cloudsourced

The AGI conference is the biggest independent Geographic Information conference in the UK.  This year #Geomob has been brought on board to organise the Geoweb stream. In 2008, the 2 day residential conference based in Stratford upon Avon attracted over 600 delegates who participated in more than 50 workshops, presentations and debates.

I have been working very hard behind the scenes to bring in Web2.0 and neogeography content.  To kick things off, I am extremely pleased to say that Andrew Turner, author of the O’Reilly “Introduction to Neogeography” and CTO of GeoCommons.com, will be giving the geoweb keynote at the conference. Andrew is focused on collaboration and user-generated content around location and time. He is actively involved in open-data projects such as OpenStreetMap and VoteReport , as well as open-source projects like Mapstraction and GeoPress.

So, feel like sharing a stage with the godfather of neogeography? The AGI call for papers is open for another fortnight and I want as much geoweb content as possible, get your paper or workshop proposal in here: http://bit.ly/42sg9g

Steven Feldman, AGI GeoCommunity Chair said “It is very exciting that we will have a full Geoweb stream within what is already a diverse and captivating conference enabling hundreds of policy makers and geo-professionals in public sector, utilities, and retail to learn more about how these new, nimble approaches can transform the application of location within their organisations and enable new services. I believe that combining a mini Where 2.0 with the UK’s largest mainstream GI conference is a significant step for the GeoCommunity and represents a great benefit for all involved.”

There is an event page at #geomob: http://gmdlondon.ning.com/xn/detail/2456365:Event:3626

Keep your eyes peeled for updates, and if we land some sponsorship I might be able to offer some reduced rate day passes to #geomob members.

Budget Day = Derived Data Day

Tomorrow, or April 22nd is budget day in the UK. With the economy well and truly on the rocks, this year’s budget looks ominous. But forget the small-fry stuff like housing, health care and education, what about geodata?

The Trading Fund Review is also scheduled for release tomorrow, and will effectively decide the Ordnance Survey’s future.  Do they:-

a) Privatise the Ordnance Survey

b) Move to a publicly funded model

c) Split the organisation between some publicly funded and privately run functions

d) Do nothing

Everybody has their opinion on the merits of each, personally I would prefer option ‘b’. Stop the mincing around and pretending that the OS is a self-funding enterprise, it isn’t. Its subsidised indirectly by the taxpayer in the form of licence charges to the Public Sector. Define what we actually want and need from our national mapping agency; do we want to maintain high quality mapping of the UK, do we want to keep the luddite data straightjacket of “derived data”?

Death of Derived Data?

The single most positive change that could come from tomorrow’s fallout, would be the demise of “derived data”. Nearly all publicly owned geo data will be in some way derived from Ordnance Survey data, and the current Crown Copyright restrictions of “derived data” make it impossible to use the data without paying for an Ordnance Survey licence. Removing the digital straightjacket allows for public sector geodata to be freed up and shared, enabling innovation and better public services.  See some great examples of mashups using (mostly screen scraped) public sector data – http://rewiredstate.org/projects

Tomorrow may also mark the death of the Ordnance Survey, who knows, they may be privatised? One thing is certain however, if “derived data” remains the OS becomes irrelevant. To get around the licencing restrictions,  even local authorities are turning to OpenStreetMap – Surrey Heath Borough Council is blaizing a trail and contributing to OSM, the first Local Authority to do so (via @nick_b).

If the Ordnance Survey continues to practice the most ridiculous copryight restrictions, their only customer will be the Royal Geographic Society, nobody else cares anymore.

State of the Map 2009, the OpenStreetMap conference, is taking place in Amsterdam on July 10-12.  If you’re at all interested in open geodata, it is an unmissable event, and this year marks something special.  Its the year OpenStreetMap gets serious as a commercial ecosystem.

OpenStreetMap is no longer a quirky, little open-data project. Its massive. With over 100,000 registered users, albeit not all active, the OSM community is huge and especially passionate. The OSM community cares deeply about creating freely available mapping data, and shows no sign of slowing down.

This army of mappers is busily adding nodes and links to a global mapping dataset, that in many urban centres is more detailed and up-to-date than its commercial rivals. We’ve seen Geofabrik and CloudMade launch and provide geo services with OSM data, and this looks to be the start of a growing commercial ecosystem around OSM. So this year State of the Map has an extra day,  “dedicated to the theme of commercial viability of OpenStreetMap”.

Want to get involved?

The OpenStreetMap Foundation will be holding its annual conference in Amsterdam, from the 10th – 11th July 2009.  The conference will feature three days of talks, workshops and discussions by the people who are changing the face of mapping.  This is a conference not to be missed by anyone interested in joining OpenStreetMap’s mapping revolution.  Weekend tickets cost just €100 – and you can still get your ticket at a special early bird rate of €75.  You can find out more about the event here .

If all of the talk of the mapping revolution has got you excited, you can join OpenStreetMap’s efforts to re-map the world.  Signing up is easy and takes just two minutes – to sign up and start mapping, click here.