Sectoral Field of Excellence: Geoinformation Industry

The "Geoinformation Industry” refers to businesses that use automated processes in collecting, digitizing, processing and transmitting geographical information.

  • New, interdisciplinary field targeted at enabling new uses
  • Forms the basis for new information technology products, services and applications, such as planning systems for domestic security, disaster management, marketing a city as such, or city information systems
  • Highly valued economic asset in the modern information and communication society
  • Tremendous growth potential extends to related sectors
  • Growing demand for geoinformation services, due in part to specialization and geographic separation of production processes, which are interlinked across the globe
The value-creation chain begins with the collection of basic geographical data about the topography and properties of a site, or the collection of specialized thematic data linked to geographic coordinates such as information about demographics, land use or meteorology. This information gains its economic value by being enhanced, communicated and exploited.


Business applications

  • Insurance
  • Administration and management of real estate and properties
  • Real estate marketing
  • Agriculture and forestry
  • Transportation telematics
  • Monitoring and management of supply infrastructure
  • Remote sensing
  • Location-based services

The geoinformation industry

Because it requires advanced technology and has significant overlap with the IT industry and earth sciences, this sector is an important driver of innovation in the capital region. There are numerous organizations and companies in Berlin that work in the geoinformation industry.

  • Approximately 600 mostly small to mid-sized companies
  • About 2,200 employees
  • Production of geoinformation products and services
  • The spectrum of businesses in this field ranges from surveyors to internet-based geodata service providers.
  • The annual turnover of the "core companies" in this field amounts to almost 120 million euro

Geodata in the capital region

  • Comprehensive geoinformation databases at a high technological and organizational level
  • The use and exploitation of geodata in business processes that interlink multiple institutions or departments within an institution has meant that systemic barriers have been overcome.
  • Technological underpinnings, components for a geodata infrastructure, international standards (such as OGC, OMG, ISO) and standard products facilitate the linkage of different platforms
(Source: Information from ZukunftsAgentur Brandenburg GmbH, 2006)

Unique Locational Advantage - Research and Development in the Field of Geoinformation

The capital region is distinguished by an especially productive research environment for the geoinformation industry.

Nowhere else in Germany does a city have so many university departments, professorships and research institutions in the field.

This results in outstanding opportunities for training and education and the pool of highly qualified specialists is large.

Technical University of Berlin, Institute of Computer Engineering and Microelectronics
School VI, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Department of Computer Vision and Remote Sensing.
Humboldt University of Berlin, Department of Geomatics
Fields: Geoinformation Systems (GIS), Cartography and Geographical Remote Sensing

Geoinformation Industry Network of Expertise

Association of the Geoinformation Industry in Berlin and Brandenburg (Verband der GeoInformationswirtschaft Berlin/Brandenburg GEOkomm e.V.)
Internet: www.geokomm.de

GEOkomm's membership includes small and mid-sized geoinformation companies from the capital region, major international enterprises, research institutions working in the fields of earth science and geoinformatics, representatives of agencies at the Land level and further stakeholders who work to strengthen the regional geoinformation industry.  


Founding partners of the network

Objectives of the network
  • Long-term cooperation between the member firms
  • Transfer of knowledge and technology from research institutions to companies
  • Collaboration between the business sector and scientific research institutions along the entire value-creation chain
  • Spin-offs from university institutes and transfer of innovative potential from universities into private-sector companies
  • Joint projects pursued by scientific institutions and industrial partners
  • Promotion of business development by small and mid-sized companies and development of new business models based on private and public geodata
  • Marketing platform for the capital region as a top location for geoinformation activities