Geographical Thinking from Esri Canada

"Clothing has never been created in a vacuum," says Sam Huckerby describing her storymap that connects the geography of the sourced materials for 19th century fashion with environment, economic and social movements. Hear her on Geographical Thinking.

Domains are in our brains as the funcast podcast returns for some late summer fun. GIS nerds know that a domain is a list or range of valid values. Hear Dawn Price and Arif Rafiq compete for geo-glory as they determine which geographic landmarks fall within this game's domain - UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Is the Great Barrier Reef a world heritage site? The Rideau Canal? The White House? Play alo...

Developers Samuel Larsen-Disney and Yannis Panagis won first prize at an Esri Hackathon with DigitalFootprint.earth. It's a web application that estimates how much carbon dioxide is produced each time you access a website. They told Guan about quantifying the cost of surfing the web and using a 3D globe to visualize that.

Marine biologist Dr. Vanessa Pirotta and location intelligence expert Brett Dixon discuss their collaboration to study humpback whales in the Pacific Ocean using drones and geospatial visualization.

Michael Healander, CEO of Airspace Link, talks about drone delivery technology and how robotic flight is improving efficiency in the logistics industry and how drones can complement existing industries in an environmentally positive way.

Esri Canada's funcast podcast is back, and this journey to geo-glory will be taken five responses at a time. David Kossowsky and Jasmine Sohal battle each other to find the top five answers to geographic questions.  What are the five fastest growing cities in Canada?  Which five countries consume the most wine?  Where are the five smallest U.S. states?  Join us as we tackle these brain teasers and...

Matawa is a tribal council that looks after 9 First Nation communities in northern Ontario. Their land covers an area more than twice the size of New Brunswick and is difficult to navigate. But they need to study the land to make informed decisions about its' future use. So they taught themselves drone technology and mapped all their communities at 1cm accuracy, in six months. It's an extraordinar...

There are 180 cases of unidentified human remains in BC. These are cases that have been cold for years, some for decades. Ian Charlton, a spatial analyst with BC Coroner's Services at the time, thought by putting the information about the remains on an interactive map he might engage the public and spark some new leads. The success of the map was beyond Ian's expectation. He talked to Guan about t...

Renowned oceanographer and Esri's Chief Scientist, Dawn Wright talked to Guan about her role at Esri, as well as the importance of GIS in ocean conservation.

Twenty percent of the debris in the ocean is lost fishing gear. Leah Fulton's storymap 'The tale of lost fishing gear' won 1st place in a StoryMaps Challenge for restoring our ocean hosted by Esri and the National Geographic Society.  Leah tells Guan why abandoned, lost and discarded fishing gear in Nova Scotia is a huge environmental problem and the challenges to solving it.

Team Rubicon Canada, a volunteer team of veterans, first responders and tough civilians, uses GIS in their efforts to help the underinsured and the uninsured when their community has been struck by natural disasters. Greg McGrath convinced the team that using GIS would ease their efforts. He joins Geographical Thinking to share that journey.

Ian Williams with the Toronto Police Service on how the police have evolved their use of GIS.

Brad Connatty, Manager of Upstream GIS at Suncor Energy, talks about how the use of GIS and location analytics is evolving in the energy industry.     

News outlets now reach audiences using interactive maps, dashboards, podcasts. Amy Luft's an award-winning digital content producer with the CTV network. Hear how she helps reporters tell stories in new ways. 

Helping indigenous and First Nations people build their GIS capacity cartographer Steve DeRoy of The Firelight Group, wants to indigenize maps. https://resources.esri.ca/geographical-thinking-podcast/season-2-episode-12-indigenous-mapping-in-canada?utm_source=apple&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=podcasts-2022

Paul Shaffelburg is in charge of the GIS and geospatial services at Halifax Regional Municipality. Hear how he spearheads new processes and solutions in a complex municipality. https://resources.esri.ca/geographical-thinking-podcast/season-2-episode-11-management-perspectives-with-matt-lewin?utm_source=apple&utm_medium=podcast&utm_term=%23ref!&utm_campaign=podcasts-2022

Tune in to hear how the role of GIS in managing a big city's water has evolved over the last decade. In this special interview with guest host Matt Lewin, Esri Canada's director of management consulting, Bill Shea is thoughtful about how GIS managers can effectively collaborate with upper management, who often don't know all the capabilities of GIS and location analytics. https://resources.esri.ca...

To help our battle against COVID-19, public health's need for location analytics was obvious. Meet two members of the Esri Canada's new public health team in this episode and hear how two GIS enabled Canadian projects in this field  - HIV self-testing kits and getting COVID vaccines to the homebound- have made a difference.

We're making some lists and checking them twice. We're gonna find out who wins geo-glory! The funcast podcast returns with the ultimate game of knowledge and strategy. Play along with Esri Canada's Lakshmy Vasanthamohan and Mark Nguyen as they itemize geographical lists - one location at a time. It's harder and funnier than you think. They better not pout and better not cry if they're wrong!

GHGSat - a start up in Montreal - owns the first satellites that detect greenhouse gases at the facility level. They use Esri software to present the results so the emitter can respond effectively. Listen to a fireside chat amongst founder of Esri Jack Dangermond, Richard Cooke Esri's Director of Remote Sensing and CEO of GHGSat Stephane Germain on monitoring climate change from space.

Alex Miller, President of Esri Canada, is a pioneer in GIS technology. He knows this subject in his bones and has travelled all over this country showing it to others. He wants GIS to help make this country a better place to live. On this episode of Geographical thinking he reflected on the pivotal moments of GIS in the past and what its future may entail.

"Geographic knowledge plays a role in nearly every decision we make at Ducks Unlimited Canada". When Guan saw this statement, she knew she needed to hear their stories. For decades, Ducks Unlimited Canada has been using GIS. Initially it was to map wetlands, but it's gone far beyond that. They use it for research into waterfowl, and study the effect habitat conservation has on water quality and ev...

Mapannapolis is a non-profit that maps local cultural history, but this is not a traditional group of historians. It is a silo-busting, cross-discipline, award-nominated group that uses GIS to map structures, graveyards and churches to understand their community better. Guan talks to one of their founders, Heather LeBlanc, about how it works and what it means to the people living in one of the mos...

GHGSat, a Montreal-based, leading-edge space and data technology company, is the first in the world to monitor greenhouse gases from space. According to the World Meteorological Organization, 26 of the 50 essential climate variables can only be effectively observed from space. Guan invited Adina Gillespie, the Director of Business Development at GHGSat, to share their journey. Tune in to hear abou...

Dr. Este Geraghty is the chief medical officer and health solutions director at Esri. In Season 1, Episode 1 of the Geographical Thinking Podcast, she shared her insights about what a geo-enabled public health system might look like. Now, in Episode 2, she continues her conversation with Guan by exploring the implications of geo-enabled public health systems. Could this approach teach us how to ad...