BIO Dr. Ahmed Abukhater, GISP, is an architect, designer, and planner by trade. He is currently serving as the Global Director of Product Management at Pitney Bowes Software. In his role, he is dedicated to advancing the application of enterprise geospatial solutions and delivering global access to knowledge of GIS by promoting geospatial intelligence as the industry standard technology. Previously, he served as Esri’s Global Industry Manager for Planning and Community Development and Director of PLACES in California and a GIS Manager and instructor at the University of Texas at Austin. With over a decade of proven leadership in various executive management roles in the US and overseas, he is a noted thought leader and a sought-after keynote speaker in a number of areas including GIS solutions and strategic marketing in planning and community development, environmental science and sustainable development, and trans-boundary water resources management and conflict resolution. Dr. Abukhater holds a Ph.D. in Community and Regional Planning from the University of Texas at Austin, a Master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Bachelor’s degree in Architectural Engineering. Throughout his career, Dr. Abukhater has authored numerous publications, served on many governing and advisory boards, and received over 20 prestigious awards for his work. He is married and a proud father of three children. ABSTRACT "How “big” is Big Data really is? A GIS prospective" Today the world is changing around us with data flowing in all directions with location intelligence at the heart of everything we do. The availability, velocity and staggering volume of structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data made the “big data” concept pertinent and critical to our work and presented an opportunity and a challenge to the GIS professionals. “Big data” can enable us to connect people, places and things and provide increased insights as to the nature and importance of various activities and transactions. What has been lacking is a meaningful consideration of how organizations can derive value from the data available to them by making it part of their enterprise ecosystem and business workflow. This calls for a mechanism to manage, view, synthesize, analysis and present data in a meaningful way that ensures ubiquitous access and collaborative decisions. This presentation will provide a pragmatic look at the concept of “big data” in the context of the GIS industry and associated challenges and opportunities. It will also offer future directions of how enterprise location intelligence can be used as a platform to take advantage of “big data” in the pursuit of organizational productivity and efficiency.