[Ica-osgeo-labs] ESPRESSO project invite for the Research Data Alliance's Urban BigGeoData and OpenCitySmart Think Tank

Sat Mar 19 06:45:37 PDT 2016

Also keeping the spirit of collaboration i will also send an invitation to the ESPRESSO project team, to send their representatives for the  Urban BigGeoData and OpenCitySmart Think Tank  on 8th June 2016 that the Geospatial IG of the Research Data Alliance will be arranging at the University of Nottingham. This will be a free event (limited to 30 delegates) aimed to bring together key stakeholders in GeoBigData and OpenCitySmart research to brainstorm ideas and plan joint research ideas and collaborations for the future. Details below.

Best wishes,

Suchith

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Urban BigGeoData and OpenCitySmart Think Tank

The Research Data Alliance (RDA) builds the social and technical bridges that enable open sharing of data. The RDA vision is researchers and innovators openly sharing data across technologies, disciplines, and countries to address the grand challenges of society. The Research Data Alliance is supported by the European Commission, the National Science Foundation and other U.S. agencies, and the Australian Government.Details at https://rd-alliance.org/

The Geospatial IG is a domain oriented interest group to coordinate and build synergies on topics related to geospatial data. Though there has been lot of developments and advances in geo data collection through mobile communications, sensor platforms, spatial search, and pervasive computing but still, the inter-disciplinary research needed to transform raw data into useful intelligence, to improve the planet's environmental, economic and societal well being, remains constrained by a range of barriers - disciplinary, organisational, historical, and a non-existent or non-rigorous approach to quantifying uncertainty in collected datasets.

Today is the era of Urban Big Geodata. Increasing urban population together with the rapid developments of geospatial data sources and increasing data availability present opportunities for improving the quality of life for citizens (in aspects like social inclusiveness, sustainability and resilience, mitigation and adaptation to environmental change, etc.). At present the greatest challenges associated with the demands for high quality information and knowledge from Urban Big Geodata are: (1) the ability to manage and extract it appropriately from what is a vast and rapidly increasing volume of geospatial data, (2) data analysis presenting a clear obstacle in many applications caused by the poor scalability of spatial analytics and algorithms due to the complexity of the Urban Big Geodata being analysed and (3) the presentation and delivery of results and their interpretation to non-domain experts (citizens and government organisations, etc.) as a crucial step to extracting and delivering actionable knowledge. No single research domain or community possess the broad spectrum of skills necessary to tackle the challenges of Urban Big Geodata. Disparate and often traditionally non-interacting research communities have the relevant combined expertise to tackle these challenges in a timely manner. Computer scientists may, for example, be able to visualise large data volumes effectively but may possess less expertise in the social science skills required to influence volunteer citizen sensors to collect data. There is a need to defragment existing research communities and bring them together in a new way which can foster knowledge exchange, skills development and the formulation of new ideas to advance the research capabilities in Urban Big Geodata.

OpenCitySmart is an initiative of the GeoforAll with the aim of development of suite of tools to benefit city operations, such as management of urban infrastructure (utilities, traffic, services, etc.). The purpose will be to continually add and advance functionalities serving urban management, for more efficient operations and with ultimate consideration for increasing sustainability and quality of urban life. Open City Smart builds and uses open solutions to build richer toolboxes that empower organisations and people all around the globe to handle spatial (and non-spatial) data.This will create innovation opportunities globally and locally.

The challenges of Urban Big Geo Data are multidisciplinary in nature. A networked approach is essential in order to formally bring expert researchers, scientists, stakeholders, etc. together. Open science is the idea that scientific knowledge of all kinds develops more rapidly and in a more productive manner if openly shared as early as is practical in the discovery process. Big Data research is emerging as key research focus for the fundamental research in many disciplines. Open Source, Open Standards and Open Data hold key for Big Data research in all disciplines especially in Geospatial Science. European governments and the European Commission are constantly seeking ways of achieving greater returns on the investment that it makes through research. As part of this process it is seeking to ensure better re-use of data, software and technology between research programmes, broader cross-disciplinary and institutional participation in major research project investment and more frequent and rapid up-take of research results by industry and government so as to exploit and maximise return on research investment. This Think Tank creates opportunities for establishing new WGs on themes in Geospatial IG related to Big Geospatial Data which can then develop actions on specific focussed themes. It aims to make a significant contribution to capacity building in Big Data research in Geospatial Science for new generation of interdisciplinary researchers.

The Think Tank will a free half-day event on 8th June 2016 (9:00-12:30 including lunch) with around 30 experts drawn from a mix of academic and industry backgrounds. Selected experts may be invited to give brief presentations but in each case significant time will be allocated for discussion and open exploration of likely developments and planning future joint research collaborations/bids.

