Keynote: Christian Carlson is the director of state, local, and provincial government sales at Esri.
The Living Digital Twin: Why Your GIS Investment Is Already the Foundation
Digital twin technology has moved from technical concept to boardroom priority. City councils, county executives, and technology leaders are increasingly asking about digital twin readiness — yet many organizations with mature enterprise GIS implementations don’t realize how close they already are to this destination.
This keynote reframes the digital twin conversation for technology-forward state and local governments. Rather than treating a digital twin as a discrete new project — a 3D viewer, a sensor dashboard, a simulation tool — this session makes the case that a living digital twin is the natural, achievable outcome of a fully realized enterprise GIS platform: one that brings together authoritative location data, 3D visualization and scene modeling, imagery and remote sensing, advanced spatial analytics, AI-driven intelligence, real-time data feeds, and deep enterprise system integration.
Drawing on real-world examples — including housing scenario modeling in Pinellas County, a measured 2:1 return on investment from a planning twin in the City of Nottingham, network modeling for grid planning at PG&E, and AI-powered traffic operations in Raleigh — the session walks through a practical five-stage maturity model that delivers measurable value at every step of the journey, not just at the destination.
Attendees will leave with a framework for assessing where their own organization sits on this maturity curve, identifying the highest-value next investments, and building the case for continued platform investment as one of their city’s most strategic assets.
Key Takeaways • The seven hallmarks that define a fully realized, intelligent digital twin • A five-stage maturity model for evaluating organizational readiness and prioritizing next steps • Proven examples of digital twins delivering measurable ROI in government and utility settings • A practical framework for identifying gaps and building a roadmap toward a living digital twin
