Geo: The Big 5 - Open Geospatial Review

Simon Wheeler, AGI NI Chair and the person single most responsible for making the latest Geo Big 5 event a huge success has kindly provided a review of the event:

Last week saw the 2^nd Big 5 conference “Open GeoSpatial” hosted by AGI Northern Ireland. When the new format was suggested at the end of 2013, this was the theme that most excited me, and it has been great fun, and hard work, to help put the event together. Post event it has been deemed one of the best events we have hosted since AGINI started 11 years ago.

Opening the Debate

The Big 5 events can be summed up as AGI Conferences in the Regions, rather than Regional Conferences as the Nation groups have held previously. So what did this mean to us in Northern Ireland? The format effectively gave delegates a taste of what they might expect at the main 2 day conference (up to now known as GeoCommunity or GeoComm). We had big name speakers, 2 streams and hands on workshops, as well as the Sponsor exhibition. However, what made the event a game changer from my perspective, was the mixture of delegates attending, with a good mix of attendees from Northern Ireland, GB and the Republic of Ireland, with 2 of our speakers (Australia and Canada) giving it a truly international flavour – brought out in the panel discussion where we had 6 nations represented, with the myriad of views aired.

OK – what did delegates get on the day? Following my opening as AGINI Chair, Anne Kemp (AGI Chair) gave a brief summary of the Open Standards panel debate held in London the day before. We opted for 2 keynotes this year – Caron Alexander the new Director of Digital Services for the NI Civil Service gave her view and vision for Open Data in Northern Ireland. There are some exciting things to come and I am really looking forward to what this can bring to the Industry. She also announced a Head of Open Data has been appointed – a good move so said the #GeoBig5 tweets. Then Jim Lennon gave a quick update on the new LPS (OSNI for the old hands) data model, and Spatial NI, the Northern Ireland Inspire and spatial data portal to be officially launched on the 4^th June. The brief tale of how the major snow storms of March 2013 brought Spatial NI to the attention of the emergency planners was a great example of how a crisis can raise the prominence of Geo.

Estelle Lowry  about NINIS 

After the much needed coffee break (the opening coffee somehow appeared as the conference started), we split into two sessions plus a workshop. The main stream covered the broad Open themes – Standards, Data and Source plus what the AGI brings to the table – Open debate, whilst stream 2 covered case studies, but still largely around the Open arena. I stayed in the main session to help Bruce McCormack, our guest chair and President of IRLOGI and EUROGI, to host the stream. For me it was a major coup to secure Denise McKenzie from OGC to speak on the common sense and value of standards internationally. Standards allow us to communicate with each other digitally, and work best when open. Following Denise, John Carpenter from Ordnance Survey GB took us through the value of Open data to OSGB, and also some of the issues around the need for API’s and assistance to developers to enable them to be used effectively. Bill Roberts of Swirrl then gave an overview of Linked Data and the benefits which it brings to connecting data together. Stream 2 had some great talks from the feedback I got, with Ciaran Kirk of IMGS talking dynamic data, Brendan Sheehy of Mallon Technology looking at the benefits of Open to SME’s and Jo Cook of Astun Technology talking QGIS in the Enterprise.

Following a busy lunch (some WIFI issues to solve), we were into the 2^nd part of the split stream. OSGB delivered a great workshop on OSGB open data using QGIS, which had followed a very packed morning workshop from ESRI on Story maps and flex viewers. Where else can you get industry experts giving workshops for free? In stream 1, Eoin McFadden from DETI looked at how open public data was being

The Panel, Deep in Debate

used as a driver for innovation, and how Northern Ireland is at the forefront of this drive. We then had an extended international panel session chaired by Bill Roberts with some thought provoking questions for Anne Kemp, John Carpenter, Tracey Lauriault, Denise McKenzie, Eamon Doyle and Eoin McFadden. Sadly we had to cut it short at 1 hour – we could have gone on much longer – the session is available on the AGI site. The best practice stream meanwhile heard from  Eamon Doyle of ESRI Ireland, Rosita Mahoney of the SPACEial NW project, Estelle Lowry of NINIS and John Hewitt from SOPRA.

I asked one of the delegates who was new to GI and AGI to give his perspective on the day.  Paul Higgins from LPS Business Services gives his perspective on the day.

“Three years ago I didn’t really know much about GI, but over the last couple of years through work and media I have become increasingly aware of it. I just didn’t know it as GI. So I went along to the conference to learn and understand how GI could be of benefit. I went to the Open Data stream in the morning and to the Best Practice Showcase in the afternoon.

