Executive Breakfast Meeting 2019, Abuja
As part of growing Esri market in Nigeria, Sambus Geospatial Nigeria Limited hosted its premier Executive Breakfast meeting on Tuesday, 18th of June 2019 at the Transcorp Hilton in Abuja, Nigeria. The theme for this meeting was; “Spatial & Artificial Intelligence: The Emerging Trends for Economic Growth”.
The main goal of this meeting was to engage and sensitize Nigeria as a country on the application of Geographic Information System (GIS) thus ArcGIS technology for national development through improved data collection, sharing and the integration of artificial & spatial analytics. The forum revealed deeper insights in the use of ArcGIS Platform for informed decision making.
The event was well attended by over 150 individuals, professionals from various fields of specialization, spanning different sectors such as government agencies, military, statistics, oil and gas, finance, real estate, health services, education, insurance, non-governmental organizations and many more in Nigeria.
Two guest speakers, Mrs. Lola Talabi Oni representing the Chairman of the National Bureau of Statistics and Colonel Obinna Azuikpe, the Acting Commander Technical Intelligence Command, representing the Chief of Army Staff spoke extensively on the theme subject highlighting the importance of GIS in their organizational sectors and their opinions for improvement. The two keynote speakers, Mrs. Akua Aboah-Baffoe, the Executive Director of Sambus Geospatial Limited and Dr. Alex B. Owusu, Senior lecturer at the University of Ghana educated all attendees on the application and use of ArcGIS technology in problem-solving across various sectors of the country.
Mrs. Lola Talabi Oni acknowledged the importance of the meeting and highlighted the role of the National Bureau of Statistics which includes building national capacity. She added the essence of the Bureau’s statistical data in all aspects of the lives of the people and in economic development at large. She emphasized the importance of the quality and timeliness of data in Nigeria’s development.
Colonel Obinna Azuikpe acknowledged the need to understand, know how to use geospatial tools and analyse the data as extremely important in geospatial intelligence. He suggested the formulation and subsequent implementation of the national policy for integrating and sharing data in the country which will reduce cost and duplication of efforts across the various agencies in the country.
Mrs. Akua Aboah-Baffoe re-iterated that ArcGIS combines the science of geography with powerful GIS technology to help you make smarter decisions in all aspects of the economy including the oil and gas, security, finance, utilities, communication, supply chain, manufacturing, education and non-governmental sectors among many others. She added that with ArcGIS, organizations can use maps and spatial reasoning to explore data in new ways and gain a deeper understanding of any problem or situation while sharing these insights and collaborating with others through web maps and apps.
Dr. Owusu, in his presentation demonstrated to the audience the practical and technical aspect of how GIS works and how it can be applied to sectors such as utility & facility management, agriculture and rural transformation, disease surveillance, crime and business intelligence. He highlighted that GIS is a decision support system which improves on an organization’s effectiveness and efficiency. He also gave an overview of the emerging trend of Artificial and Location Intelligence integration.
Applause went to the partnership between Esri and Sambus Geospatial Limited while Dr Owusu expressed immense appreciation for the support from Sambus to the University of Ghana Remote Sensing & GIS Laboratory. Unanimously, all the speakers agreed that adaptation of GIS would improve the various sectors of the country’s economy.
Attendees left the meeting with a new realization and understanding of the intricate role GIS plays in our daily lives, our economy and our world. There were commitments from a large percentage to pursue and explore its use within their respective industries.
The event was covered and reported by two media houses, Business Day and Channels TV (https://youtu.be/5DDTmdNFdXM )
