Utilizing this precious feedback the project’s consortium was able to improve its software and fine-tune it to the stakeholders’ needs.

Now as the software components have been more mature we need your help to reassess their effectiveness, performance, completeness and ease of use.

The 2nd PublicaMundi GeoDataCamp is the event where developers and data publishers will be invited to tell us what you think:

• Developers: If you use open geospatial data to create mashups and mobile applications, please join us, try our services and API’s (Data and Mapping APIs) and see how our work enables you. Your remarks and suggestion will be most welcome.
• Data Publishers: If you are an employee of the broader public sector  or even an NGO and you are somehow involved in the open spatial data publishing lifecycle, please come and try our approach and tell us how this makes your work easier. We will provide training sessions, training material, we will help you register your own organization and publish your own datasets.

The number of seats will be limited so we urge you to register as soon as possible. You will receive a confirmation e-mail by 7th of September.

Please remember to bring your own laptop!

The 2nd PublicaMundi GeoDataCamp will be organized in the premises of INNOVATHENS, the Cluster of Innovation and Entrepreneurship established by the City of Athens.

Facts:

• When: Thursday, 10th September 2015, 10:00 – 16:00
• Where: Technopolis of the City of Athens, Building INNOVATHENS Aeriofulakio 2, Pireos 100, Gazi
• Programme

In July 2014, the EC outlined a new strategy on Big Data, supporting and accelerating the transition towards a data-driven economy in Europe. The data-driven economy will stimulate research and innovation on data while leading to more business opportunities and an increased availability of knowledge and capital, in particular for SMEs, across Europe. The EC adopted the Communication on the data-driven economy as a response to the European Council’s conclusions of October 2013, which focused on the digital economy, innovation and services as drivers for growth and jobs and called for EU action to provide the right framework conditions for a single market for big data and cloud computing.

The EC urges governments to embrace potential of Big Data! In the words of EC Vice-President Neelie Kroes:

It’s about time we focus on the positive aspects of big data. Big data sounds negative and scary, and for the most part it isn’t. Leaders need to embrace big data.

These are exciting times for all researchers and SMEs working in the forefront of the Data Economy! As a project, we are really looking forward to helping the EC, EU member states and SMEs to capitalize on our research and innovation results.

For more information, please check the following:

• Text of the Communication and Staff Working Document, the Press Release and Memo

• The EU strategy on the data-driven economy

• What big data can do for you?

• Helping SMEs fish the Big Data ocean

InnovAthens, our new home for innovation and creativity

First impression from inside InnovAthens: the NX-01 Enterprise!

Spiros Athanasiou, our Project Coordinator, presented the motivation, ideas, and ambition of PublicaMundi. Our goal of makingopen geospatial data easier to publish, view, and reuse, resonated to all participants and for various reasons. Almost everyone had a story to share: how difficult they find to search for geospatial data and transform them from formats they are not aware of, how cumbersome it is to produce metadata (especially INSPIRE), how much they appreciate a scalable mapping framework, or even how hard it is to convince others for the value of open data.

Spiros (passionately) presenting our motivation and ambition

Angelos Tzotsos, our Scientific and Technical Coordinator took the floor, and presented all technologies, standards and open source software which are developed, extended and integrated by PublicaMundi. Angelos stressed the fact that the PublicaMundi originates from active members of the open source and open data communities, working under the open knowledge principles. Our architecture rather impressed the audience, both for its completeness, but also for its versatility. Most participants identified a piece of software they already use, but also discovered new open source software that suits their needs!

After this round of introductions we had our break-out sessions. Our participants were divided into two teams, developers and data publishers. It was great to see that developers were the majority!

One of the many one-to-one sessions with data publishers

The data publishers were treated to a focused demonstration and training session of our data publishing workflow: starting from creating their publishing organization, assigning users, and then creating metadata step-by-step. The feedback we received was quite interesting and useful. Publishers requested automatic validation of INSPIRE-compatible metadata, automation (where possible) in creating metadata based on the actual data, and automatic harvesting from any data repositories and spatial databases they have in place. These features were all planned (some also implemented in our lab), but it was nice to affirm our original goal-setting.

