INTERGEO, a huge geospatial conference, was hosted in Essen, Germany and digitally on October 18-20. The event was attended by 457 exhibitors from 31 countries and about 14,000 trade visitors from 102 countries. “The results clearly exceed our expectations. We are very pleased to finally be able to bring many people together again with the live event,” explained Prof. Dr. Hansjörg Kutterer, President of the organizer, DVW e.V., Association for Geodesy, Geoinformation and Land Management.
This year, INTERGEO placed a focus on digital twins. Cooperation, collaboration and the sharing of information are crucial for the success of the digitalization of city, country and space. Other focal points of this year’s INTERGEO included smart cities, building information modelling (BIM), sustainability, mobility, and climate change.
The EXPO, the event’s exhibit area, presented a broad portfolio of the geospatial industry. In addition to terrestrial recording and airborne solutions such as drones, exhibitors also presented automated solutions for recording space. Geoinformation systems and BIM solutions demonstrated their potential in data analysis, monitoring and decision support.
The DVW is also working to raise awareness for the geospatial sector and to demonstrate its potential. For the first time, Prof. Kutterer awarded the newly created “DVW Future Prize” to the “Connected Urban Twins” project with the participating cities of Hamburg, Leipzig and Munich. The DVW Future Prize is awarded for groundbreaking ideas of outstanding interdisciplinary and social significance.
To promote young talent, the DVW presented the “INTERGEO Next Generation Science and Geoinnovation Award,” honoring outstanding pitches on young researchers’ work. This year’s winner, Steffen Becker from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, was awarded for his master’s thesis on traffic monitoring with drones.
Next year, INTERGEO will take place in Berlin, October 10-12.