I was motivated by Denise McKenzie’s talk. I had a Health IT background and could see lots of potential for GI. For example epidemiology and GI are made for each other.  I also found it refreshing that it all speakers were advocating open data.

The Best Practice stream put into perspective the Open Data stream. Eamon Doyle from ESRI Ireland described his ‘Road to Damascus’ moment.  I think I had my moment at the conference.

I came away from the conference inspired and with a much clearer vision of GI and its potential. It occurs to me as someone from a mainstream ICT background, and new to GI, that it is going to be a growth area in the next few years as ‘big data’ becomes more prevalent. As all the latest technologies such as Internet of Things, Remote sensing, wearable technology and GPS mature, the only way to make sense of it all is through GI. So I am glad I went to the conference.”

Finding out how Canada does Open

To wrap up the day, we welcomed our plenary speaker Dr Tracey Lauriault, a prolific Canadian open blogger who is presently based at NUI Maynooth working on the Digital City programme. Tracey gave us a whirlwind tour of what we can learn from the Canadian experience of Open – standards, SDI’s and the role of the Geomatician. Tracey has huge amounts of energy and was a great end to the conference. Well not quite the end – this came with GeoDrinks when I finally got a chance to catch up with colleagues old and new.

So if you haven’t been to a Geo Big 5 event, there’s still time – it’s a great programme of events and well worth attending. Whilst it’s a great place to network and make new contacts, these conferences are also a great way to get a synopsis of what’s relevant at the present time from industry experts. You will always learn something new, or get a new perspective.

A big thanks to all our speakers and sponsors once again.

The 7th Spatial Socio-Cultural Knowledge Workshop – Defence Academy, Shrivenham, UK. June 9th-11th.

Over the past six years, the Spatial Socio-Cultural Knowledge Workshop has had several recurring discussion threads involving data requirements, understanding operational needs, and tools for addressing those needs.  For the 2014 Workshop titled ‘Human Geography – Challenging the Status Quo Through Better Use of Information’, these threads will be drawn together under the umbrella of utility in the fields of stabilization and disaster response.  The major Workshop objectives and questions will be geared toward answering:

• What do we need to make socio-cultural knowledge useful?
• How do we effectively share our knowledge and methodologies?
• Outside of the organizations represented by Workshop attendees, who would be interested in utilizing socio-cultural data?
• What aspects of socio-cultural knowledge are applicable beyond the Defence sphere?
• What are the barriers to sharing and utilizing information both within and outside the Defence sphere?
• What approaches are needed to overcome the barriers?
• How best to create a sharable record of what has been learned?
• How to utilize socio-cultural knowledge to identify stability problems before they start?
• Can the identification of information and models be formalized to enhance utility?

The workshop is expected to attract international delegates and speakers from across the services, government, NGOs, academia and the commercial sector. Full details of the event including the agenda, registration and logistics can be found on the Defence Academy website www.syposiaatshrivenham.com

Why you should attend Geo: The Big 5, Open Geospatial

There are only two weeks to go until the next Big 5 event Open Geospatial takes place in Northern Ireland 

and it’s definitely time to make a really clear case for why you should attend. I normally consider lists the epitome of lazy writing however in this case I can’t think of a better way to put it so here are 5 (or 6) reasons that we should be seeing you in Belfast on 13 May:

1. Whoever you are, wherever you are Open matters and is not going to go away

I have written about this before but time to restate it quickly. Open Geospatial impacts the whole industry; whether as a provider you are helping implement or competing with open source products or if as a user you are looking to utilise increasing amounts of open data (or as a data owner trying to open up your data). How the challenges and opportunities provided by open are tackled by the industry will have a huge impact in the future. A lack of standards, poor practices and a move back towards restriction could all have significant implications for the role of geospatial over the next 15 years. That is why it is important to get involved in the conversation now.

2. We’ve got a great programme of speakers

Following on from the above point we’ve got a great programme of speakers who will be tackling the pertinent issues in Open Geospatial. These range from high level industry insight and overview such as ‘open public data as a catalyst for innovation’ to more specific detail on topics like linked open data and the need for ‘geomaticians’. The day also includes a panel debate from some of our speakers allowing you to take part in the conversation.

3. Keep up to date with workshops

Need to convince your boss why you should be out of the office? How about a hands on intro to Ordnance Survey’s open data using QGIS or some open source apps from Esri? We know that workshops are always popular and are making sure we include more of them in the Big 5 event series.

