Categories
Data Policy INSPIRE

EU Hackathon, Google can help you get there..

Google is supporting the EU Hackathon in November and is offering travel expenses to selected individuals !

The deadline to apply is October 17, and the Hackathon takes place November 8th and 9th, at the European Parliament in Brussels.
Applicants must be citizens or residents of the EU.
All expenses will be covered for selected hackers, and winners along each of the two tracks will receive €3,000.

Application, and more info, here.
Written and submitted from the Google Offices, Dubai (25.095N, 55.162E)

Categories
INSPIRE SDI

My Talk at the INSPIRE 2011 Conference

I was invited to speak at the annual INSPIRE conference in Edinburgh last month. INSPIRE remember is the European Commission programme supported by national legislation to build a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) for European Environmental data. I was asked specifically to address how INSPIRE can foster innovation and “smart growth”.

These are excellent topics to discuss in relation to SDI development, SDI’s I’m afraid are still designed and where built operated almost solely from the perspective of data providers rather than users. INSPIRE is in some ways a victim of this mindset, although there is a clearly defined user in the form of European Commission organisations. Here the issue is one of scope to really maximise the innovative potential INSPIRE, organisations need to gone beyond the strict requirement to make their information available to the Commission and share as widely as possible by adopting the principles of Open Government Data.

Written and submitted from the Google Offices, New York, USA (40.741N, 74.004W)

Categories
Google Earth Google Maps INSPIRE Thoughts

So you want to use Google Earth to…

One of the most common questions people ask me, is “Can we use Google Maps to do xxx” , or “Can I use Google Earth in..” in most cases the answer is usually a resounding “YES”, but there are usually some conditions on use and for some uses the answer I’m afraid is no. For the past few years I have pointed people to the Geo Permissions website, which has been updated to now include a Permission Tool , a wizard interface to take your step by step through the permissions process.

I was at the INSPIRE Conference last week discussing amongst others things the licensing of geospatial data for shared Spatial Data Infrastructure projects, I made the point that increasingly data would be made available via online services and perhaps an additional way of reducing complexity is look at similar tools to explain access via future online services – the key insight.. to be user rather than producer focused !

Written and submitted from the Novotel Hotel Vienna, Austria (48.213N, 16.383E)