This week from Monday through to Sunday you’ll find us at the Digital Shoreditch festival, an event that attracts hundreds of speakers from the most innovative and successful companies and organisations across creative, technical, start-up tech and digital spaces and beyond. During the week, we’ll be exhibiting, speaking and promoting our digital products and services amongst some of Tech City’s most talented digital and technical creative individuals.

The festival has a different theme each day, comprising of panel sessions, key note speeches and discussions – kicking off with Monday’s “What Tech City” theme. During the day, festival goers collectively explored the many companies and organisations that make Tech City what it is, focusing on developing new ways to exploit the potential for growing global engagement and improving our digital economy and society.

London and in particular East London is fast becoming a global focal point for new start-ups and forward thinking tech-based organisations. You may have heard a phrase that we often use at Ordnance Survey – “everything happens somewhere” – well, we’re keen to promote this message whilst raising further awareness amongst the tech community about the digital geographic datasets we produce and maintain during the day. One panel session in particular focuses on the role of government in technology and guest speaker, Mark O’Neill, Head of Innovation and Delivery at Government Digital Service contributed to a discussion that explored how government can continue to support the tech ecosystem.

Throughout the week, we will be showcasing our digital offering at the The Great Digital Exhibition which runs for the entire week. The exhibition has been descried as being “an interactive experience for your eyes, ears, and even your nose” and over 20 unique creations, including a digital geographic feast from us, will be on show to the general public.

Our involvement at the festival will be rounded off by contributing to the weekend’s hackathon that’s been dubbed “Make & Do”. Described as a two day creative outburst, Make & Do is all about putting digital skills to use to find solutions to real world challenges. Individuals, companies and organisations – including Ordnance Survey’s very own GeoVation programme – will be posing exciting and relevant questions or challenges and attempts will then be made to build solutions through speaker-led workshops and discussions.

The GeoVation team were able to identify the questions and challenges faced in Shoreditch by running a Pow Wow with 10 key members of the community to discover the theme “How do we build healthy communities in Shoreditch?”. From here, 72 ‘raw’ problems, with 23 sub-themes and a total of 47 insights have been identified and the full output from the Pow Wow session will be fed in to those attending Make & Do – with participants being encouraged to use OS OpenData and/or OS OpenSpace to build solutions.

All in all, it’s turning out to be a jam-packed, exciting week!

If you can’t make it along to see us at Digital Shoreditch this week, why not follow the conversation on twitter at #DS13 or to find out more about the festival follow @DigiShoreditch

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Since we announced the GeoVation finalists who have been invited to GeoVation Camp, many of you  have been are asking for more information on camp and what you can do to prepare.

GeoVation Camp runs from Friday evening until Sunday evening and it is where the hard work and fun really begins.  It is important that you bring a team with you as there will be lots to work through. The camp is based around framework that Innovation = Problem x Solution x Execution and we’ve made a great video which explains more about this. It shows you what will happen at camp and you can hear about other people’s experience.

During the weekend you  will have the opportunity to think about questions such as what problem are you trying to solve? What would happen if you did nothing? What is the value of your solution?  How do you demonstrate success?

The weekend is a fun and collaborative process and their will be service designers, GeoVation team members and other people there to help you answer these questions and build your pitches for funding.

Find our more by watching the video. Information about camp starts about 2 minutes in.

At the end of the weekend you will pitch to the Judging Panel for a share of £100,000 in innovation funding and we will do everything we can to help you and your team be prepared.

Feedback from past GeoVation Camp:

Brilliant, competitive environment, team building exercise, A 2 day think tank.

Go with an idea, listen to people with experience, have an open mind and be prepared to adjust both your approach to pitching and the parameters of your idea.

Enjoy!!! a thoroughly amazing experience which I would not have got anywhere else.

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Wales Coast Path GeoVation Challenge winners, Helen and Nicola Steer, have just launched their new iPhone app, Real Food Wales, which will help visitors to the area discover  local, sustainable and delicious food.

