and learned how to use it’.
After my graduation, I wished to use my degree, but I soon realized that no jobs existed in the UK for someone with such a qualification. However, I was still determined to be ‘a location specialist’ and when I gave my first public talk, I told the audience that this was my dream. Within a few hours, the publishers Longman Group, invited me to take up the position of Publisher Higher Education for Geography, Geology, Agriculture and Veterinary Science. Working at Longman Group enabled me to gain an excellent business training as well as use my professional training in Geography and Satellite Remote Sensing.
Eventually, as Geography developed to embrace the digital age and I developed my career, I was fortunate enough to have an idea in 1992 that was accepted by the governance Board of the Longman Group to start a digital business around Geography; it was known as Longman GeoInformation. At the time I had no idea that it was one of the first digital publishing businesses and one of the first geospatial content businesses that was independent of government. It quickly grew both in size and success and so this is how I started my geospatial career that led onto me working for Autodesk, a billion dollar software company and later as Director General and CEO, Ordnance Survey.
Today, I am just as inspired by the power of location and how it can transform people’s lives as well as the fortunes of nations, as I was when I first discovered its power as I graduated from my first degree. I am inspired by how diverse the usage of geospatial data is today — from its pervasiveness in our daily lives, to underpinning governmental activities and now underpinning global activities. In turn, the breadth of our geospatial profession fascinates me from satellites through drones and other remote vehicles, to data analytics…and all based on a simple premise that understanding ‘where’ improves decision-making.
As one of the inaugural chairs of UN-GGIM, you had a front row seat in the drive to create national and global policy frameworks, plus institutional procedures to improve global geospatial capacity. Looking back from your involvement in 2011 until now: has the work been successful? In what ways? What are the biggest challenges ahead?
The work of UN-GGIM has most certainly been successful. Thinking back to 2011, it was always hoped that UN-GGIM would be the lead global Policy organization in our community and would unite the whole community. Due to the tremendous hard work of the Secretariat that underpins all the work of the Member States and those Member State colleagues who have kindly taken leadership positions in UN-GGIM, our community has very much achieved that, and had a voice in some of the most significant global debates and decisions including Rio + 20, the Sendai Framework and of course the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). A particularly memorable moment was in 2014, when Mr Wu Hongbo, the then Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs said: “Geospatial information is fundamental to decision-making, policy formulation, measuring and monitoring development elements, all critical to the post 2015 sustainable development agenda.”
There are many successes that could be highlighted, but if I can choose just one I should like to highlight the very successful regional structure of UN-GGIM. Regional groups are now well established in Asia-Pacific, The Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Each region chooses its own focus of the main topics of UN-GGIM, but what has been so successful is the inclusive regional collaboration that is taking place involving both policy and technical discussions, sometimes against a back drop of other regional difficulties.
The biggest challenges ahead are those that are affecting not only UN-GGIM, but the whole geospatial industry. We are seeing many disciplines embracing ‘location information to enhance their decision-making’ but not realising that there is a professional industry existing around this important area.
Clearly, UN-GGIM embraces the whole geospatial community. Led by the Member States of course but now including academia, the professional associations and the private sector and with a breadth that is from earth observation using satellites and other remote vehicles to those in data analytics using statistical and geospatial frameworks and embracing all new ways of analysis including machine learning and deep learning. The biggest challenge for the whole of our sector including UN-GGIM is for us all to communicate outside the sector in language that is both understandable to everyone and that is also globally consistent. We also continuously need to repeat this common ‘voice’ so that it becomes the norm that other industries keep hearing about our very important work that underpins local, national and global decision-making.
“I should like to highlight the very successful regional structure of UN-GGIM. Regional groups are now well established in Asia-Pacific, The Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Each region chooses its own focus of the main topics of UN-GGIM, but what has been so successful is the inclusive regional collaboration that is taking place involving both policy and technical discussions, sometimes against a back drop of other regional difficulties.”
We often hear people say that geospatial technology and Earth observations are essential for solving global challenges and creating a sustainable future. However, the data is not always within reach of countries, especially in the global South. In the context of lessons learned and doing things better, what is needed to lessen the data gap?
Traditionally, all countries have considered that they need to create and maintain their own national data. But we are seeing for even the most developed nations that over the last five years, data feeds are a mix of commercially owned assets, crowd sourced data and assets owned by the nation.
The advantage for the global South is that they do not have to go through all the heartache as a nation, of trying to collect, maintain and store all the geospatial data required by their government themselves, as their predecessors in other areas of the globe have done. This is now viewed as a model that is both expensive for a nation and means the data can become outdated unless a rigorous maintenance program is in place that will cost many millions of dollars per year.
Many of the global South nations are choosing to use as their base geospatial information, the free at point of use up-to-date open source geospatial service resources that are now available. These include the stream of Earth observation data from the ESA Copernicus program, which has certainly made a difference to the resources available as has data created by both OpenStreet Map and also the Humanitarian OpenStreet Map Teams amongst of course other locally crowd-sourced initiatives. Many of these nations then choose to build and maintain additional datasets for certain places in their countries such as cities or geographical features that might be considered as national hazards.
