Category Archives: geodata

one GPS and fourty-something bikes

Posted on by
Reply

Kashif Rasul last year decided to buy himself one of those GeoChron GPS from SparkFun (they are really cool: field hardended and can take SD cards check it here) … after doing some mapping around Europe and Malaysia he decided to use it to initiate the first openstreetmap mapping party in Multan (which incidentally is one of the oldest known cities in the world – wikipedia-page). So he parted with his beloved GPS and it has started to pay off… Multan which till last week was completely blank on OSM has now got its first two roads…

To promote the idea of mapping parties Kashif’s dad who is a professor at a university in Multan organised a talk and mapping party. With just one GPS this first mapping party attracted over 45 people. This is huge! Here’s the email from Asif Rasul himself:

“How r u [Kashif]? I have given the presentation today about 45 people came. went fine. We will Inshallah start the regular work on week ends. Many student volunteered the job by motorcycle.”

Sweet! Below are the fantastic slides that Kashif and Aleks put together … they really hit the spot and make one wanna get out and map! i have to say thanks to Mikel Maron for being an inspiration (with his recent OSM related work in the Middle East) and letting us use some of his material for the slides. We also used some of Andrew Turners photos.

Mapping Multan and beyond with OSM
View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: multan openstreetmap)

As you see in the slides we are currently constrained only by the number of GPS’s – no lack of motorbikes and riders here :) .. so if someone out there is looking to support a good cause then donate some GPSs for mapping a city which has a rich, unique and beautiful culture. Sadly publically available spatial data is scarce. There is a lot of work to be done and to keep the mapping momentum in Multan we really do need more GPS’s. I look forward to the day that this data can be used by the citizens of Multan for social development projects.

If you would like to get in touch about donating GPSs or are interested in osm in Pakistan feel free to leave a comment below or email us.

There’s still hope for Australia’s spatial industry

Posted on by
Reply

The ASIBA last week release a set of recommendations for the Australian government. These recommendations were based on a economic study evaluating what the spatial industry in Australia is worth. A staggering 6-12 billion dollars is the figure mentioned.

But lets look at the recommendations: I quite like the aims of some of these: government initiatives to commercialise OZ spatial information R&D; government policy that improves the quality, quantity, currency and accuracy of spatial data; management of digital rights and information sharing and a whole-of-government approach to licensing of geodata.

There are a number of initiatives already in the pipe-line to address some of these issues for example to address constraints on information sharing, OSDM is developing a whole-of-government approach for licensing of spatial data. There is also a push to use existing standards for discovery of spatial data where applicable such as OGC‘s CSW whose most well known implementation is FAO’s GeoNetwork. There are also projects that look to make taxpayer funding research data free. The question now is how long will it be before we start seeing the fruits of all the good intentions from the government and traditional Spatial industry. How long is a piece of string?

Meanwhile neogeography projects such as OSM continue to flourish and so do the related standards such as GeoRSS. Another recommendation that will hopefully see greater support for such open and community driven initiatives in Australia is that

… priorities are user driven, not ‘producer’ driven

Hopefully this means that the OZ government’s inacceassable silo’s of geodata that’s currently begging to be freed may one day become available in formats that ease their use online and amongst the developer community. This would no doubt lead to the emergence of new industries, a responsibility that governments have towards their nation.