Last year’s GeoVation Challenge  called for innovative ideas using geography and technology which would help connect communities and visitors along the Wales Coast Path, benefiting those who live and work along the route, and beyond and Real Food Wales was one of the 5 ideas we funded.  They were awarded a £30,000 of innovation funding to develop their idea.  They are part of Mapkin: a team of five people who have worked together to develop this app.

Real Food Wales is an easy to use app, which maps over 150 of the best food businesses in Pembrokeshire, helping users access sustainable and delicious food.

Helen from Real Food Wales, said: “Real Food Wales is an ideal app for anyone looking for a special meal at a restaurant, a bite to eat in a quirky café, the best sausage in town for your campfire or a food experience you’ll never forget. The app utilises our unique network of local knowledge by displaying a large selection of food businesses on an offline interactive map of Pembrokeshire. The map really highlights what an exceptional range of local food businesses are operating in this area.”

The core feature of Real Food Wales is the interactive map, consisting of five zoom levels, which allow users to find the best places to eat out, buy food or have a foodie experience. A unique feature of the app is that it stores an offline map of Pembrokeshire onto the device, meaning that users can still access all of the information even when there is no mobile signal.

Other features include:

• Map or list display of nearby food businesses, with the option of filtering results by places to eat out, places to buy your own or food experiences.
• Each food business featured has its own entry with information and directions, plus you can call or email them and visit their website (if available).
• Social media integration – tweet or post on Facebook about your finds.
• Favourites function so you can save the places you love or want to visit at another time.

Real Food Wales is a great example of how GeoVation can support new ventures and how mapping, geography and innovation can help boost businesses and communities.

Helen added: “I would like to thank Ordnance Survey and the GeoVation Challenge for believing in our idea. Without their support and funding we would not be where we are today. I am really excited about the future of Real Food Wales and look forward to expanding the app to include many other areas along the Welsh Coast Path by the end of the summer.”

For more information on Real Food Wales visit www.mapkin.co.uk or download the app direct from https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/real-food/id638725873?mt=8

See Ordnance Survey news release

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Our GeoVation judging panel met this week and were delighted at the quality and scope of the ideas submitted to our GeoVation Challenge to look for ways that British business could improve their environmental performance using Ordnance Survey products or services in the solution.

The judging panel have now selected a short-list of 10 finalists who have been invited to develop their ideas further at GeoVation Camp,  held over the weekend of 21 -23 June 2013 at Ordnance Survey in Southampton.

The finalists who have been invited to GeoVation Camp are:

• “Virtual” national transport fleet.  An idea to create a connect-able, broker-free web of independent transport companies; breaking down the systemic big company / small company inefficiencies which exist.

• Creating an Energy Democracy: The Wasted Energy Network – This was the top voted idea on the GeoVation Challenge. The idea a platform for encouraging inter-business recycling, triggering waste based economies and identifying areas of opportunity for sustainable waste management and energy generation systems.

• RecycleLink The idea is to bring waste producers and processors together using a centralised trading platform that will facilitate collaboration and therefore reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill.

• Which renewable energy scheme is right for you? This idea is based around finding out whether a particular business is suitable for different renewable energy schemes and will show the buildings that are suitable using OS OpenData

• The ‘Green’ Contest.  Novel visualisation of environmental impact indicators such as energy usage overlaid onto Ordnance Survey maps will surface information, allowing consumers to view in a spatial context, the ‘environmental performance’ of businesses and businesses to view how they fare against their competitors and be incentivised to reduce their environmental impact through competition.

• Mapping Soil Carbon to Improve Environmental Performance  The idea is to use Ordnance Survey mapping technology and soil sampling techniques to create a carbon map of the United Kingdom’s agricultural soil to use as the basis for a carbon offset trading scheme.

• Reducing the impact of food consumption and waste using geodata – using a decision making Geotool that helps make more effective and targeted decisions geographically regarding consumption and waste production.

• Get on my land  which aims to facilitate a peer to peer network to provide potential agriculturists with the information, support and practical opportunities they need to get started.

• How to reduce costs and make money by separating your waste.  Cleanly separated recyclable materials without contaminants are greatly sought after by reprocessing and manufacturing companies. This idea achieves this ‘early separation’ with the vessel which the public, businesses and organisations use and the reprocessing industry will benefit from good quality recycling materials and in turn revenue.

