Recently GovLoop caught up with Harvey Simon, Geospatial Intelligence Officer, EPA and Kshemendra Paul, Program Manager, Information Sharing Environment at Esri’s Federal GIS Conference. Be sure to check out the videos below to learn more about geoplatform.gov, the National Strategy for Information Sharing and Safeguarding and how they both are using GIS technology.
In the video below, Harvey Simon discusses the EPA’s involvement with Geoplaform.gov. Geoplatform.gov is the national geoplatform effort to provide “ready access” to federally maintained geospatial data, services and applications.
Government collects and manages large amounts of geospatial data, but finding that data is often challenging and time-consuming. Geoplaform.gov integrates different data sources and aims to be the “trusted source” of information so interested citizens can find the good, relevant data when they need it.The EPA has been the “test bed” for geoplatform.gov. They have been using it to share their high-demand data (like facilities data) with the public and for internal use when they need various data from other agencies.
In the second video, Kshemendra Paul discusses the National Strategy for Information Sharing and Safeguarding and how it is using GIS Technology.
The National Strategy for Information Sharing came about from three key drivers:
1) The pressing financial situation at all levels of government that requires governments to be more efficient, reduce overlap and redundancy and do more with much less.
2) Increasing evolving threat- the need for government to be more resilient against cyber threats
3) Tsunami of information- the amount of data organizations are collecting is increasing every day so we need to better integrate best practices in a consistent way.
Since it was released three months ago by President Obama, the National Security Staff has been building out implementation plans, focusing on the designated top 5 priorities. In terms of GIS technology, Kshmendra notes that “everything has a place” and properly using geospatial information leads to effective information sharing.
I encourage you to check out the full videos to learn more. And if you want more information on GIS be sure to check out the resources page.
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