4. Be part of a bigger response

This event is part of the wider Geo: The Big 5 series and the conversations that come out of it will be helping to inform the AGI's response to the issues of the day. The need for standards in open, the power and potential of opening up public data, enabling collaborative solutions to problems; these are issues where you can help us form our voice. Many of the discussions from Future Cities are coming up again as we draw up the programme and it is this chance for interlinked thinking that needs to be harnessed to push the value of geospatial forward.

5. Join the conversation (networking)

As always this is a great opportunity to meet with your peers, discuss the issues at hand and meet customers or look for new ones. Networking is a key part of any event and we have networking time afterwards. If you are coming from outside Northern Ireland this is a great opportunity to meet a new GI community.

6. Its only £49!

Finally, it is only £49 for members (including IRLOGI members in the spirit of cooperation), this is really very cheap for a one day conference especially one packed with two streams of great content and workshops making it ludicrously good value.

Also if you’re not from Northern Ireland it’s a great chance to come and see Belfast at the same time as learning something/doing some business. For more information on getting too and staying in a rather excellent city have a look at the logistics pack

Re-branding, Websites and GeoCom ‘14

I apologise for the sparse blogging over the past couple of weeks but I’ve been rather preoccupied with the three items above (and the other Geo: Big 5 events). The good news is that this work is paying off and we’ve made loads of progress to update people on.

First up is the branding, as many of you may have noticed (especially delegates at Future Cities) we have been working on a new brand. The old AGI brand has served well over the years but has become fragmented and a little dated over time. 

With the work being undertaken on a new AGI website we wanted to ensure that we had a clean and consistent new brand so this combined with the 25^th anniversary seemed like the perfect opportunity to undertake a rebranding exercise.

 More information can be found here but we feel the new brand gives a very clear visual statement that the AGI wants to make sure that it is doing all it can to be relevant in 2014 and beyond. The new brand is much more than just a logo and will reflect how we communicate within and beyond our industry going forwards and builds on a lot of work that is being done behind the scenes as to who we are and what we stand for.

We have created a page with the various brand resources on which can be found here.

Next up and probably most exciting for most of you is the work being done on a new website. Our current website is a little dated to say the least and places a lot of limits on what we can do so the decision has been taken that rather than attempt to re-skin and tinker with it we are going for a whole new site. 

I am lucky enough to be one of the small group working with the developers on the new site and I can already say it is going to be a vast improvement. We want the site and the member’s area to become a content and knowledge hub for the industry and will be populating it with news, features, interviews and content from passed events among other things.

As always the success of this will depend on our members and we will be making it accessible for SIGs and other groups to edit and add content that is interesting to them. We welcome comments from members on what content they might like to see and also if there is anything they would like to contribute. The new site is expected to go live in late June but in the meantime we have launched an interim site just for Geo: The Big 5.

Finally we come to GeoCom – ‘The Changing Face of Geo’, the change in name partly reflects a desire to move from an inward looking community to an outward looking group engaging with wider industry and partly because everyone just shortened it to GeoCom anyway. We visited the venue at the start of April and it is fantastic and a very different space to the EMCC. Not only is it a very nice looking country hotel but it also has an awful lot of different meeting rooms. This is going to enable us to run a lot more workshops and hands on training sessions (as the majority of delegates have requested). As a result we’re going to be delivering a GeoCom that is a lot more varied than last year with the core focus being on getting really good content and speakers.

Anyway more on GeoCom will follow as we finalise the programme and the speakers but in the meantime have a look at the new brand and think about what you might want to see on the new website.

Sponsor Feedback and GeoCom '14 - David Henderson

David Henderson the AGI Vice Chair has kindly provided me with a brief report of our visit to the fantastic new GeoCom venue last week:

Along with the AGI Team and some fellow Council Members, last Thursday I attended a meeting of AGI Suppliers SIG at the Chesford Grange Hotel near Warwick where we will hold this year’s GeoComm conference on the 11-13 November. 

The meeting allowed some of our corporate members – 1Spatial, Dotted Eyes/MISO, GGP systems, Sterling Geo and Ordnance Survey – to give some further feedback to the AGI events team (this year chaired by Rollo Home) and for us to have a tour of the conference facilities.

Whilst the move away from Nottingham will bring some inevitable changes to the look and feel of our annual conference, I am really excited by the fresh new opportunities that Chesford Grange Hotel will afford to the event – the food was quite tasty too!!

