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On November 20th (the 25th anniversary of GIS Day worldwide), the Portland geospatial community came together for our 12th annual PDX GIS Day event held at Ecotrust's beautiful and spacious Irving Street Studio. There’s something quite special about getting hundreds of geospatial professionals, students, and enthusiasts together in Portland each year to celebrate our favorite day of the year. The energy in the room was electric! Many new connections were made and old ties strengthened as people chatted and nibbled in this welcoming space.
The keynote speaker, Julie Stringham, inspired the crowd with her talk: DIY Tooling: A Meditation on Doing Things “The Hard Way.” Stringham compared building a small end table to her work as a geospatial developer. In both instances, she has an end goal and the skills to build what she wants, but is faced with a problem that the tools she has available to her might not do the job. While attempting to build her own end table, Stringham had the realization that “you can build tools that work for people and places that a tool, off-the-shelf, might not work for.” As a geospatial developer, Stringham builds the tools that she needs to do the job. The presentation was heartfelt, witty, and impactful. Before the keynote presentation, attendees had opportunities to engage with our sponsors and their interactive spatial activities - Gartrell Group, NV5, 3j Consulting, Parametrix, Jarrett Walker & Associates, ASPRS, Bureau of Indian Affairs, ECOnorthwest, Cascadia Partners, Greentop Consulting, Portland Community College GIS Club, OS-GEO, and Portland State University Geography Department. Attendees contributed to a mental map of Portland, guessed point types (bars, bike shops and more) based on their distribution in the region, and tried to identify locations based on elevation maps alone. We appreciate our sponsors' willingness to create a welcoming and fun environment for attendees. The support from our sponsors provides an amazing space, food (including GIS Day cakes!), and beverages. A special thanks to OR-URISA, who supported the event by serving as the event’s financial custodian and advertising the event through their member list. After Julie’s presentation, excitement continued when people were awarded raffle prizes: four copies of Mt. St. Helen’s prints, each one at a different year in the 1980s post-eruption by Joe Bard; and three copies of Willamette Ways Map Series by Juupi. After cutting into the PDX GIS Day cakes, attendees were able to bring home a wide variety of maps that were generously donated by the Bureau of Land Management, DOGAMI, and the Washington Geological Survey. We were also able to giveaway five Esri One-Year Subscriptions to ArcGIS for Personal Use licenses donated by Esri. Every year we call it the largest PDX GIS Day event - and it is! Yet again, it was the most attended event we have held. Our community is filled with friends, colleagues, peers, and those who are all of the above. Spirits are high throughout the evening and it always feels like a reunion, where you get to see familiar faces and also meet a few new ones. We appreciate the vibrant PDX GIS community, Ecotrust’s Irving Street Studio, our amazing sponsors, and the tireless efforts of the student volunteers who ensured the evening flowed without issues. We are also grateful to the dedicated planning team, whose commitment brings this event to life year after year. A huge shoutout to Hot Lips Pizza for their delicious food and for taking care of all our food and beverage needs. This gathering is a true testament to the power of community, and we’re thrilled to continue fostering connections and celebrating the Geospatial world. We are excited to announce the 12th annual PDX GIS Day will be held at Ecotrust's beautiful and spacious Irving Street Studio on Wednesday, November 20th at 6:00pm. We are even more excited that Cartographer and Web Developer, Julie Stringham will be the keynote speaker. Come for pizza, drinks, dessert, and to mingle with the local GIS community in this wonderful space. Please make sure to register so that we can get plenty of food and beverages. With a max capacity of 500, the Irving Street Studio has lots of space. Please join your fellow geo-geeks to celebrate and share GIS! And please share with your colleagues and other GIS enthusiasts. Have questions about PDX GIS Day 2024? Are you or your company interested in being a sponsor? If so, contact Christina Friedle. Visit the PDX GIS Day website for more details.  