When Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz first learned about geographic information systems, or GIS, as a high school geography teacher in the 1990s, he didn’t need much convincing about how useful it would be.
“I said to my colleagues, ‘This is going to change the world,’” Walz recalled during a conference for professionals who use spatial data technologies, such as GIS and GPS, in July 2024, just weeks before Vice President Kamala Harris selected him as her running mate in the November 2024 presidential election.