Many countries do not universally maintain national coverage mapping. In the future, one can see trusted global organizations who run geospatial services being used by many countries as these geospatial services will guarantee a level of up-to-datedness of the data and a level of service.
The countries in turn, will require considerably less local geospatial infrastructure investment and training of local colleagues but they will meet the demand of the growth of geospatial information for humanitarian use, government use, commercial use, resource management use and improvements in local infrastructure.
Research reveals that women in the geospatial industry are gradually progressing into management positions, but the gender gap remains wide. What advice do you have for young women navigating the career ladder in our profession?
It is really pleasing to see that each year there are more woman at events involving our industry. I think we have to think ourselves very fortunate as certainly all my female peers, with whom I have discussed this, agree that we do not have the harassment problems that some other professions are now exposing. Our collective experience is that we have always been welcomed by everyone as professionals and long may that continue.
However, one of the issues we do face is that not enough women join the profession. It is not as obvious a career choice as others presented at key career decision-stages; but this applies equally to both men and woman. I believe we must do more as an industry to bring to life the exciting opportunities and ensure that these are well promoted to everyone. Finally, I was fortunate enough to be given a phrase that I should like to pass onto everyone when considering their future ‘if you can dream it, you can do it’…very much meaning that anything is possible if you set your mind upon it!
With the fast-changing pace of technology and information overload, how do you keep yourself professionally up-to-date?
Keeping up to date professionally takes a significant investment of time each month but I do invest in doing that…otherwise it would be impossible for me to advise governments and organizations globally. I also make regular site visits to see geospatial being operationally used in many different professions, read a great deal, listen to webinars and attend 2–3 international events per year. It is of course a constant challenge but one that I enjoy doing and I hope that I will continue to enjoy for many years to come.
“The second area that excites me are the many new users of location information. I can well remember writing in 1986 that one day everyone would use ‘location information to make better decisions’.”
What technology innovations do you find most promising? What business trends do you find most interesting?
In answer to your question I could write a great deal, but I will contain it to two major developments that I think will cause significant disruption over the next year. The first is the ever-increasing use of every type of imagery in every aspect of our profession; this demand is fueled by the demand for near real time information about a location, the change detection capabilities of using imagery and the ease of understanding of imagery by the user. The second is the use by the industry of many other non-traditional data sources such as AIS feeds from planes and ships, social media data, and multiple-news feeds, giving a real world location analytics situational analysis.
Combining the increasing use of imagery with these many non-traditional sources of data is bringing many new companies into the industry who often do not traditionally identify with the geospatial industry. These in turn are supplying their data analytics as a ‘service’ to new customers who do not even understand they are using ‘geospatial in disguise’.
The question we must ask ourselves perhaps regularly is this an indicator that the industry is maturing or is it a key indicator that the industry we have known is changing radically?…only time will tell.
The business trends that excite me are two fold; the first being the breadth of what we identify the profession to be nowadays from earth observation using satellites and other remote vehicles to those in data analytics using statistical and geospatial frameworks and embracing all new ways of analysis including machine learning and deep learning.
The second area that excites me are the many new users of location information. I can well remember writing in 1986 that one day everyone would use ‘location information to make better decisions’. I am so pleased to see that this is now occurring and every few months I see new industries being attracted to understanding more about what location information can do for their industry to give them added competitive advantage.
In the UK, we are seeing the investment and financial service businesses embracing every aspect of location information; their thirst for senior strategic briefings and their recruiting of excellent technical skills shows that they too are now excited by the added benefits of using location information. At the same time, our National Health Service (NHS) has set up a competition with the UK Space Agency that includes a £4M fund to encourage innovative solutions to be suggested by the commercial sector to assist the use of location technologies to improve the performance of the NHS.
Finally, I am seeing many new companies wishing to use our industry to remotely track the performance of everything from construction sites to commodities and what is exciting is that all these new companies are clear that our industry is giving them either competitive edge or commercial certainty at lower cost; and hence we are seeing real value being added by the use of the techniques and assets of our industry.
What’s next for you in your work? What are you looking forward to?
I think I am very fortunate.
I work globally in an industry that I love that is having a ‘growth spurt’ and can really assist nations, regions, companies and individuals to make better decisions.
Whether it is assisting inter-governmental organizations, cabinets of countries, national mapping and cadastral offices, large global commercial companies or small start-ups, everyone has the similar issues and their normal questions are ‘How can we improve our performance by understanding more from our own data by the use of location data’ or “How can my organization become more effective to assist my government (or of course in some cases shareholders) to make better decisions by using the location data we collect and maintain’. So I see my work continuing globally as more people need answers to these ‘normal questions’.
It’s a tricky question to consider ‘What am I looking forward to?’ Due to the attention the industry is receiving from the investment community to fund hundreds of start-ups in our sector and also the many new uses of location information, I am looking forward to and I am confident and excited that in five years time, our industry will be very different from how it looks today.
Many of the technical innovations are disruptive and transformational in both what they actually do but also in the business models they are using. So it makes me wonder, what exactly will we be discussing in five years time under the banner of geospatial?