At AGI we’re really excited about how our 2014 events programme has begun. You can read more about the fantastic success of our first event, hosted by AGI Scotland national group, in Glasgow last month. Members travelled from across UK to participate in some very high quality discussion and debate.  Our events programme complete with new branding and sponsorship opportunities can be found here.

We’re delighted that both ESRI(UK) and Ordnance Survey have committed to Diamond Sponsorship for 2014 and equally pleased to have agreed event sponsorship packages with so many of our other corporate members. Our 2014 event programme in particular has been developed in conjunction with our Suppliers SIG and is giving an important platform for the geographic information industry to discuss many of the big issues that are impacting and presenting opportunity for our members. Plans for 2015 have already started. If you’d like to get involved in any of our events or discuss sponsorship then the AGI Team or any member AGI Council would love to hear from you.

In the meantime, we look forward to seeing as many of our members as possible at the next Big 5 event in Belfast on 13 May.

Open Geospatial and why we should care

The next Geo: The Big 5 event, Open Geospatial in Belfast is approaching fast. I am not going to launch into a lengthy debate about Open Source vs Proprietary GIS systems or similar. This has been done to death and by people much better placed to talk about it than me.

What I will say is that this event is about much more than open source software and has a relevance to all producers and consumers of geospatial information. The full programme will be released soon but some of the highlights among the speakers include Denise McKenzie from OGC,  Eoin McFadden from DETI NI and Dr Tracy Lauriat from NIRSA (National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analytics) who is highly regarded for her work with open data in Canada.

Following on from the Future Cities event the increasing opening up of data and the innovation and benefit this can bring to both the public and private sectors look to be a key themes. Whilst increasing use of open data seems on the face of it to be more of a benefit to the public sector in enabling joined up thinking and better decision making this is of course a huge opportunity for companies to sell their expertise and help various authorities and departments make the most of their data.

The less glamorous but vitally important cousin of open data is open standards. We were recently lucky enough to have a presentation from the AGI Standards Committee in a recent council meeting and for someone who has always seen standards as rather dry this was a real eye opener. If as an industry and a society we are to benefit from the increasing availability of data we need to ensure data standards are applied and followed in as universal a way as possible. It would be a great shame to find that one local authority was making data available in a format that was incompatible with other authorities’ data or to find that a contractor was collecting data that didn’t match up with their other data sets (an all too common occurrence in the private sector). We want to ensure that open data is a methodology to break down silos not just create a whole host of new ones. Again this is likely to be very much on the agenda particularly the panel debate, with the conversation following on from an Open Standards event the AGI is holding in London the day before.

Open is important whoever you are in geospatial. If you’re a user of geographic information then come along and see how you can be getting the most from opening up your data and if you’re a supplier or consultant then you should be exhibiting and showing of how you can help the clients make the most of their data (and accumulate more and more relevant data).

You can book for the event here; it’s only £49+VAT for AGI members (which is very cheap really). Remember these are UK wide issues and Belfast is only a short flight from most major UK cities and it’s on a Tuesday so you can tack it on to a holiday, explore Northern Ireland and make a long weekend of it.

For our corporate members this is a great opportunity to get your expertise with open in front of an increasingly geo savvy public sector from across Northern Ireland and the Republic. You can view and book sponsorship options or email chris.rhodes@agi.org.uk

Geo: The Big 5 - Future Cities Story

As promised here is the Future Cities side of the Geo Big 5 write up. The content was kindly provided by our events group manager Rollo Home, I have done some reordering so any comprehension issues are probably my fault.

Glasgow Future Cities Team

The event was opened with a short but well aimed introduction from Councillor Gordon Matheson (leader, Glasgow City Council) who congratulated the AGI on reaching 25yrs "and looking good on it". He stressed the council’s commitment to opening up their data to public access through the portal where 85 data sets are currently published (including planning applications) including data from Ordnance Survey and the MET office. The focus is very much on putting the data into the hands of the citizen, as seen in the example of the customised city dash-board. The Councillor was keen to stress that while technology is great it is simply an enabler and it is the approach and political will that is the key. Glasgow have a clear desire to be a global reference point for future cities.

Andrew Collinge (Assistant Director, Greater London Authority) gave the first key note for the day, and started by outlining how “City Thinking” was now en vogue and thus he’d stress that it wasn’t the case of London vs. UK as currently being portrayed in the media, but “a Tale of, well, lots of cities” each emerging. However London is large, with a population that will exceed New York’s by 2016. Like Glasgow, London has embraced open data, and the portal drives 20% of traffic to the Council site. He then went on to give an example of some of the challenges London faces: 400K new jobs are needed, 40K new homes will required and 4,000 extra classrooms. One practical solution that the Future Cities approach has provided has been the School Atlas that allows authorities across London to see classroom provision and demand and plan accordingly, in the spirit of open data this is a public facing site.

