GeoFutures Launches a New Strategic Roadmap

Key Takeaways from New GeoFutures Strategic Roadmap 

ST. LOUIS – GeoFutures, the strategic initiative led by Greater St. Louis, Inc. to advance the St. Louis region’s geospatial technology sector, today launched a new Strategic Roadmap to guide the geospatial ecosystem into the future. The new Strategic Roadmap expressly calls for the creation of a new organization to coordinate implementation of the new strategy. 

“Over the past five years, we’ve laid a strong foundation for the geospatial ecosystem here in St. Louis,” said Dustin Allison, GSL’s Interim CEO. “We’ve seen tremendous growth that has established St. Louis as one of the country’s true centers for geospatial technology. 

“With that foundation laid and with the opening of NGA St. Louis serving as a pivotal inflection point in the development of our geospatial sector, we are charting the course for the next phase of growth with a new GeoFutures Strategic Roadmap.”  

A NEW NORTH STAR  

GeoFutures launched its original Strategic Roadmap in 2020 to capitalize on the opportunity presented by the decision by NGA to build its new state-of-the-art headquarters in North St. Louis. The original plan has helped guide the growth of the geospatial sector for the past five years.  

The new Strategic Roadmap builds on that foundation and sets a new “North Star” goal for the ecosystem: To position metro St. Louis as a world leader in geospatial innovation by solving major economic, societal, and national security challenges; growing businesses and jobs; fostering a thriving system of breakthrough technologies and talent; and ensuring that economic growth benefits communities across the bi-state region. 

Strategic Priorities + Multipliers 

To reach that North Star goal, GeoFutures developed four new strategic priorities. These strategic priorities define the high-level areas of focus for the ecosystem: 

In addition to the four new strategic priorities, the new Roadmap calls out three “multipliers” – competitive advantages and opportunities for St. Louis that reinforce the region’s unique value proposition and provide a compelling rationale for investment, partnership, and sustained growth of St. Louis’ geospatial ecosystem. These multipliers include: 

A DEDICATED “BACKBONE” FOR THE GEOSPATIAL ECOSYSTEM 

A core recommendation in the new strategy is the creation of a new organization to carry on and scale the work of the GeoFutures Initiative. Through a summer-long planning process, stakeholders determined that an independent organization would be needed to coordinate all of the efforts laid out in the new strategic roadmap.  

“Our stakeholders made their feelings clear --- the geospatial ecosystem has grown and reached a level of maturity that it needs a focused organization to support its continued growth,” Mark Munsell, the leader of the GeoFutures Initiative said. “We envision creating something similar to 39North or BioSTL, which work to grow St. Louis’ agtech and life sciences clusters, respectively.”   

This proposed organization would serve a diverse set of stakeholders in the ecosystem, including geospatial startups and entrepreneurs, established companies, academic and research institutions, government agencies and policymakers, investors and funders, workforce and talent, community organizations and residents, and economic development and aligned industry cluster organizations.