OS Innovation newsletter — May 2015
If you’re subscribed to our mailing list, our latest OS Innovation newsletter should now be with you. This edition contains information on the launch of the new Geovation Hub, OS OpenMap – Local, and updates to Points of Interest.
If you are interested in receiving all the latest OS Innovation news, you can subscribe here.
OS Innovation Newsletter — Spring 2015
The spring edition of the OS Innovation newsletter should be arriving in your inbox now, with our news on recent events, current projects, new products, and a cartography competition.
If you would like to be added to the Innovation mailing list, you can sign up here.
Sign up for our Free OS OpenData Masterclasses
We launched the latest GeoVation Challenge in partnership with Land Registry, asking for solutions on ‘How can we enable people in Britain to live in better places?’ We are looking for great ideas which use geography, technology and good design, with entrants having the opportunity to win a share of £101,000 in funding to bring their ideas to reality. All entrants to the GeoVation Housing Challenge must use Ordnance Survey open or paid for data and Land Registry licensable data in their business ventures.
To support the latest GeoVation Challenge and to help people gain a greater understanding of open data and the tools and techniques to use open datasets, we’re hosting a further series of our free opendata masterclasses, at five locations across England and Wales.
Young Rewired State’s Festival of Code 2014
For the second year running, Ordnance Survey’s Innovation team are supporting Young Rewired State’s (YRS) Festival of Code, which is a week-long hackathon event for young people aged 18 and under. YRS is the philanthropic arm of Rewired state, which is the largest independent developer network in the UK.
We’ve teamed up with The Cathedral Innovation Centre and Totton College to bring one of the YRS centres to the Solent region for the first time. Totton college, along with over 50 other centres, will host four-day sessions for young programmers in its state-of-the-art facilities and members from Ordnance Survey’s Innovation team will be on hand to help the participants create websites, prototypes and apps, demonstrating how geospatial information and technology can enhance their ventures.
Ordnance Survey Developer Challenge attracts dozens of innovative ideas!
Since launching Ordnance Survey’s maiden Developer Challenge at the tail-end of 2013, we’ve been busy promoting the competition to all of you budding developers out there! We’re delighted to announce that in total, we received 38 ideas, with the competition now closed for entries. A further stage of the selection process will now take before we announce the winners next month.
Cartography and the value of styling geodata
Today’s guest blog is from Ordnance Survey’s Cartographic Design team, highlighting the value of good cartographic design.
Applying cartographic styling to geodata makes that data immediately more valuable. It makes the data more efficient to interpret and easier to communicate to others. Good cartographic design may even allow developers to understand their data better and so be able to make better use of it and in turn create better applications.
It is said that design adds an extra dimension to a product (in this case geodata) by making it more aesthetic, usable and human.
Over the last couple of years we have been developing and applying our new corporate map styles which provide visual consistency to our portfolio of vector-based maps. These new styles have been applied to our OS VectorMap products as well as our other digital map products, Meridian 2 and Strategi.
We have developed a full colour style and a backdrop style, with the latter being designed for contextual basemaps that facilitate data overlays. We have applied an element of colour science to ensure that all map features take their place within a clear visual hierarchy whereby the features deemed most important will be perceived first.
Good cartography often takes many years of experience and yet national mapping agencies and cartographic publishing houses are now far from the sole users of geospatial data, so we have decided to share our know-how in the form of ready-made stylesheets. Even simply viewing data in a GIS can be improved by good cartographic styling. (more…)
10 finalists confirmed to encourage active lifestyles
It’s less than 2 weeks to go until GeoVation Camp and we can now announce the finalists who have confirmed their attendance. The ideas were submitted to our GeoVation Challenge asking for ways to encourage active lifestyles using Ordnance Survey products or services in the solution.
Unfortunately one of the teams we invited is unable to make the weekend of 28 February to 2 March, so we’ve been able to invite one of the teams from our reserve list. Places at camp have been limited to 10 teams so that there is time to help develop ideas to into prototyped ventures and to work on pitches for funding.
The confirmed finalists are listed below – or you can find out more about the ideas coming to camp by clicking on the links in our OS OpenSpace map.
Developer Challenge 2014 – win support for your geolocation start-up with Ordnance Survey and Techhub
Thank you to all those who submitted ideas to our GeoVation Challenge – How can we encourage active lifestyles in Britain? This Challenge is now closed to entries, and from the 74 innovative ideas submitted 10 finalists have been chosen to attend the GeoVation Camp, but don’t let that discourage all you budding developers and innovators.
Ordnance Survey along with TechHub, have a fantastic new challenge with an awesome prize on offer, “The Ordnance Survey Developer Challenge 2014!”
Active lifestyles ideas on the map
Thank you for the 74 great ideas you entered in our GeoVation Challenge to encourage active lifestyles in Britain and which have ‘now been sent to our judging panel to select the finalists for GeoVation Camp
Take a look at our OS OpenSpace map below to find our where the ideas are from. You can use the links within the markers to find out more about the ideas. Even though the GeoVation Challenge is closed you can still comment on the ideas .
Only five days left to submit your GeoVation Challenge ideas to encourage active lifestyles in Britain
With only five days left till the GeoVation Challenge closes for entries, your ideas have been pouring in! As with our previous GeoVation Challenges we’re looking for great ideas that address problems using geography, technology and good design. Ordnance Survey will be offering a share of £100,000 to help develop ventures that encourage active lifestyles in Britain and make best use of our data, including OS OpenData and OS OpenSpace, together with other open data.
GeoVation camp – designing sustainable solutions to real problems
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”.
– Einstein
If solutions to real problems are to be successfully launched and sustained, they need to be carefully designed. That means not just designing the solution but also the venture model that will sustain the solution and allow it to scale. This is why design thinking plays such an important part of our GeoVation camps. The objective of GeoVation camps is to enable finalists to be “match-fit to pitch” for GeoVation funding. (more…)
Merry Christmas and Happy Innovating New Year from the GeoVation Team
Dear GeoVators,
We thought it would be a fitting end to the year to give you a quick lowdown on what we have all been doing since our last team blog but firstly, we would like to take this opportunity to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from GeoVation and Ordnance Survey. Thank you for all your support in 2013. We look forward to running some new challenges and events in the New Year, as well as supporting our existing challenge winners.
Jonathan
Well this has been an eventful few months for the GeoVation team. October saw the arrival of a new member joining on secondment, me ‘Jonathan Field’ you may have seen a few of my blogs and the many tweets being sent out. I joined the GeoVation team from our Design team where I worked as a Graphic Designer and my work included producing literature and stands for the GeoVation team.
In the last year I developed a keen interest in Geospatial Information (GI), having spent 6 months in our Pre and Post Sales Support (PPSS) team learning about a variety of GI software and how our products can and are used by our customers.
Since joining the team I have hit the ground running, researching the problem Pow Wow outputs, not only for the current challenge but for the BITC Southampton hub; attending the Malvern Festival of Innovation where we launched our new challenge; helping at several of the OS OpenData masterclasses, travelling from Southampton to as far afield as Edinburgh; managing our social media streams such as Facebook, Twitter and the Blog; and baking the odd cake or two for the team. In my spare time I have for the last three years been renovating my house from top to bottom and have an end in sight finally…I won’t know what to do with myself once I have finished. (more…)