Developers undergoing a crash course on PublicaMundi technologies

Angelos using Lenna to demonstrate a basic rasdaman scenario

The developersunderwent a barrage of technical demonstrations, code snippets and use cases. We kicked things off with our Mapping API, moved on with our proposed Data API and its syntax, and went under the hood to show how these combine and abstract the open OGC services, databases, analysis engines and map servers. It was really exhausting for everyone, since we covered all technical aspects of how PublicaMundi works, but the whole experience was extremely rewarding. Besides specialized technical feedback, there was a consensus from our developers: KISS-it even more! So we plan on making our APIs even easier to use even for developers that only know what coordinates are.

After the break-out sessions ended everyone got back together to have an open discussion. Developers were exchanging ideas with data publishers, stating their needs and difficulties. Data publishers explained that their work (as-is) is quite difficult, since they lack the tools and workflows to improve the way they publish open geospatial data. And both of them turned to us for solutions. Well, we will certainly do our best!

Closing the event, Spiros welcomed everyone to participate as early testers in the upcoming invitational beta of PublicaMundi. It seems that not only will we have many beta testers, but also currently unpublished open geospatial data to use! We renewed our appointment after the summer (so more GeoDataCamps will be organized due to increased interest) and then wandered theAthens Technopolis and its 13th Jazz Festival for some good tunes, a cold beer, and (the compulsory) souvlaki.

A big thank you goes to everyone that participated in GeoDataCamp and honored us with their presence and feedback! Also, our sincere appreciation goes to InnovAthens and the helpful staff, for their warm welcome and incredible facilities. We will certainly be back!

All the presentations of the PublicaMundi GeoDataCamp are available here.

As always, if you have any comments, suggestions, ideas, or want to join us, just drop us a line.

Now PublicaMundi has decided to have their next project meeting aligned with FOSS4G-Europe, (July 21-22 in Bremen) and become a proud sponsor of FOSS4G-Europe.

For two PublicaMundi collaborators this is particularly convenient: Gerald Fenoy and Peter Baumann both are on the organizing committee board of FOSS4G-Europe. Increasingly, FOSS4G-Europe is becoming a focal point for European events, and even beyond Europe. For the entire PublicaMundi consortium, FOSS4G-Europe will be a great opportunity to collect feedback from developers, gauge interest, explore collaborations, and showcase our work. Come and meet us at our stand!

FOSS4G-Europe is the annual gathering of European Open Source Geospatial Developers, Users and Leaders – at Jacobs University Bremen in the heart of Europe, 15th to 17th of July. A free and open source conference and exhibition that offers geospatial communities, research groups and businesses a place to meet, share ideas and have fun.

This year’s conference is under the motto “Independent Innovation for INSPIRE and Big Data“, characterizing the independence of the Free and Open Source movement from commercial product interest, and the power of innovation which the worldwide networks of FOSS enthusiasts unleashes. This energy is essential for mastering the challenges we are facing. Among the many ones ahead of us two stand out in particular.

Stay tuned, more news under FOSS4G-Europe.

The PublicaMundi GeoDataCamp is an invitational event focused on developers and data publishers:

• Developers. Please join us if you develop web/mobile applications with open geospatial data. We will present you early versions of our tools, open data APIs and mapping framework. You will be able to experiment, learn, and give us your honest feedback and insights.

• Data Publishers. If you work in the public sector and are involved in open data publishing, come and see how we will make your work easier. We will train you in open geospatial data publishing, and guide you in publishing your own data.

As seats are limited, we are looking for committed participants, willing to spend quality time with the PublicaMundi team! If you are interested, please register below. We will notify you by 15thof May, with the final schedule and venue details.

Remember to bring your own laptop – we will take care of the coffee! Also, if you are a data publisher, why don’t you bring your own data!

PublicaMundi GeoDataCamp is organized under the premises of INNOVATHENS, the Cluster of Innovation and Entrepreneurship established by the City of Athens.

Facts

• When: Friday, 30th May 2014, 18:00 – 21:00

• Where: Technopolis of the City of Athens, Building INNOVATHENS (Aeriofulakio 2), Pireos 100, Gazi

• Programme

Your responses, ideas, and insights can help us devise faster, more efficient ways to use and reuse open geospatial data.

