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Shaun Maloney, CEOSeequent Chief Technology Officer, James Lawton introduced Seequent Evo, a new future-focussed ecosystem of hybridised cloud and desktop geoscience solutions, to enable seamless interconnectedness across multiple workflows and solve problems in the moment. Seequent Evo is the most significant investment in technology in the company’s history. “Seequent Evo offers a new, nimble, more effective way of bringing clarity and vision to geoscience data and to better support industry practice,” says Lawton. “Our goal is to provide an ecosystem of interoperable, organic solutions that, along with our users, will continue to adapt, grow and evolve.”
Seequent Evo is a solution ecosystem where you can access a toolbox of Seequent cloud applications, desktop applications, micro-services and API’s. It offers seamless connections to world-leading geoscience and engineering solutions and services. Evo and Lyceum Further, Chief Executive Officer at Seequent, Shaun Maloney, was delighted to open Lyceum 2020, the company’s first-ever completely virtual event, live-streamed in over 80 countries. He shared how cutting-edge digital technologies, such as Seequent Evo, can enhance the connection between people, information, and important industry decision making. “Our ever-evolving ecosystem of solutions is designed to support the increasing demands on businesses, especially given global events over the last six months,” says Maloney. “We’ve seen an astronomical increase in data sources and data sizes – accordingly, our research and development investment and cloud-enabled solutions is double that of just 12 months ago.”
Cloud workflows are now critical to enable productivity and to facilitate connectivity that is not possible with desktop solutions alone. Whether they are a cloud, desktop or hybrid solution, Seequent is committed to ensuring connection from the office or home across projects, data and colleagues, in a seamless environment. Maloney also gave a preview of Seequent’s exciting road ahead, including November releases of Leapfrog Geo and Edge, Leapfrog Works, Leapfrog Geothermal, Geosoft, Seequent Central, and GeoStudio; to enable greater functionality, faster, and powerful flexibility, adaptability and scalability.
Further Lyceum highlights included The Future of Work, presented by Uwa Airhiavbere, Microsoft Managing Director, Worldwide Energy, outlining how digital technologies are changing the workforce and how businesses can adapt and evolve. Other sessions included Advancing Collaboration in Mining, Geotechnical Digital Twins, The Future of Groundwater Management and Data, Leading Practice Tailings Management, and the Next Generation of Geothermal Subsurface Innovation.
In his closing presentation for Lyceum, Seequent Chief Operating Officer, Graham Grant, said it was impressive to see participants challenge some of the current thinking in the stream sessions.
We’ve seen an astronomical increase in data sources and data sizes – accordingly, our research and development investment and cloud-enabled solutions is double that of just 12 months ago
Partnership with Esri
At its core, Seequent is a world leader in the development of geoscience analysis, modelling, and collaborative technologies for understanding subsurface geoscience and engineering design solutions. The company’s solutions enable people to analyse complex data, manage risk and ultimately make better decisions about earth, environment, and energy challenges. Seequent software is used on large-scale projects globally, including road and rail tunnel construction, groundwater detection and management, renewable energy projects, mining and exploration projects, and subsea infrastructure mapping.
Subsurface conditions comprise the “infrastructure of our infrastructure” and literally underlie the earth’s major environmental risks. Bentley’s current offerings enable digital twins to incorporate what’s constructed “near surface,” including foundations, drainage facilities, buried utilities, tunnels, and subsea structures. The addition of Seequent will now make it possible for infrastructure digital twins to reach full subsurface depths, augmenting environmental resilience against flood, seismic, climate, and water security threats. Seequent first applied implicit modeling technology to geological science more than 15 years ago, using mathematical tools to derive and visualize 3D geological models from measured data and user interpretation. This software advancement caused a “leapfrogging” paradigm shift in the understanding of the earth’s subsurface and has been increasingly adopted by geoscientists and researchers around the world to uncover and visualize valuable insights about environmental conditions and challenges.
Seequent has developed cutting-edge data delivery solutions that integrate market-leading Esri, acQuire and SharePoint technologies. With connected workflows and systems you can deliver significant value to data consumers and administrators. Save time searching for data, with historical data and project information always at your fingertips. Streamline data workflows and management processes, and enable geoscientists to focus on high-value analysis that impacts decision-making and discovery.
Fighting the Pandemic
The Covid-19 pandemic created many demands and operational challenges for organizations trying their best to continue ‘business as usual’. One way to address this was to make greater use of ‘the Cloud’, and for this reason Seequent accelerated the development of its cloud-based solution Seequent Central, enabling organizations to continue work on critical, largescale, earth, environment and renewable energy projects from wherever they are located during the crisis. The software supports the company’s geoscience analysis, modeling and collaborative technologies, including Oasis Montaj and Leapfrog, by allowing a range of stakeholders in any location to visualize, track and manage geological models created for infrastructure and critical services projects, in a centralized, auditable environment. These tools support exploration and development workflows within the hydrocarbon and geothermal industries globally.
One project which has benefited from Seequent Central is the FORGE project at the University of Utah, which is undertaking research on enhanced geothermal systems, using data coming from a lot of different datasets. Seequent Central is used to manage and visualize the team’s geological data and models centrally, utilizing a web-based server that the entire team can look at, annotate and comment on, with everything visualized in a 3D volumetric space.
Leapfrogging Ahead
Recently, Seequent’s future direction and success has been recognised through a new partnership that will see Seequent become part of the Bentley Systems group of companies. International infrastructure engineering software company, Bentley Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq: BSY) has entered into an agreement to acquire Seequent, subject to regulatory approval. This next chapter – bringing Seequent’s solutions together with those of Bentley, will create a ground-breaking class of software solutions. Bentley’s world-leading expertise in above ground infrastructure perfectly complements Seequent’s world-leading solutions for below ground infrastructure. The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals, including New Zealand Overseas Investment Act consent as well as clearance under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act. Upon closing, Seequent will operate as a stand-alone Bentley subsidiary, with Grant, succeeding Maloney, reporting to Bentley’s Chief Product Officer Nicholas Cumins.
The integration of Bentley’s and Seequent’s solutions, for deeper infrastructure digital twins, can contribute a multiplied “ESG handprint” to improve the world’s environment while improving the world’s economies. While Seequent’s products aren’t appreciably used in oil and gas exploration or production— which is served by its own dedicated industry of specialized geophysical software—imperatives for energy transition present new opportunities, even beyond the expansion of mining to produce the materials needed for widespread electrification. Seequent is a leader in 3D modeling for geothermal energy sources, and its software and cloud services provide the important geosciences context for water resources simulations and environmental engineering.
Maloney states, “By ‘leapfrogging ahead’ with Bentley to align geosciences with infrastructure engineering through deeper digital twins, Seequent underscores our conviction that better understanding of the earth creates a better world for all. Users and accounts of Seequent, as a Bentley Company, can expect business as usual, with many product and commercial synergies eventually forthcoming. For my Seequent colleagues, I am confident that the future is in safe hands with like-minded Bentley Systems and our COO Graham Grant, so this presents a timely moment for me to announce my planned retirement. For all, our new larger scope presents a great opportunity for shared advancement.”
Seequent will continue to provide the software and insights that our customers need to make better, more sustainable decisions about their earth, environment and energy challenges – now as a part of Bentley.
April 26, 2021
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