A couple of weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to attend the Spatial Data Science Bootcamp at UC Berkeley. This three-day training event focused on all aspects of GIS and spatial data from an open source perspective. As I've spent my entire career thus far in a heavily Esri-based environment, it was really eye-opening to see all that it out there in the world of open source/open data.
We covered multiple facets of the spatial data world from database systems like PostgreSQL to web mapping and visualiztions using Leaflet and D3. I'd have to say that I was most intrigued by the potential of Leaflet, a lightweight, easily customizable JavaScript library that looks like it could really make creating web mapping applications so much easier as well as allowing for cleaner, simpler final outputs.
I'm really excited to see how these different technologies can be utilized to help IGIS to better serve both ANR and the public.