• Streetkleen Bio Project a practical, innovative solution based around the anaerobic digestion of dog waste to create usable energy (methane). It will provide the impetus to demonstrate why we should divert dog waste from landfill and transform it into usable energy.

This year we have limited the number of ideas that are invited to camp so that there will be more time to work with teams and help them to develop their ideas into prototyped ventures and work on their pitches for funding. Because places at camp are limited we are operating a reserve list and have notified the teams that are on this list.

At the end of the fun and intense weekend, the teams will pitch their idea to the judging panel and assembled audience and successful finalists will be selected to receive a slice of £100,000 innovation funding to develop and launch their ideas.  Participants at camp will also be able to vote for their favourite idea to receive the  £1,000 Community Award prize.

If you feel you can help teams develop their ideas at the Environment Challenge GeoVation Camp then please register for Camp Helper tickets here and let us know what skills you can offer.

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You entered 47 great ideas in our GeoVation Challenge to help business improve environmental performance and I thought it would be interesting to see where these are on the OS OpenSpace map below.  Follow the links within the markers to find out more about each idea and, while voting is over, you can still add your comments and questions to the ideas.

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The Judging Panel will be meeting next week  to select the best ideas to save the environment which will be invited to GeoVation Camp on 21-23 June and we’ll announce these at the end of next week. If you’ve entered an idea to the challenge and registered using social media, then please log in and enter your email details so we can contact you if your idea is selected to come to camp

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Our latest GeoVation Challenge has just closed and soon we’ll be announcing who the finalists that will be invited to GeoVation Camp on 21 – 23 June.

We’ll be selecting the best ideas that address the problems identified and use Ordnance Survey data, including OS OpenData and OS OpenSpace, together with other open data in the solution.

Some of the ideas could make use of Linked Data.  The term Linked Data is used to describe a method of exposing, sharing, and connecting data and information using uniform resource identifiers (URIs) on the Web.  Across government over the last ten years there has been a growing realisation to the power of linked data for exposing, sharing, and connecting pieces of data).

Ordnance Survey will soon be launching the next iteration of the Linked Data Service. In preparation a new beta version (http://beta.data.ordnancesurvey.co.uk) of the service has been designed for you to have a play around, test and review against your current applications.

Ordnance Survey launched Linked Data in April 2010 and has seen a continued growth of the use in government and research. This understanding of the use of Linked Data has been used to develop an improved service which is easy to use and access adhering to new standards making the data more open.

A summary of the improvements made are:

• Developed a data hub that provides access to all our Linked Data datasets, with integrated search to enable anyone to easily locate resources of interest.
• Embedded OS OpenSpace maps to show the geographic location chosen.
• Separate datasets, which will allow you to narrow down your searches. For example, if you are looking for postcode information, you can query just the Code-Point Open Linked dataset.
• Improved metadata for each dataset such as publication dates, licensing terms and coverage.
• SPARQL 1.1 compliant endpoints for all datasets, which provide more functionality for querying our Linked Data.
• Redesigned search API based on the OpenSearch specification and with support for geography based queries.
• Support for the Open Refine Reconciliation API, which will allow you to more easily link your data with ours.
• All new API documentation and interactive tools for all API’s, including integrated example resources and queries.

If you are already using the Linked Data service, the Linked Data team would like you to take a look at the beta service and test against your current applications. If you have any feedback, please contact the Linked Data team by sending an email to linkeddatawebsite@ordnancesurvey.co.uk

If Linked Data is new to you and you want to find out more, data.gov.uk provides overviews, videos and examples of other government departments Linked datasets.

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So, with judging now underway in our current challenge, Chris describes yesterday’s All Wales Coast Path first anniversary event in West Wales and progress of our previous challenge winner.

GeoVation challenge partner, Ramblers Cymru hosted a fantastic event in Kidwelly, yesterday to celebrate the first anniversary of the opening of the Wales Coast Path and to launch the Big Welsh Walk, which takes place around the path this bank holiday weekend. The Wales Coast Path was, of course, the subject of our previous GeoVation challenge: “How can we connect communities and visitors along the Wales Coast Path?” which was timed to coincide with the official opening of the path on 5 May 2012.

