When you think about smart cities what springs to mind? Perhaps it’s a city app that lets you know the location of available parking spots or a transit company that can automatically re-route buses away from congested areas based on a network of fleet- or city-wide sensors. In reality, the definition of a smart city varies, depending on who you talk to.

The U.S. government has spent years accumulating data sets – ranging from tax records, satellite imagery, census data, and more (up to 2.63 petabytes in the federal government alone).

Unlocking the potential of that data is a huge priority for many agencies, and gives the opportunity to discover hidden insights and improve mission effectiveness. Whether that means spotting fraud, improving regulatory oversight, optimizing business travel, or providing more effective citizen services.

If you’re a surveyor, engineer, infrastructure designer, or transportation official and are in the North Carolina area you might want to check out this one-of-a-kind all day educational event and workshop hosted at the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) in Raleigh on December 18.