Institute of Future Cities

An interesting point made was that these problems have not just be realised – the concept of Future Cities was identified by 50 urban scientists meeting in 1960's US and outlining the issues of 'regeneration of cities needed to keep pace of demand’.

The plenary led into the Future Cities Steam which was chaired by Graham Colclough. A surprising thing about these sessions was the strength of continuity of the message between speakers. There was limited disagreement about the scope and scale of the problems being addressed by the Future Cities concept nor, the fact that location based data had an important role to play in tackling these problems. What was perhaps more surprising was that the focus of the discussions was entirely on the value of using geospatial thus we did not hear about how an application was developed and deployed, but about the reasons that they were developed, the success of the uptake, and the outcomes.

Steven Revill (Future Cities Glasgow) started the Future Cities session with a fuller review of the work already referenced by Councillor Matheson. The Open data market to “empower Glasgow” was a prominent thread of the discussion. This was achieved through the web portals and out outlets such as the My Glasgow Apps. In regard to adoption of the services, Steven reflected on how useful the branding had been to engage to younger audience, as was the premise of presenting data stories. The platform itself is developed quickly with releases often made in an attempt to maintain momentum to the project. The search for new data is on-going with GCC energy consumption of all public sector and education buildings being the latest. This has enable people to scrutinise energy use putting buildings that use excessive energy in the public eye and driving change

A question from the floor raised the issue of data quality. Apparently operational data from GCC is good, but there is discrepancy and an issue with completeness. However publishing the data is helping address and potentially resolving this problem. Making it public is driving a change in behaviours.

Dr Diarmad Campbell (British Geological Survey) had a very different focus, and that is the sub-surface. BGS have an Urban Strategy for the simple reason that 80% of the population live in such areas, and therefore the activity that requires geological analysis (structures) is concentrated in these areas. While internationally other cities such as Oslo and Amsterdam have huge investment in understanding the underground, in the UK there has not been such a history of investment. BGS are now working with GCC to produce a complete and detailed model of the sub-surface. Many urban areas, not least Glasgow have a complex sub surface environment from legacy industry as well as industrial processes and BGS are driving towards multi channel data availability to allow for better provision and better decision making.

George Kirk from Scottish Power Energy Networks discussed integrated energy planning, that is dealing with power from station to the plug. He explained how low carbon is a key part of Glasgow City development but has so far no being tackled fully. Previously there has been no shortage of data, but a limited understanding of how we use that data to make decision. Now there is an opportunity to inform the profession and public alike through visualisation and data availability

The afternoon session moved the focus of the discussion from Glasgow and the UK to the global context, and this was kicked off by Richard Bellingham (Institute for Future Cities, Strathclyde University) by presenting the issues of the changing world and in particular a growing and aging urban population. These are challenges that cities have no control over but cities are required to respond to them.

The scale of the problem is immense, billions of people moving to cities in the coming decades – which are creating patterns of mega-cities across the world. However we have to consider that this migration is a voluntary process. Cities are desirable places to live. They also act as engines for economic development and offer a solution to our energy crisis in that they are also more efficient per head on almost every measure.

Teresa and the Future Cities Catapult

Finally Teresa Rico Gonzales (Future Cities Catapult) rounded the session off with the work that the TSB is funding through the Catapult in order to mitigate the vast challenge of rural to urban migration. However she was keen to stress that the FCC is not reinventing the wheel but looking to utilise the expertise that is out there and enable collaborative creation of the solutions, a common them across the afternoon’s speakers.

The motivations of the FCC are focused on particular outcomes; the primary is a duty of care (as a remit of the TSB funding), but other more tangible (and commercial) targets are related to generating exportable urban innovations, growing UK market share of the global Future Cities potential and to build a world-class urban cluster.

The session was rounded up with a panel discussion led by Graham Colclough with:

The Panel

Richard, Teresa, Diarmad, Steven and Rollo Home on the stand. Graham encapsulated the discussion as revolving around two basic principles of information/data and collaboration which was re-iterated by the panel speakers, but each presented their own perspective on the problem with the Ordnance Survey and BGS looking at this from the position of having data to offer but needing to work with cities to understand the nature of the requirement, and with cities working with academia to understand the actors driving change and their requirements for data to monitor and support those agents.