The Portland geospatial community came together for the 11th annual PDX GIS Day event held at Ecotrust's beautiful and spacious Irving Street Studio on Wednesday, November 15th. The event was packed with hundreds of geospatial professionals, students, and enthusiasts who were all happy to celebrate the field with fellow geo-geeks. While there are many highlights of the event, renowned cartographer Dan Coe stole the show with his keynote presentation, Mapping Inspirations and Influences. It’s safe to say we all left the event full of inspiration and looking at the world just a little bit differently after watching Dan transform everyday sights of the natural world into cartographic works of art. Before the keynote presentation, attendees had opportunities to engage with our sponsors - OR-URISA, Gartrell Group, Portland Community College GIS Club, ASPRS, NV5, Ecotrust, GeoSolutions, 3j Consulting, OS-GEO, Greentop Consulting, and Portland State University Geography Department - many of whom not only supported the event with funds for pizza and beverages, but also came to the event with engaging activities for the participants. Attendees had their geographic knowledge tested, contributed to a mental map of Portland, and hung string to create a map showing where participants were originally from. Community groups such as the Data Visualization Society of Portland, Emerging Professionals, and the Society for Conservation GIS were also present and shared information about their groups with attendees. The energy in the room was high throughout the evening, with people reuniting with friends, colleagues, and classmates; engaging with new members of the community; and creating networks with people from all over the Portland metro area and beyond. The Irving Street Studio space contributed to the warm and welcoming environment, with its spacious layout, hardwood floors, natural light, original wood beams, and brick archways. After Dan’s presentation the space continued to be filled with smiles and laughter as people were awarded raffle prizes: five Esri One-Year Subscription to ArcGIS for Personal Use licenses, two copies of Portlandness: A Cultural Atlas and three copies of Upper Left Cities, both atlases generously donated by David Banis and Hunter Shobe. We ceremoniously cut into the PDX GIS Day cakes, and all attendees had an opportunity to take home a wide variety of Geological maps, provided by the Washington Geological Survey. This was the largest PDX GIS Day event yet! We are so grateful to Ecotrust’s Knowledge Systems team for supporting the event with the use of the Irving Street Studio, to all the sponsors who made the event possible, to all the volunteers who made the evening run so smoothly, and especially to the all volunteer planning team who worked to make it happen in the first place. We would also like to give a huge shout out to Hot Lips Pizza for catering the event and supporting the needs of our group by ensuring that all aspects of the food and drink were handled without issue. It’s truly a community event and we cannot wait to continue bringing the community together to celebrate the Geospatial world for years to come.   https://christinafriedle.wixsite.com/gisdaypdx
We are excited to announce the 11th annual PDX GIS Day will be held at Ecotrust's beautiful and spacious Irving Street Studio on Wednesday, November 15th at 6:00pm. We are even more excited that renowned cartographer, Dan Coe will be the keynote speaker. Come for pizza, drinks, dessert, and to mingle with the local GIS community in this wonderful space. Please make sure to register so that we can get plenty of food and beverages. With a max capacity of 500, the Irving Street Studio has lots of space. The registration link can be found below. Please join your fellow geo-geeks to celebrate and share GIS!  We are thrilled to be able to bring PDX GIS Day back as a live and in-person event after a three year hiatus! This year is our 10th annual event in Portland and we are happy to have our Keynote Speaker, Lauren Sinclair, presenting "Let Them Make Maps!" The GIS Revolution in K12.
When: Wednesday Nov 16, 2022 Time: 6 - 9 pm Where: Ecotrust Building What: GIS community, speaker, pizza, beer & wine, beverages, prizes & cake Website: https://christinafriedle.wixsite.com/gisdaypdx Register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/gis-day-pdx-2022-tickets-444228418157 GIS Day PDX events are open to everyone and FREE. This event is only possible thanks to the generous support of our sponsors: NV5, SWCA Environmental Consultants, the Gartrell Group, PCC, Ecotrust, Esri, URISA, NSF and PDX-OSGeo. Thanks so much! Hope to see you there. Since 1999, on the Wednesday of Geography Awareness Week, there is an international recognition and celebration of GIS. On GIS Day, professionals and enthusiasts take time to show the world what GIS has done to make a difference in our society and in our daily lives. This year, the Portland GIS community came together for the 7th consecutive year to recognize our work, celebrate our efforts, and share GIS with others.