There are three surveys available for you to complete, depending on your role:

• Users of open data (you are using open data or you are interested in open knowledge)

• Publishers of open data (you are publishing open data or operate an open data catalogue)

• Developers (you develop applications – with or without open data)

Remember that if you have more than one role (e.g. publisher and developer) you can always complete more than one survey.

Thank you for your time!

The European Data Forum (EDF) is an annual meeting place for industry, researchers, policy makers, and community initiatives to discuss the challenges and opportunities of the Data Economy in Europe.

The next EDF will be held in Athens, Greece on March 19-20, 2014. The program will consist of presentations and networking sessions by industry leaders, academics, policy makers, and community organisers, and will cover a diverse range of topics, including research and technology development, training and knowledge transfer, and commercialisation.

The Data Economy, an emergent field of business based on the publication and use of data, is a key enabler for sustainable growth in Europe. Initiated by technological leaps, such as Big Data and Linked Data, and supported by several EU policy actions, such as Open Data and the Digital Agenda, the Data Economy engages a variety of stakeholders from across thematic domains and disciplines in the data value chain.

The potential benefits of the Data Economy are well documented. Open Data will reportedly lead to economic benefits of up to € 40 billion a year in the EU, while Open Data can help unlock $3-5 trillion in 7 sectors. Big Data, another game changer for growth, competes these days with investments in traditional infrastructure in terms of impact and thereby fosters investments in data management solutions. Linked Data is behind the new generation of web- and knowledge management solutions as well as behind the web of data (linked open data). Moreover, the Data Economy can act as a catalyst for solutions in a number of societal challenges and empower all aspects of government and industry as an integral component of ICT (Information and Communication Technology).

However, supporting and implementing the Data Economy so that it will result in tangible benefits is not straightforward. It is said that ‘data is the new oil’. But do engines exist that use this oil? Do we have factories that are powered by these new engines? Do workers understand how such engines work? Where is the oil coming from? What else can be produced with oil? Are there any side-effects of using oil? What happens to the horses I previously used?

Such critical questions from the Data Economy will be discussed at the European Data Forum, by the multi-disciplinary and ever growing community of stakeholders, in order to assess progress, discuss the emerging challenges, propose solutions, and collaborate to implement them.

The meeting was the first opportunity for most project members to meet in person, share their experiences in open data and geospatial data management, identify common research goals, as well as development directions.

The first day was a chance for everyone to focus again on the goals and ideas behind the PublicaMundi project. Through a series of use cases, we revisited the major issues hindering open geospatial data reuse and reaffirmed the potential impact of the project. In the following, our Work Package leaders took turns and presented the planned work, deliverables, and time-frame of each Work Package. To conclude the day, we examined all opportunities for collaboration and concentration with other FP7-funded projects, NGOs, institutions, standardization bodies, and community initiatives. After all this hard work, Ermou street in Athens gave us the opportunity to taste traditional and contemporary Greek delicacies!

The second day started with a brief presentation of the major tools and technologies we will use in the project. The goal was for all participants to get acquainted with the consortium’s software and competencies, which combined, cover the entire life-cycle of geospatial data. Vivid discussions took place, focusing on all aspects of data publishing, management, data APIs and services, and web mapping.

Having established our tools of the trade, a round of architectural design took place. It was a long process, where everyone contributed, but we managed to impress the major software components, dependencies, and development priorities for PublicaMundi. The formal version of the user requirements and architecture will be established in the upcoming months. A brainstorming session followed where all participants gave their individual comments, insight and ideas on how we can leverage our work in PublicaMundi.

Finally, the meeting ended with a rendez-vous for Montpellier, France!

If you see anything out of place, want to improve the structure/content, or if you feel something is missing, ping us!

PublicaMundi is a research project proudly funded by European Commission’s 7th Framework Programme.

Project Full Title: Scalable and Reusable Open Geospatial Data

Instrument: Small or medium scale focused research project (STReP)

Objective: ICT-2013.4.3 SME Initiative on analytics

Call: FP7-ICT-2013-SME-DCA

Grant Agreement No: 609608

Duration: 24 months (11/2013 – 10/2015)