BigGeo has big ideas for geospatial data.
The Calgary-based firm is leveraging the latest technologies, such as artificial intelligence, to “set the global standard for geospatial solutions” across a range of sectors.
BigGeo’s goal is to make it faster and more efficient for users to handle large amounts of location-based data. The company achieves this through proprietary technology originally developed at the University of Calgary.
The tech was spearheaded by Dr. Faramarz Samavati, who serves as a professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University. Samavati, a lead scientist for BigGeo, has been working on the technology for more than a decade.
“Not only are we the fastest in distributing data at speed and scale for all industries, but we’ve also proven that because we’re so fast in being able to serve that data, we can actually reduce the energy impact on the data centre to be able to serve that data,” company president Brett Jones told Livewire Calgary after BigGeo rung the opening bell for the New York Stock Exchange.
BigGeo’s tech is currently integrated with platforms such as Snowflake.
Data cloud leader Snowflake started a global competition in 2020 to recognize the work of early-stage startups building apps on Snowflake, offering up to $250,000 in investment as the top prize. Among the 10 companies competing for the 2024 Snowflake Startup Challenge was BigGeo, who ended up a finalist in the event.
Today, BigGeo DataScape AI is the first product from the company’s emerging lineup of advanced geospatial solutions.
“We partnered with Snowflake and built a Snowflake Native App—BigGeo Datascape AI—to harness its powerful capabilities,” stated chief executrices officer Brent Lane in a Medium post. “Snowflake’s cloud-native architecture and advanced features enable us to process vast amounts of geospatial data efficiently, delivering real-time insights and empowering our customers to make data-driven decisions with confidence.”
BigGeo is a wholly owned subsidiary of Calgary’s Vivid Theory, which operates a studio model focusing on market opportunities in certain tech fields.
“Driven by a determination to make geospatial intelligence accessible and actionable on a large scale, I spearheaded the development of BigGeo, which emanated from our venture tech company, Vivid Theory,” Lane said.
Lane says the “the secret sauce that sets BigGeo apart” is his company’s proprietary Discrete Global Grid System, which he describes as a “revolutionary approach to spatial data representation that allows us to organize and access geospatial data with unparalleled efficiency and precision.”
“The potential of geospatial data is immense,” the CEO believes, “ranging from predicting natural disaster trajectories to optimizing global supply chains.”
Calgary’s thriving tech scene will take centre stage this November as the much-anticipated Launch Party of Innovation Week YYC brings together the city’s most promising tech startups at Big Four Roadhouse. The top 10 startups, which includes BigGeo, will have the opportunity to pitch to an audience of investors and tech enthusiasts.
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