It started in the late afternoon with a Missing Maps Mapathon, where 25 people mapped 2,906 buildings in a flood-ravaged region of India, and continued into the evening, where at least 130 people attended the GIS social held at the Ecotrust Conference space with exhibits, displays and presentations. The Missing Maps Mapathon, led by Madeline Steele from TriMet, brought together a group of people to digitize buildings using OpenStreetMap for a two-hour period. Many thanks to the PSU Geography department for use of the lab, and to Alicia Milligan for assistance with the event. The data improvements made during this mapathon and others like it, make a huge difference for aid groups around the world. During the GIS Day Social at Ecotrust, attendees had the opportunity to play around with the augmented reality sandbox table, Quantum Spatial's topology model created by a group of third grade students from cardboard, see some of the tools that Mapbox has to offer, and get a taste of the UAS classes offered by Portland Community College (PCC). Attendees also had an opportunity to win a wide variety of raffle prizes including maps, books, and t-shirts that were donated by DOGAMI, Esri, Ecotrust, SCGIS, Greg Miller, and PCC. The keynote speaker, Lyzi Diamond, Geospatial Expert and Software Engineer, presented on what it's like to be a Geospatial professional when technology is always changing, how she became a programmer (despite never feeling like one), and her strategies for success (which include 'just winging it'). Christina Friedle, Geography Faculty & Department Chair at PCC, welcomed everyone to the event, while Jocelyn Tutak, Senior GIS Analyst at Ecotrust, welcomed everyone to the event space and introduced Ecotrust's efforts in advancing social equity, economic opportunity, and environmental well-being. A very special thanks to our sponsors - Quantum Spatial, Mapbox, PC Trask, Portland Community College - Geography, ASPRS, ORURISA, Ecotrust, Metro, DOGAMI, Esri, Portland State University - Geography, and Society for Conservation GIS. The success of our event is due to the large community support provided by all these organizations. Our annual GIS day events are put together by GIS community members Madeline Steele, Christina Friedle & Alexa Todd, who volunteer their time to ensure that there is at least one day a year that the Portland GIS community comes together to celebrate our work and discipline. Thank you also to PCC student volunteers Lindsay Cumella, Steve Carter, Devin Shiang, and Michael Medina, for checking everyone in and making sure that people had everything they needed. And thank you Liam Neely-Brown for taking photographs, again! Please save the date and mark your calendars for the 2018 celebration of GIS Day on Wednesday, November 14th from 11 AM to 2 PM at the Forest Service Pacific Northwest Regional Office in Portland, Oregon! The U.S. Forest Service Data Resources Management staff is hosting this public event, which will be held at the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Building (1220 SW 3rd Ave). The welcome-to-event booths and Smokey Bear photo opportunities will be held on the first floor gallery past the elevators. Guest speakers and interactive displays will occur on the ground floor in conference rooms 1b and 3. Speakers will be scheduled for short talks on the impact of GIS on different focus areas. Also on display will be examples of how the Forest Service and partners utilize geospatial information and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology for the Greatest Good.  For the 6th consecutive year, the local Portland GIS Community held an event to celebrate geography, maps, and everything geospatial. With a Missing Maps Mapathon and an evening GIS social held at the Ecotrust Conference space, we had exhibits, displays and presentations that attracted close to 140 GIS students and professionals.
The GIS celebrations began in the afternoon with Emily Eros, American Red Cross, leading a group in the Missing Maps Mapathon. Over 30 students, professionals, and community members came together to add buildings to OSM in an under-mapped area of Myanmar that is highly vulnerable to natural disasters. Thanks to the PSU geography department for use of the lab, and to Aaron Eubank and Alicia Milligan for assistance with the computers and music selection! During the GIS Day Social at Ecotrust, attendees had the opportunity to play around with Matthew Hampton's augmented reality sandbox table, Quantum Spatial's topology model created by a group of elementary school students from cardboard, and learn more about the Society for Conservation GIS (SCGIS). Attendees also had an opportunity to win a wide variety of raffle prizes that included maps from Ecotrust and DOGAMI, books from Esri and SCGIS, T-shirts from PCC, and tote bags from ESRI. The keynote speaker, Emily Eros from the American Red Cross, gave a presentation on the Missing Maps project that inspired the crowd to be active participants in the worldwide effort to map vulnerable communities and enable fast, life-saving disaster response. Madeline Steele provided a warm welcome, acknowledged our sponsors, and spoke briefly about the GIS Certificate program at Portland Community College (PCC). Jocelyn Tutak, Ecotrust, welcomed everyone to the event space and introduced Ecotrust's efforts in advancing social equity, economic opportunity, and environmental well-being. Camille Westlake, ASPRS & Quantum Spatial, also spoke about both organizations and promoted the opportunity for GIS professionals to get involved with ASPRS in open Board member positions. A very special thanks to our sponsors - Quantum Spatial, American Red Cross, Portland Community College - Geography, ASPRS, URISA, Ecotrust, Metro, DOGAMI, Esri, PDX-OSGeo, and Society for Conservation GIS. The success of our event is due to the large community support provided by all these organizations. Our annual GIS day events are put together by GIS community members Madeline Steele, Christina Friedle & Alexa Todd, who volunteer their time to ensure that there is at least one day a year that the Portland GIS community comes together to celebrate our work and discipline. Thank you also to PCC student volunteers Hilary Hobbs, Liam Neely-Brown, and Christina Sjoquist for checking everyone in and taking photographs! |
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