Throughout the day, class after class of local school children (and adults) explored Wales and its coastline with Gwenda Owen, Ramblers Community Engagement Officer, on the enormous map produced by Ordnance Survey for Ramblers Cymru, and visited stands exhibiting activities on or near the path including local beekeeping, and allotment growing groups. In the afternoon MissionExplore (previous GeoVation winners) worked with several classes to produce mini mission explore booklets with children choosing their missions.

Local school children exploring Wales with Gwenda Owen, Ramblers Community Engagement Officer

The Minister for Culture and Sport, John Griffiths AM, was also shown the new food finder app – Real Food Wales which celebrated going live at the event. This is the brain child of sisters Helen and Nicola Steer from South Wales, winners of our Wales Coast Path GeoVation challenge and part of a small company called Mapkin.

Demonstrating the Real Food Wales app to John Griffiths AM, Minister for Culture and Sport

Described by them as “a foodie friend in your pocket”, the app helps you discover local, sustainable and delicious food along the Wales Coastal Path in Pembrokeshire. The app, which uses OS OpenData, is launching over the May bank holiday, and the first of the 5 winners of this challenge to launch. Helen said they hope to expand to include many other areas along the Wales Coast Path by the end of the summer.

Nicola and Helen displaying Real Food Wales

This Saturday 4 May, they are hosting a Big Welsh Walk and Feast from Newgale to St Davids, “where we will be showcasing local breweries and food producers with free tastings.” You can find out more about it at www.mapkin.co.uk, or say hi on Twitter @mapkin .

At the same event our first ever, and our most recent GeoVation challenge winners were exhibiting – MaxiMap, MissionExplore and Real Food Wales!

First and most recent GeoVation winners

Under brilliant blue Carmarthenshire skies we all joined the Minister, together with local school children and families, along the walk at Kymer’s Quay in Kidwelly, which forms part of the 870 mile Wales Coast Path.

Arry Beresford-Webb and Dave Quarrell receive their certificates from the Minister

What struck me was the initial vision of the Wales Coast Path, how it is now being brought to fruition and what it is inspiring – locally, nationally and indeed globally – by using Wales’ geographical assets. It was awesome and moving to talk to Arry Beresford-Webb, @dragonrun1027 and Dave Quarrell,  @ walkwales1027 about their motivations and experiences in, respectively running and walking the whole of the Wales Coast Path plus the Offa’s Dyke Path in 40 and 82 days respectively, raising funds for their respective charities. Read Arry’s blog here.

Cutting the Wales Coast Path first birthday cake

To cap a fantastic day Maria Rocke, Project Officer at Kidwelly Town Council made a “walking boots” cake. Happy first birthday Wales Coast Path!

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Thank you for all the great ideas you’ve entered in our GeoVation Challenge to help business improve environmental performance.  47 ideas were posted between 6 March and 1 May 2013 and 260 people registered on the GeoVation Community during that time.

The next stage is for the judges to start reading your ideas and select which of these offer the best solution to the environment challenge theme and are innovative, use technology and of course, use Ordnance Survey geographical information in the solution.  The judges will be meeting in a couple of weeks and we’ll announce the finalists to be invited to GeoVation Camp in Southampton over the weekend of 21-23 June.

Meanwhile, find out who the judging panel are below.

The Judging Panel Chair is:

Roland Harwood who is co-founder of 100%Open, the open innovation agency that works with the likes of LEGO, Orange and Oxfam to co-innovate with their partners. Roland was formerly Director of Open Innovation at NESTA, the UK’s National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. Graduating with a PhD in Physics from Edinburgh University, he has held senior innovation roles in the Utilities and Media industries and in addition has worked with 100’s of start-ups to raise venture capital and commercialise technology. In addition he has worked as a TV and film music producer for SonyBMG

He will be joined by:

John Carpenter, Director of  Strategy and Planning at Ordnance Survey. John’s responsibilities include the Ordnance Survey’s outreach and research programmes, strategy, policy and licensing. Previously John was Head of Products, responsible for the life-cycle management of the whole Ordnance Survey product range. John joined Ordnance Survey from the financial services industry in 2006, where he managed a number of business-to-business product groups. He once taught Geography, when such things a O-levels still existed

Ant Parsons, Business Innovation Manager at the Environment Agency.  Ant says:  Sparking, delivering and supporting new ideas and innovations excites me. I am a social intrapreneur sourcing and providing an incubator for new ideas and good practice to feed future delivery of environmental outcomes.

