The Esri Developers Summit is an annual event, for developers, by developers, designed to show users how to build magnificent apps through the use of advanced mapping technologies. Led by Esri developers, participants can choose from a number of technical workshops and sessions to sit in on, gain knowledge and learn from other developers, and discover some of the latest cutting-edge technology firsthand. Esri conferences are great because they bring together the GIS community, allowing for people to connect and collaborate using the latest technologies in the geospatial industry! This year GeoMarvel had the privilege of bringing a few of our team members to the summit as representatives of the company. Let us take a look as Dalton Bloom, Kevin Cheriyan, Anna Gabrielli, and Sean Spiesman provide their thoughts and impressions of the Esri DevSummit 2022!
For Anna and Sean, DevSummit was the first time they experienced any Esri conference, while this was the second time Dalton and Kevin attended the summit. Their first experience was DevSummit 2020, which, due to COVID, turned out to be canceled except for the plenary sessions. With things in full swing this year, our team was able to take full advantage of the conference and all that was offered.
While participating at these conferences, attendees tend to have the chance to connect with new or existing colleagues. This year our team had a chance to meet with some of our customers, with whom GeoMarvel has worked together with for years. We got to talk about upcoming deployments for products we’re working on, and discuss tactics for debugging in these products.
Some of the hot topics that stood out to the team at this year’s conference included: ArcGIS Velocity, ArcGIS Enterprise on Kubernetes, ArcGIS Knowledge, Geospatial Deep Learning, ArcGIS Maps SDK for game engines, Virtual Reality (VR), and their push towards utilizing visualization of data within their new animation support; just to name a few.
With over 225+ Technical Sessions and Demo Presentations, there was plenty of content for the team to dive into at the conference. So their plan of action was to sit in on presentations that suited their everyday working needs. For Anna, she really enjoyed the deep learning sessions and diving into the science behind some of the tech she works on. Dalton’s favorite session involved ArcGIS Velocity because it’s a new technology that combines the power of ArcGIS GeoEvent and ArcGIS GeoAnalytics Server to derive key insights from real-time data. Kevin’s favorite session was given by the Runtime team on GeoTriggers, which is a novel way to utilize geofencing to interact with devices, and the amazing capabilities of Deep Learning in ArcGIS Pro. And for Sean, the session that he found to be most interesting was on Indoor Positioning Systems (IPS) because of some of the complex algorithms and technologies that go into building the software.
With so much to take in at DevSummit, there is no doubt that everyone came away learning something new. While it’s hard to pick just one thing, here are just some of the top lessons that the team came away learning. Anna was excited to learn more about the Esri ecosystem of technology, and how different parts of their ecosystem interact with each other. Dalton gained new insight on ArcGIS Knowledge from the demos and use case examples provided by the Esri team. Kevin had the opportunity to talk to Chris Lesueur and the rest of the AppStudio team, to learn a little more about the new features in AppStudio 5. While Sean was excited to learn about and hear some of the questions addressed in regards to building a web application in React from scratch.
It seemed pretty clear to the team that Esri’s main goal and focus moving forward was to continue evolving with existing technology and make it easy for developers to use them in conjunction with non-ESRI developer tools. Continuing to provide support and create new features for their various API’s. Along with their focus on sustainability in GIS, promoting sustainable efforts and using GIS intelligence and technology to make the world a better place!
In between Esri demos and sessions, the team was able to indulge in a friendly ping-pong tournament which was held for the first time this year. From the team we had Dalton and Sean enter the competition, while Anna and Kevin helped cheer them on from the sidelines. After much practice leading up from the night before the team was ready to take on the opposition. Come game day, Dalton was able to knock out a couple of wins, before being eliminated before the start of the final rounds. Sean was able to avenge Dalton’s loss in the quarterfinals, by beating out the competitor that eliminated him earlier. From there, Sean was able to roll through the rest of the competition, landing him in the Championship round. Where he was finally able to bring home the gold! Along with his unique trophy, Sean’s prize included a trip back to DevSummit next year. Way to go Sean! Check out the video for a full recap of the final round.
