2024-2025 Community Champions Theme

This year, the Community Champions will contribute to I-GUIDE’s recently announced Spatial AI Challenge (https://i-guide.io/spatial-ai-challenge-2024/). This Challenge focuses on AI-ready spatial data and related machine learning models and applications while promoting FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) data principles, and responsible and open science practices.

The UCGIS Community Champions will contribute directly to the Challenge within its Track 1 (Data, Models, and Applications). Submissions for this track will present new, open datasets to enhance spatial AI tasks, propose novel spatial AI models, and/or develop innovative AI-informed solutions to geospatial problems. As an example, while many datasets exist for forest fires, there may be gaps in fire risk datasets that integrate remote sensing imagery, ground measurements, and damage assessments—key components for spatial AI models and fire risk management.

The UCGIS Community Champions who are selected this year will

1. submit their completed AI materials to the I-GUIDE Platform before February 1, 2025, so that those materials can serve as useful examples for other scholars who will be competing in I-GUIDE's Spatial AI Challenge overall, and
2. contribute as members of the I-GUIDE Spatial AI Challenge coordination group during the time-frame of February and March, 2025, when other selected researchers are developing their submissions. For example, the Community Champions may be asked to provide assistance to some participants of the Challenge with guidance about how to effectively use the I-GUIDE Platform.

For more information, and to apply, visit https://i-guide.io/community-champions/2024-2025-cohort/

The FGDC Steering Committee has approved the 2025 – 2035 National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) Strategic Plan. The new strategic plan was also endorsed by the National Geospatial Advisory Committee (NGAC) on October 16, 2024. The final strategic plan, Building the Geospatial Future Together – the NSDI Strategic Plan 2025 - 2035 is posted at: https://www.fgdc.gov/nsdi-plan/nsdistrategicplan2035.

The NSDI strategic plan is a key component of the GDA and a path forward for our ongoing NSDI activities. The NSDI strategic plan was developed with inputs from a variety of sources, including FGDC agencies, the National Geospatial Advisory Committee, and geospatial partner organizations. The plan expanded the previously more Federally focused strategic plan and developed a broader nationally scoped plan, designed to encourage active engagement and leadership from multiple sectors. The new plan presents a bold vision for the future of the NSDI in the U.S., emphasizing collaboration, partnerships, innovation, and technological advancement to create a seamlessly interconnected national geospatial ecosystem that delivers actionable insights to address the complex challenges of our time. The FGDC will work collaboratively with partners on implementation of the plan.

Dr. Jieun Lee, associate professor of Geography, GIS, and Sustainability at the University of Northern Colorado (UNC), will lead the project as Principal Investigator. Co-Principal Investigators are Dr. Gary Langham, Executive Director of the American Association of Geographers (AAG); Dr. Amy Rock, Executive Director of the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS), and Dr. Laxmi Ramasubramanian, Associate Provost for Faculty Success, The City University of New York, College of Staten Island (CUNY-CSI).

The GAIA partnership reflects years of work on the issue of supporting women who teach geography and all geospatial sciences in the United States but were born in different countries, many of whom are women of color. The project builds upon the Golden Compass project, developed by Dr. Lee as an extension of her participation in UCGIS’ TRELIS program, which focused on mentoring foreign-born women faculty (FBWF) and gathering insights for faculty equity and inclusion.

More details can be found in the UCGIS announcement, and the AAG website. Additional information will be released following the kickoff meeting in September 2024.

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