Interested participants are invited to submit their ideas and details before 30th March 2016 through the website (which will be activated soon) . The selected participants will be informed in April 2016.

Urban BigGeoData and OpenCitySmart Think Tank Outcomes:

• Identify key developments and trends in this theme
• Identify mid-term (2-3 years) and long-term (5 year) developments and challenges in Urban BigGeoData and OpenCitySmart research
• Produce report on the Think Tank findings.

PS: Please note that though this Urban BigGeoData and OpenCitySmart Think Tank is coinciding with RDA IG/WG Chairs meeting (which will be hosted by the University of Nottingham and British Geological Survey in Nottingham ) both are separate events. RDA IG/WG Chairs meeting is a separate by invite only meeting run by the Research Data Alliance.
________________________________
From: ica-osgeo-labs [ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] on behalf of Suchith Anand [Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk]
Sent: Saturday, March 19, 2016 10:37 AM
To: Hogan, Patrick (ARC-PX); Finn, Michael
Cc: ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: [Ica-osgeo-labs] Mediterranean Drought Worst in 900 Years

Patrick, Mike,

Sure, we should explore synergies with the ESPRESSO (systEmic Standardisation apPRoach to Empower Smart citieS and cOmmunities) project  http://espresso-project.eu  . As this project is looking into development of a conceptual Smart City Information Framework based on open standards, it will be interesting to know their ideas for open standards for Point Cloud Data also .

Best wishes,

Suchith
________________________________
From: ica-osgeo-labs [ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] on behalf of Hogan, Patrick (ARC-PX) [patrick.hogan at nasa.gov]
Sent: Friday, March 18, 2016 10:08 PM
To: Finn, Michael
Cc: ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: [Ica-osgeo-labs] Mediterranean Drought Worst in 900 Years

Michael,

This is exactly what we are up to with the Europa Challenge. Hope we can find a way for GIM and our efforts to join up!

We dearly need cities working in concert with each other to solve their common urban management issues, and with a strong accent on sustainability with regard to energy, infrastructure, transportation and agriculture.

This recent news that February was the warmest month on record for this planet, not by a little, but disturbingly anomalous degree. The same for the last Quarter as well.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/17/weather/february-warmest-ever-month/index.html

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/

Cities are the key element to a dynamic society. Working collaboratively, they can well serve themselves in benefitting each other.

-Patrick

From: Finn, Michael [mailto:mfinn at usgs.gov]
Sent: Friday, March 18, 2016 2:37 PM
To: Hogan, Patrick (ARC-PX)
Cc: ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: [Ica-osgeo-labs] Mediterranean Drought Worst in 900 Years

Patrick et al.,

Relative to your Smart Cities initiative, have you seen this parallel (?) effort: http://www.gim-international.com/content/news/ordnance-survey-seeking-for-european-smart-city-standards.

Mike

On Wed, Mar 9, 2016 at 1:05 PM, Hogan, Patrick (ARC-PX) <patrick.hogan at nasa.gov<mailto:patrick.hogan at nasa.gov>> wrote:
Dear Open Solution Providers, a plea and a plan. . .

The existential-sized problem we must face of climate change can have no stronger indication than this:
http://eijournal.com/news/industry-insights-trends/mediterranean-drought-worst-in-900-years

This mega-drought will not only dramatically affect access to fresh water, agriculture and hydro power, but the little rain we do get is increasingly coming in torrential bursts that can do as much damage to infrastructure as it does to alleviate the drought. Asia, Australia and the Americas are experiencing as much. Each year for the last several, have trended warmer than the next. No rocket science required to see where this takes us.

Cities need to be working collaboratively on the tools to manage urban infrastructure, saving money and increasing innovation for sustainable solutions, https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Opencitysmart

This is not simply Climate Change, this is climate unraveling (and society in its wake) per the graph of annual temperature on this page, http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=87359

And the video on this page,
http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-noaa-analyses-reveal-record-shattering-global-warm-temperatures-in-2015

The cities of the world must find a way to work in each other's interest. OpenCitySmart is a beautiful start! What university will step forward and begin this enterprise in earnest? It takes just one Computer Science department working with their local city to build the first OpenCitySmart solution. OpenCitySmart can be the first step on a journey the world can join and then take together. Cities working together can decide the direction this world moves toward, collaboration and camaraderie or isolation and frustration.

-Patrick

 Patrick.Hogan at nasa.gov<mailto:Patrick.Hogan at nasa.gov>
 Program Manager
 NASA World Wind
 (650) 604-5656 (office)
 (650) 269-2788 (cell)

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