International Geomatics Week 2015 will take place in Bogotá’s Whyndam Hotel from August 10 - 14, 2015 as part of the Agustín Codazzi Geographical Institute’s 80th anniversary celebrations. The event’s focus is “Geospatial Information for Peacebuilding,” and will consist of talks, workshops, and networking events about innovative cloud-based geospatial technologies, and their applications in the public and private sectors.

Innovation, new technologies, and all things cloud-related are at the very core of CartoDB, so we couldn’t miss this event! Our very own Javier de la Torre will be delivering a keynote on the next generation of geospatial platforms at 9:15 on Tuesday August 11, and hosting a workshop about CartoDB and QGIS on Thursday, August 13. Browse through the full schedule here.

Sometimes datasets don’t contain any geospatial columns, but they have names, IP addresses, zip codes, or other information that can be translated into coordinates. CartoDB is able to assist you with this type of data.

CartoDB has always been a big advocate of civic technology. From our partnerships with organizations such as Code for America and rapidly growing grant programs for startups, climate action, and non-profits, we’re always looking for ways to help civic tech organizations and companies excel at what they do best.

Recently, we had the pleasure of collaborating with PlaceSpeak, a Vancouver-based company that has taken cities and civic participation to new heights across the world! With our love for civic technology, beautiful and insightful mapping, and community collaboration, it was only a matter of time before our paths crossed and civic co-creation with cutting edge technology was able to blossom.

Matt Forrest is a map, transit, and technology enthusiast, and now he’s joined our New York office as our new Account Manager. Matt will put his business, project management, and consulting experience to work as he helps our customers analyze their data and build applications with CartoDB.

Remember the days before cell phones, when you used to have to wait around at home to take a call? Or when the only way you could buy books, groceries, and clothes was by physically going to a store? Or when you had to select the best way to visualize your data on a map by clicking through various options yourself? No more.

Sync Tables are my favorites; having almost real-time maps without having to code a single line is something that I find amazing, even if this element has been a CartoDB staple for a long time now. This is my personal tribute to the feature, and a list of ideas that I hope you find inspiring.

Some companies ask their users to follow them, but we love following our users. Since the Esri User Conference will be happening in San Diego next week, we’ll be there to celebrate the geospatial industry. We’ll be at the Half Door Brewing Company, right in the heart of the Gaslamp Quarter, on Sunday July 19th, from
8 p.m. onward for some CartoDBeers and snacks. We’ll also be in San Diego for the week, meeting with partners and clients, so drop me an email if you would like to meet up.

One of the biggest challenges of the 2008 global financial crisis was the inability for financial institutions to handle risk management in a rapidly changing demographic. For businesses to progress post-crisis, re-imagining business intelligence and bringing their companies up-to-date with new technology became an imperative. CartoDB’s financial risk analysis has proposed the best solutions for meeting the needs of financial instutions to handle risks arising from rapidly changing client and customer demographics.

Apps with maps, on phones and on the web, are frequently built around “nearest neighbor” queries, sifting through a database to find the records that are contextually appropriate given an input location.

• Find me all the records that fit in the map!
• Find me all the records within 1km of the user location!
• Find me the 10 records nearest to the user!

For “records”, replace with “restaurants” or “gas stations” or “future close friends” depending on the application you are building.