Opening Geographic Data
As Catalyst for the Creative Economy & Innovative Solutions
Shoaib Burq
shoaib@nomad-labs.com
t: @sabman

Geographic Data
What’s so special about it?

When did most people start to take note of Ajax?

When they first saw Google Maps and asked how it works?

Why?

because maps are useful!
and data used to make the map is even
more useful

... but, someone forgot to put the download button

Why would we need a download button/data?
Don’t the people who really need it have it already?

I want to create themed cartography

I want to create my own a routing server

... I want to route in Tehran ...

and route my bike to get here today

What about for building other open government sites

as at 21 December no way
to get postal regions
boundaries for Australia
without paying for non-
commercial user
What about for building other open government sites

What about for more pressing uses?
as if routing my bike isn’t pressing enough

Global Issues

What about for
Geo-Temporal Data Global Challenges
Predicting Bush fires?

What about for Climate
Geo-Temporal Data Global Challenges
Change Research?

The Geographic Questions

Where? and Why there?

The Temporal Questions

When? and Why then?

Increasingly we want to answer
Geo-Temporal questions

Where & When?
Why there & then?

So way can’t we just have the geographic data?
To create say a poverty map for analysis on
directing my donations

Key Indicators
• Socio-Economic Data
• Distribution of Poverty
• Basic Human Needs
• Infant Mortality
• Malnutrition Measures

Geographic Factors
• Coastal Proximity
• Climatic Conditions
• Elevations
• Transportation Networks
• Exposure to Natural Disasters
• Climate Change Vulnerability

Besides the reasons mentioned by others
there is one reason unique to GeoData

Was Dominated by Specialist Industry and Academia (Suits)

The changing face of the GIS Industry

These people speak another language few web
people understand - W*S
• Simple Features Specification
• Web Mapping Service (WMS)
• Web Feature Service (transactional) (WFS-t)
• Web Coverage Service (WCS)
• Web Processing Service (WPS)
• Sensor Observation Service (SOS)
• OGC Catalogue Service (OCS)
• Style Layer Descriptor (SLD)

GIS & Web 2.0
Only just coming to terms with
the web architecture
Still have an XML-RPC bias
Still searching for a cleaver
search solution

Now Barbarians at the Door

prangz.com (Real-time NSW Traffic Incidents)

prangz.com (Real-time NSW Traffic Incidents)

When Governments Open Up their Data

let’s take GeoRSS
+ =

Atom & GeoRSS

Interoperable out of the box
Standard Identification System (URI)

Interoperable out of the box
Standard interaction protocol

Interoperable out of the box
Standard data exchange formats

Load balance? Easy
REST resources are cacheable

Scalable out of the box
REST resources are stateless so easy to scale

Microformats & Semanitcs | http://microformats.org

Role of Web 2.0 tools
• Crowd sourcing for data
• Local engagement
• Self-help & Collaboration

OpenStreetMap proves public contribution works

Learn More
OpenStreetMap http://openstreetmap.org/
Canberra Mapping Party: http://
wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Canberra
Open Source Geospatial Conference:
October 2009 Sydney http://
2009.foss4g.org/

Thank you
Shoaib Burq
t: @sabman
shoaib@nomad-labs.com
http://sideshare.net/sabman