Outreach Committee 
Committee Mission: Promote the value and importance of the geospatial infrastructure by facilitating geospatial story telling and actively engaging public policy makers and stakeholders.
Objectives/Vision: As a committee of the Minnesota Geospatial Advisory Council, the Outreach Committee will promote the priorities of the council. Examples of the committee's work include:
- Tell geospatial stories in venues where they can inform and influence policy makers and others seeking to improve government operations, economic development, and quality of life in Minnesota.
- Create a foundation for open data in Minnesota by connecting with local government representatives to increase the availability of free geospatial data for all Minnesotans.
- Develop and provide guidance for content maintenance of esri hub sites for the GAC and its committees.
- Promote the work of the GAC and its committees through social media outreach.
Most work will be done via email and online meetings. Face-to-face meetings will be held as needed and could be held in conjunction with one of the advisory council meetings.
Featured
Free and Open Public Geospatial Data Surveys
The purpose of these two surveys was to reach out to Minnesota cities and counties to understand and document the full range of issues and concerns of the data producer community and to begin to document the success stories of GIS in both the user and producer communities relevant to the wider availability of data.
- Cities Survey Results (2018)
- Counties Survey Results (2016)
Committee Structure
- Chair: Andra Bontrager, Minnesota IT Services | Partnering with Department of Natural Resources , andra.bontrager@state.mn.us
- Co-Chairs
- Heather Albrecht, Hennepin County, heather.albrecht@hennepin.us
- Norman Anderson, MnGeo, norman.anderson@state.mn.us
- The mission of the open data sub-committee is to promote sharing of county address, centerline, and parcel data openly and to the state for cohesive statewide data. The committee is working with counties to opt-in to sharing data. Once an agreement is reached, the data will be added to statewide feature classes available on the geospatial commons.
- Chair
- Len Kne, University of Minnesota, lenkne@umn.edu
Subcommittees and Workgroups
Open Data Subcommittee
Success Stories Workgroup
Charter, Accomplishments and Workplan
Committee meeting minutes
Return to Minnesota Geospatial Advisory Council committees page