GIS-Pro 2024

Cybersecurity Awareness for GIS Professionals - Half-Day Workshop
Monday, October 7, 2024 - 8:00 AM - 12:00 Noon
Instructors: David Lanter Ph.D., Director - Information Technology Auditing and Cyber Security, Temple University – Fox School – Management Information Systems, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Matt Gerike, Ph.D, GISP, Geospatial Program Manager, Virginia Geographic Information Network, Williamsburg, Virginia

National and economic security depends on reliable functioning of critical infrastructure, including transportation, utility, pipeline, and other distribution and collection networks. Cybersecurity threats exploit the increased complexity and connectivity of critical infrastructure systems, placing our nations’ security, economies, and public safety and health at risk. Similar to financial and reputational risk, cybersecurity risk can affect an organization’s bottom line by driving up costs and impacting revenue. It can also impact an organization’s ability to innovate, share and protect information, keep agreements, and gain and maintain public confidence.

In this half-day workshop, you will learn key concepts and components necessary for protecting the confidentiality, integrity and availability (CIA) of geospatial information assets. You will gain an understanding of the importance and key techniques for managing security of information assets including access control, disaster recovery and business continuity that can be made part of the GIS organization’s management process.

The first part of the workshop will focus on information security risk identification and management. The second part of the class will cover details of security threats and the mitigation strategies used to manage risk.

Learning Outcomes

• Gain an understanding of cybersecurity vulnerabilities and threats
• Learn how cybersecurity risks are identified, classified, prioritized and matched to control strategies
• Develop an understanding of how cybersecurity risks are managed, mitigated and controlled
• Gain familiarity with a number of cybersecurity frameworks, standards and guidelines

Cost: One full-day or one half-day workshop is included with full conference registration. The cost to add a second half-day workshop is $100 member/$125 nonmember. 

Urban Extreme Heat Mapping for Climate and Community Resilience - Half-Day Workshop
Monday, October 7, 2024 - 1:00 - 5:00 PM
Instructors: Michael Gould, PhD., Education Manager, Esri and Professor at University Jaume I (Spain)
Teresa Townsend, AICP, Chief Executive Officer, Planning Communities

This half-day workshop will provide participants with hands-on experience in GIS workflows for identifying and analyzing urban extreme heat using local community datasets. Where does extreme heat occur, how does tree cover affect heat, and who are the vulnerable populations affected?

This is the first step in a medium-term project to train university students, GIS professionals, and urban planners/designers (both key stakeholders in a city) in a set of simple, consistent heat index mapping workflows.

Learning Objectives:

• Sourcing geospatial data
• Online GIS (everything is done using ArcGIS Online)
• Basic image processing
• Population data basics
• Creation of a Composite Index
• Cartographic techniques
• Publication of the results
• Storytelling (StoryMaps)- optional

Participants will work in a group setting. Bring your own laptop, and ArcGIS Online licenses will be provided for the workshop exercises.

Cost: One full-day or one half-day workshop is included with full conference registration. The cost to add a second half-day workshop is $100 member/$125 nonmember. 

There are many ways to implement change in the world.  This set of talks addresses using GIS, collaboration, and GIS Corps to enhance employment, train young people, develop guidance on Social Risk, Resilience, and Vulnerability Indices. This session will help provide insights for critical considerations to help make GIS more equitable relative to its ability to impact change.

Guidance on Social Risk, Resilience, and Vulnerability Indices Web Application, a collaboration between URISA and NAPSG with support from GISCorps
Emilie Pratt, GIS Analyst/URISA GISCorps Volunteer, NAPSG Foundation, Kearneysville, WV

Brain & Body Maps: Understanding Neuroscience as Key Tool for Creating Powerful and Effective Change
Kathryn Brewer, GISP, IT Project Director, Spatial Relationships, Boston, MA

Leveraging GIS for Enhancing Employment Growth Allocation
Xuanye Zuo, Associate Modeler, and Ying Zhou, Modeling Supervisor, SCAG - Los Angeles, CA