ABSTRACT
In January 2013, a United Nations (UN) Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (GGIM) delivered a revised document on the “Future trends in geospatial information management: the fi ve to ten year vision”.1 This document identifi ed future directions in the use of geospatial data, the envisioned role of the national mapping agencies, private and voluntary sectors, and technology trends among others. Most of the experts and visionaries coincided in the permeability between geospatial and mainstream technologies. They foresaw an increasing adoption of geospatial technologies into mass-market technologies, and vice versa, classical geospatial developments will be absorbing and exploiting emerging technologies such as Big Data, Internet of Things, Linked Data and Cloud computing.