Quentin Johns,  Head of Business Development at Hub Westminster, London’s Super Studio for the new economy. The Hub Network comprises over 40 locally owned centres around the world, and what holds them together as a collaborative community, is that all the members of the Hub’s are dedicated to delivering social and environmental impact from their  businesses. Quentin has a degree in Social Anthropology from Sussex University and has worked with rural communities for an NGO in India. He has also worked as the international sales manager for  Marvin Magic, running stores on both sides of the Atlantic. He changed careers in 2011 in search of a job that would help create a new more sustainable economy.

Alison Prendiville - Deputy Director of C4D; a multidisciplinary position which facilitates the convergence of the STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering, Medicine ) with design. C4D was listed by the Design Council and NESTA’s Multidisciplinary Design Network in 2010, as one of eight best practice case studies of multidisciplinary  design collaboration. On completing her Masters in Design Management from the Royal College of Art,  Alison worked commercially with a number of design led companies before entering academia. Her doctoral research, awarded in 2001 linked engineering specification to design, service management theory and practice. she was a researcher on the EU Framework IV Programme MIMIC (Modality, Inter-modality and Interchange).  Alison has extensive teaching experience at undergraduate and postgraduate level encompassing Service, Product and Strategic Design and supervises and examines PhDs in: Design for Services, Design Management, Public Sector Innovation, Design Process, Design and Sustainability, Design Theory and Practice and Social Software Agents.

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With only a few hours left to enter the GeoVation Challenge to help business save the environment, I thought it would be good to see where, in the UK, the ideas that have been submitted are from.  Take a look at our OS OpenSpace map below and you can use the links within the markers to find out more about the ideas and comment and vote on them.

If you’ve got an idea to  help British business be greener then it’s not too late to enter your own ideas  too . You have until 12 noon today (1 May)  to enter the GeoVation Challenge. We are looking for ideas that use Ordnance Survey data, including OS OpenData and OS OpenSpace, together with other open data. The best ideas will be invited to a weekend GeoVation Camp from 21 – 23 June 2013 where you can work on building your idea into a prototype and pitch to the judging panel.  Successful ideas receive a share of £100,000 funding to get started on developing their ideas.

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In a previous blog, we shared news about how we were supporting the BlueLightCamp hackathon, which was a developer event that took place in Manchester last Sunday. Aimed at developers that work in the Fire, Police and resilience services in the public and private sector, the event provided an opportunity for participants to explore and develop prototype ideas that address just some of the criminal and justice issues we face today.

The day kicked off at 10 am, with the event organisers providing a recap of some of the key topics that had been discussed in Saturday’s unconference. One recurring theme related to the increasing role that social media is playing in the provision of such services and the potential that these channels of communication may hold for the future. Many examples were cited of how police forces are increasingly using platforms such as Twitter and Facebook to communicate with the public. It was highlighted that some forces are even adopting other platforms such as Google+, Pinterest, YouTube and Flickr to not only to broadcast information, but to engage with people directly and to open lines of communication that were previously not in place.

So, with the first hour of discussion coming to a close the clock for development time was well and truly ticking. Only 4 1/2 hours remained before the teams were invited to take to the stage to present their hacks to the judging panel. We encouraged attendees to use OS OpenData and/or OS OpenSpace to build their ideas into a prototype and supported the event by contributing a prize to the team that used either of these offerings in the best way.

There were some great ideas pitched during the closing presentations with each team picking up an award from the various supporters. Our award went to a team that developed a map-based application that will look to use social media to potentially assist in the coordination of public search efforts – an exciting idea, with great potential we’re sure you will agree!

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