TOPIC STREAM 08: Open Geodata

The open geodata stream aims to facilitate new collaborations and connections between the already strong geo-information community (GIS) and the open data movement. Much of the programme will therefore be organized in collaboration with other streams.


Finalised Programming

Session 1 Open Geodata workshop

Tuesday 18th September, 14:00-17:30, HACK workshop 3

Using Collaborative Web tools for opening access to geospatial data

There numerous and increasing number of open data catalogs and resources on the web. Local and national governments, NGO’s, multinational institutions and volunteer communities are all sharing and connecting data on the web. There are so many new and changing sites that it can be complicated to track them all or make sense of the data.

In the end, users just want to be able to see the data, ask important questions and share the results to their communities. Fortunately there are a number of easy to use and powerful tools that enable anyone to access and analyze the information from these open data sites.

This workshop will walk through several tools that make open data actually usable by the people that need the data to make better decisions. In particular participants will get an in-depth introduction to GeoCommons, an online and free site to share data, create visualizations, and run simple and complex analyses. Built with open data standards, open source software, and vibrant with a large community of users and contributors, GeoCommons is the go-to place for finding and using open geographic data.

Participants will learn more about these tools and how they can integrate the data and technology into their projects and applications through the user interface, API and numerous programming libraries.

Within minutes they can visualize open data and post it to the world.Through sharing of data with free tools to visualize and analyze we can collaboratively share our insight and reach consensus.

Presenter: Andrew Turner, GeoIQ, USA


Session 2 Open Geodata - Lightning talks I

Wednesday 19th September, 14:00-15:20 @ INSPIRE Foyer

  • Spatial Is Not Special - Maurizio Napolitano, Open Knowledge Foundation Italia, Italy
  • How Working With Open GeoData Can Be A Joy and Not A Pain - Sergio Alvarez Leiva, Vizzuality, USA/Spain
  • Riverboats of the Amazon: Automated Data Mining and GIS-analyses of GPS-based river navigation data with OS-Softwares - Henrikki Tenkanen , University of Helsinki, Department of Geosciences and Geography, Finland
  • BlindSquare: how to benefit open and crowdsourced geodata - Ilkka Pirttimaa, BlindSquare, Finland
  • If you make map, make a proper one - Paula Ahonen-Rainio, Aalto University, Department of Real Estate, Planning and Geoinformatics

>> VIDEO DOCUMENTATION (start time 2:15)


Session 3 Open Geodata - Lightning talks II

Thursday 20th September,  11:30 - 13:00 @ INSPIRE Foyer

  • Using Collaborative Web tools for opening access to geospatial data - Andrew Turner, GeoIQ, USA
  • Accessibility analysis in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area - using open data sources to model spatial accessibility patterns - Tuuli Toivonen, University of Helsinki, Department of Geosciences and Geography, Finland
  • Publishing geodata with CKAN: geospatial features - Adrià Mercader, Open Knowledge Foundation, UK/Spain
  • Introducing Spatineo Directory: A global knowledge base for geospatial web services - Ilkka Rinne, Spatineo Inc, Finland

>> VIDEO DOCUMENTATION


Session 4 OpenStreetMap Hackthon

Friday 21st September, 11:30 - 13:00/17:30, Comic Centre workshop room

Have you ever needed free, accurate street map in your publication or website? Now, you can learn how OpenStreetMap data is collected and how you can benefit it. This hackathon will start with short introduction lesson. After the lesson, participants will leave the building and experience data colleciton in real world. The hackthon will end with a lesson where participants (or OSM mappers) will feed their own data collection items into the OpenStreetMap database. Also participants will also be able to produce their own unique map of Helsinki (in paper or in digital mode).


Guest Programme Planners

Pekka Sarkola (Gispo Oy)

Petri Kola (Forum Virium)

You can reach planners via opengeodata at okfestival.org -email alias.