[Ica-osgeo-labs] Urban Science - City Analytics

[Julia Koschinsky]

Re: Urban Science - City Analytics

Dear all,

To avoid creating parallel universes, I see an opportunity to connect the
geoanalytics research, methods and free and open source tools developed in
our different research venues with 1) the open data infrastructure that now
exists in many cities and with 2) the government and nonprofit challenges
that are already being posted.

For instance, many city agencies and nonprofits are struggling with how to
gain insights from the open data in platforms like Socrata and CKAN (see
http://plenar.io) as well as new urban sensor data that is coming online.
They often use commercial solutions like Palantir/Databridge, ESRI, MS to
make sense of the data but there's a disconnect with user-friendly free-and
open-source solutions (there's also a real need for more training on using
analytics in these tight-budget environments).

The civic tech and data4good communities (Code for America/Germany,
DataKind, TechMeet-Ups etc.) often have more municipal and nonprofit
challenges and use cases than they can address, e.g.
http://www.global.datafest.net/challenges or NYC's Town and Gown project
<http://www.nyc.gov/html/ddc/html/design/tg.shtml> or see the city
challenges of http://www.citymart.com or city-specific challenges in some
of the larger challenge platforms
https://entrepreneurship.asu.edu/innovation-challenge/,
https://www.innocentive.com/ar/challenge/browse

There's an opportunity to overcome this disconnect and make our algorithms,
analytic tools, and research relevant to these and related efforts by
interfacing with these infrastructures and communities. The growing number
of university programs in urban informatics around the country is already
starting to make these connections.
Best,
Julia

Julia Koschinsky, Ph.D.
Research Director, GeoDa Center for Geospatial Analysis and Computation
Associate Research Professor, School of Geographical Sciences and Urban
Planning
Arizona State University
julia.koschinsky at asu.edu
http://geodacenter.asu.edu




>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Hogan, Patrick (ARC-PX) <patrick.hogan at nasa.gov>
> Date: Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 6:36 PM
> Subject: [Ica-osgeo-labs] Urban Science - City Analytics - The Road
> Map Challenge
> To: "ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org" <ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org>
> Cc: Jim Miller <miller at ittc.ku.edu>, "Varun Chandola
> (chandola at buffalo.edu)" <chandola at buffalo.edu>, MELICK Brandt
> <bmelick at springfield-or.gov>, Gabor Remetey <gabor.remetey at gmail.com>,
> Giuseppe Conti <Giuseppe.Conti at trilogis.it>
>
>
> Dear OSGEO,
>
> Urban Science - City Analytics is going to take a lot of work.
> But I can't think of more fertile ground for engaging a world in a
> mutually beneficial enterprise with practical and positive results than
> this.
>
> How hard the climb will be a measure of how much we want to accomplish.
> If easy, then not much, or maybe we really are all pulling each other up.
>
> We need a groundswell for a world in mutually constructive dialogue,
> working in unison towards a common goal.
> This is something our planet dearly needs at this very precarious time
> in one species' very short history (~150k years, we're just babes).
> We are a species consuming resources at an unsustainable rate (a
> future in jeopardy),
> and polluting our biosphere (our life support system) as if we didn't need
> it.
>
> What Can We Do?
> I hope we can design/architect an OSGEO software solution that excites
> the world community.
> We need municipalities around the world engaged in a partnership with
> us and us with them.
> What can we do for them? The OGC Smart Cities SI Framework and others
> is a big-picture bird's-eye view:
>
> http://gisuser.com/2015/02/ogc-smart-cities-spatial-information-framework-white-paper-announced/
> And also these:
> http://www.cmap.illinois.gov/
> http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/smarter_cities/overview/
> There must be more of these, help us find them please!
>
> Some Recent History:
> When NASA took on the mantle of going to the Moon, there were several
> independent projects designing and testing their idea for a Moon-shot.
> From that group some projects were selected to go forward while others
> were mined for their gems to go into the remaining projects.
> This process continued until there was only one 'project,' Apollo.
> Apollo was not one program, but the cumulative result of several
> 'competing' projects.
>
> Our Task:
> We need to develop a road map, the requirements doc, for what this
> Urban Science - City Analytics (CitySmart) program looks like.
> The requirements doc will likely be based on information in the
> 'framework' documents above
> This road map needs to allows for some early successes so we can get
> buy-in from 'real' municipalities to work with us to keep value-added
> on target.
> Then we will need a cadre of software development teams (or
> individuals) providing their solution in response to the road map.
> As we collectively together evaluate these, some will be asked to
> mashup until in the end we have one OSGEO CitySmart app. This app will
> have an open API for the menu system, for drag-n-drop of
> functionalities, so that each city can tailor it for their use, and
> the world community can continue to optimize old functionalities and
> design new ones (proprietary or open source).
>
> Who Will Do This?
> Maybe we can ask an academic or other organization to provide us with
> the road map (specifications/requirements), such as these two:
> http://sustainablecities.aau.dk/
> https://rd-alliance.org/
> If anyone knows of an organization or university who would be
> interested in designing the road map for city management per the
> 'framework' document links above, please let me know.
>
> The Road Map Challenge (a proposal):
> Here is 'a' plan (not 'the' plan, this 'plan' will change depending on
> feedback from all of us).
> An OSGEO Challenge with a NASA crystal bull for the award, just like
> the Europa Challenge, http://eurochallenge.como.polimi.it/, and of
> course NASA T-shirts.
> We need YOU (whoever you are) to design the requirements doc for the
> Urban Science - City Analytics (CitySmart) program.
> We will rank these and the number one vote getter will get the crystal
> bull (after they mashup the best of what is in all of the road maps
> into theirs).
> We will ask the Region and Theme Chairs to do the voting.
> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/GeoForAll
> And if there are special needs for the cities in the respective
> Regions, we need to hear about those requirements.
>
> What Next?
> The next challenge, the OSGEO SmartCity Challenge, will be to build
> according to those requirements and put a smile on the face of every
> municipality! And something the whole world can be proud of together,
> while experiencing the benefits of living in a smarter city. The City
> of Springfield Oregon has already shown us the path,
> http://www.nsdinow.org/SDI_Now_02/Technical_Support.html. Are there
> others?
>
> -Patrick
>  (650) 604-5656 (office)
>  (650) 269-2788 (cell)
>
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