Category: Open Data

OpenStreetMap and a festival of #hyperlocal and global mapping in Birmingham

I’ve just received this from Brian Pringle about this weekend’s – open streeet map event.  Birmingham will be hosting this global festival of the collaborative openly licensed map of the world.    It was back in Feb 2009 that we blogged about how Birmingham was the first city  in England  to be fully street mapped by the volunteers of Mappa Mercia.  Here’s the news release about this weekend:

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“Hundreds of digital mappers from around the world will descend on Birmingham on Friday 6th September as OpenStreetMap brings its annual international State of the Map conference to Aston University for three days. Cartographers, mappers, software developers, outdoor sports enthusiasts, civic activists, governments and businesses with an interest in location-based data will be there.

So if you see lots of people in Birmingham over the weekend avidly photographing and taking notes, its just OpenStreetMap mappers using their spare time to improve the map of Birmingham.

OpenStreetMap is transforming the way maps are made and used. Collecting, editing and publishing geographical data with a global army of over 1.3 million volunteers creates maps with levels of detail unachievable by other means. Its data dynamically and constantly evolves — just as places do

The nine-year-old crowdsourced geodata project is powering mapping apps (Skobbler and, in places, Apple Maps), recommendation tools (Foursquare), sports watches (Leikr), classifieds (Craigslist) and property search engines (Nestoria).

Volunteers collect data that is of specific interest to their communities, which might not otherwise be collected. Mappers who edit the data have usually had personal interactions with a place or locale. They know locations intimately, making their contributions detailed, rich, and hyperlocal. This means more accurate, “fresh” maps for users and an enhanced experience which is critical for successful services. More and more startups and services are focused on providing hyperlocal  functionality and features, so hyperlocal data is a necessity. Only OpenStreetMap’s army of contributors can provide that. Traditional corporate map providers are painfully aware of this.

All of the data collected is published under an open license so anyone may use the data freely and for free. Because OpenStreetMap publishes data and not just a map, anyone can make a map to their own style highlighting whatever data they choose, and there are now hundreds in use across the world.

Local authorities are warming to OpenStreetMap: Warwickshire County Council will be showing delegates how they used OpenStreetMap for realtime publishing of their local election results. Delegates will also be hearing from the National Trust about how they’re using OpenStreetMap data.

Speakers from Ordnance Survey and IBM’s Smarter Cities project will address the conference on the  impact volunteer-collected map data is making.

Aid and development NGOs, including the World Bank, were quick to recognise the advantages of OpenStreetMap’s methods and now regularly request volunteer teams to build maps rapidly in areas of the world where humanitarian crises erupt. The Humanitarian OSM Team will be updating delegates on their latest projects in the poorer countries of the world.

“This is a golden opportunity for West Midlands and indeed UK software developers to meet the people changing the face of digital maps; and to investigate new lines of business in an increasingly mobile and information-hungry world” said Brian Prangle local organiser for State of the Map 2013.

For further information contact:

Henk Hoff henk.hoff@osmfoundation.org Skype: toffehoff  Phone: +31 6 4808 8925

Brian Prangle brian@mappa-mercia.org Phone: 0121 604 1141 Mobile  07811667653

Conference Co-ordination (live from 12 noon Thursday 5th September) 07742 011690

Background Information for Editors:

Conference commences at 0930 am Friday 6th September in the Main Building Aston University. Request press credentials at info@stateofthemap.org before 12 noon Thursday 5th September.

Full Conference Programme is here

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Press_Kit

http://hot.openstreetmap.org/

http://www.stateofthemap.org/

Here’s a video link to a whole year of edits over the entire planet for 2012.

Watch live  updates to the map”

What – if anything – will replace the old politics in a digital city?

If you’re interested in this topic there a good read at the Community Architect blog from Baltimore. Read here.

Can tactical urbanism, Internet journalism, direct action, “open data“, crowd-funding and social networking replace the comfortable business-as-usual model  in which the various casts of the power elite scratch each others back within an established system of power-play and paybacks? Can these various types of free form action provide a solution that is at once local and complex and accessible and less corrupted?

Hat tip Tessy Britton.

G8 Open Data Charter

Today the G8 has published an open data charter. Nigel Shadbolt writes in the Telegraph about why this is important:

We need strong leadership from the top of the G8, committed officials within government, and a willingness to support those at the coalface: those who collect, generate, manage and oversee this new information revolution.

We need this innovation because we face unprecedented challenges as a society: an increasing population with very different demographics in different regions, environmental security, economic stability, growth and more.

We see open data as a crucial part of rising to these challenges. Quite simply open data is an enabler of freedom. Our freedom to trade, to learn, to be secure, and to our well-being as individuals, organisations, and as countries.

Done well, its impact will be material, measurable, and transparent.

Key points in the charter:

We, the G8 , agree that open data are an untapped resource with huge potential to encourage the building of stronger, more interconnected societies that better meet the needs of our citizens and allow innovation and prosperity to flourish.
We therefore agree to follow a set of principles that will be the foundation for access to, and the release and re use of, data made available by G8 governments. They are:
  • Open Data by Default
  • Quality and Quantity
  • Useable by All
  • Releasing Data for Improved Governance
  • Releasing Data for Innovation
While working within our national political and legal frameworks, we will implement these principles in accordance with the technical best practises and timeframes set out in our national action plans. G8 members will, by the end of this year, develop action plans, with a view to implementation of the Charter and technical annex by the end of 2015 at the latest. We will review progress at our next meeting in 2014.

Here’s the document in full (odd for an open data document to be released as a PDF – but..)

Open Data Charter G8 June 2013

Note: I sit on the CLG Local Public Data Panel – chaired by Nigel Shadbolt.

This was first published here.

Can I video my local council meetings?

 

It is often very helpful for local community groups or hyperlocal blogs to be able to record what happens at council meetings. It allows them to capture and share a record of what was agreed – and hold politicians to account in the future.  It can also help them celebrate success and show good local government in practice.

Some local council’s have had problems with this and today the Department for Communities and Local Government have clarified things for us all.

many councils across the country are still refusing to allow people to film public council meetings. In some episodes of TV programme Grand Designs, viewers have been perplexed at cameras being stopped from filming meetings of the planning committee considering the self-build projects.

The new guidance explicitly states that councillors and council officers can be filmed at council meetings, and corrects misconceptions that the Data Protection Act somehow prohibits this.

The Health and Safety Executive has also shot down the suggestion that ‘health and safety ‘regulations’ also bar filming, which Wirral Council used to justify a filming ban last year.

The new rules do not apply to Wales, as they have not been introduced by the Welsh government who have devolved responsibility. This led to the situation of a blogger being arrested and handcuffed by the police for filming a council meeting in Carmarthenshire. Wrexham council also banned a journalist from the Daily Post from tweeting a council meeting. Eric Pickles has today challenged Welsh ministers to introduce the new rights in Wales too.

Here’s the document and any and all active citizens and local bloggers should keep this in their back pocket.

BloggeYour council’s cabinet: going to its meetings, seeing how it works – a guide for local peoplers and V…

Be considerate, don’t disrupt, get those cameras out, share what you shoot.

So the short answer is yes.  hat tip Will Perrin and Talk About Local.