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.
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.
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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.
You may have missed it, so we thought it was timely to remind all our GeoVator’s that Ordnance Survey recently refreshed the portfolio of products that are freely available through the OS OpenData portal. Releasing both a new height dataset, as well as making significant updates to one of the backdrop mapping products, here are just a few key points that might whet your appetite.
The portal has been updated with a new version of OS VectorMap District and a new product – OS Terrain 50® being released, we’ll cover the height dataset first.
The image illustrates OS Terrain 50 data overlaid on backdrop mapping
Developers can also now access a new fully maintained analytical height product called OS Terrain 50. The new product, which has a similar resolution to Land-Form PANORAMA, will enable users to access an advanced product with consistently maintained height content for the whole of Great Britain.
Held at Imperial College, London between 8th April and 26th June, Urban Prototyping (UP London) is an International festival that brings more than 300 developers, technologists, academics, artists, government bodies and community groups together for a series of events that focus on the role that digital technology can play in creating sustainable society.
This year we were invited to participate and contribute to the agenda, which has a specific theme concentrating on the role that digital technology can play in harnessing the creation of resilient environments, economies and communities. We were delighted to accept the invite, as the festival presents an opportunity for us to introduce our range of products and services in such a context, whilst allowing us to engage with communities that might not have previously considered the many benefits geographic information can bring to potential innovations.
Do you use any OS OpenData products? If the answer is yes and you’re interested in winning an Apple® iPad 64GB but haven’t yet entered our Developer competition, be quick – as time is running out!
With the competition drawing to a close on 31 March 2013, we felt it was timely to remind all our blog followers that there are just a few weeks remaining to submit your entry. We thought it might be useful to post a blog that recaps what the entry requirements are; along with a summary of the kind of submissions we’ve had to date – so here it is!
For any of our blog followers that aren’t aware, Ordnance Survey offer a web mapping service called OS OpenSpace®. The Application Programming Interface (API) allows developers to embed our maps into public websites and mobile applications, for free.
But why do developers choose OS OpenSpace above other free web mapping providers? Well, OS OpenSpace map data is based on our world famous paper map series which many are familiar with, so often, developers are choosing OS OpenSpace above alternative offerings. Feedback received from the OS OpenSpace community suggests they believe the quality of the data, particularly in rural areas, is unrivalled and this is another pull factor for many. The level of detail provided means that it is possible to create applications with detailed information on any given area, rather than providing just an overview and again, this is a point that many developers are excited by.
The image illustrates the level of detail of OS OpenSpace in rural areas, compared to other free map providers.
Broken line of code stopping you from embedding a web-map on your website? Haven’t quite managed to mend the markers in your online location-based app? An offline mapping-related problem that you need some advice with? Well, have no fear, help is here!
Back by popular demand, our resident GeoDoctor returns on Thursday 17 January. From 10 am to 3 pm, we’ll be holding our first GeoSurgery of 2013 at the Google Campus in London. During the drop-in session, the GeoDoctor will be on hand to diagnose and provide advice for all of those Geo-related aches, pains and agonies that might have been preventing you from making headway with your project – helping you get back on track by prescribing the next course of action.
Happy new year from GeoVation. I hope you had an enjoyable festive break and start to the New Year. I spent Christmas fairly quietly at home but after a great holiday in December visiting New York and Costa Rica, I was glad of a chance to catch up and get back out running. I’ve been taking part in my local free parkrun which I think is a great example of an idea starting locally with a simple solution (it started with just 13 runners in a London Park 13 years ago) that embraces the use of digital technology (website registration, bar codes, electronic timing, email and text results), includes the use of mapping data (the course, directions) and has been scaled up – parkruns are now held at 155 locations around the UK with an average of 134 runners at each event.
Photo taken when visiting Cardiff for the GeoVation Showcase. Do you know where it is and what it’s called?
Helping to transform neighbourhoods, Community Payback Visibility is an app that will allow the local community in the Staffordshire and West Midlands to nominate sites for work to be carried out by offenders on community service and track the progress. Residents’ Green Space Mapper provides a tool for local residents to have a say in the future of open spaces in their area. Shout Crime will allow people to report hate crimes more easily and Sustaination are using social, local and mobile web technologies to make it cheaper and easier for food enterprises to connect and bring resilience to our food systems
In our last blog, we told you all about what the Innovation team had been up to during, what has been a very busy period. Due to the packed schedule throughout November and early December, you may have noticed that we’ve taken some time out from posting anything here on the blog. However, we thought you would be interested to read about the fourth series of OS OpenData Masterclasses that we ran during the last two weeks of November, so here’s a short write-up.
Following on from the three previously successful series of Masterclasses, we decided to revamp the fourth series, based on feedback received from the previous events. For the first time, participants were shown how to use OS OpenSpace, Ordnance Survey’s free web mapping service that allows users to display up-to-date Ordnance Survey mapping in a web page or online environment. Those who attended learnt how and where to access code examples, how to use Web-Map Builder, a tool designed to simplify the process of embedding a map into a website; as well as demonstrating an interactive way to experiment with code in the new Code Playground.
Last week Global Entrepreneurship Week was based on a theme of ‘Pass it On’. One of the entrepreneurs they featured was innovation winner, Ed Dowding, founder of Sustaination who was awarded £25,000 in development funding from Ordnance Survey in our ‘How can we transform neighbourhoods in Britain?’ GeoVation Challenge.
Ed is featured in a video, which you can watch below, passing on his ‘making the leap’ tips and talking about Sustaination, a food trade network that provides real time business information and uses web technologies to make it easier for food enterprises to connect up and trade from farm to fork.
Ed advises ‘Get going [with your idea] straight away, humanity has never faced a bigger series of challenges… the opportunity, the ability to execute on an idea has never been greater… it’s too important to waste time’.
Sustaination was awarded funding at our GeoVation Showcase in June to develop a website and app that will use Ordnance Survey data products in the implementation of the idea, something we look forward to telling you more about on the blog as this takes shape.
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hted 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.
