GeoXchange will take place at Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh from 23rd - 24th April 2008. Entitled "Data sharing - from Mashup to SDI", the conference will continue on the theme of "Open for Business with Open Standards" - following on from Snowflake's very successful inaugural conference at Marwell Park. Data Sharing is not a national issue!  Data Sharing is not a European issue! The need to share data is a world-wide concern! See our Conference Brochure

Local, central, regional and national governments are under pressure.  Pressure to make their data available – accurately and in real-time.  There are two camps of thought aiming to achieve this goal.  The formal approach of the SDI (Spatial Data Infrastructure) and the informal approach of the ‘Mashups’.

An SDI is based on a number of well known ISO standards, typically controlled within a political framework. This top down approach is fully supported by the INSPIRE legislation which, no doubt, will impact every government organisation delivering data and services. INSPIRE might be long-term but it is happening. And why wait for legislation? The standards also provide an easy way to share data today – ensuring cost savings across organisations.   

Concurrent to these activities, the industry is also seeing a growth in a ‘bottom up’ approach to building a geospatial infrastructure. Based on content supplied by the likes of Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, applications, aka ‘Mashups’, are put together quickly – typically with less reference to formal standards and less consideration of data quality. Yet they are useful and will no doubt play a vital role in all of our lives.  

Maybe the differentiator will be the need for accuracy? Are we more than happy to arrange our European vacation based on third party input but reluctant to trust our European flood defences to anything short of hard legislation?

This conference will provide an open forum for commercial and technical discussions around the SDI and consider the benefits of both approaches to the data sharing phenomenon.

Confirmed Speakers now include:

Centre for Geospatial Science at the University of Nottingham
European Commission DG JRC
Multimap
Ordnance Survey
The Scottish Government
Grontmij NL
Alterra NL
grit GmbH
MET Office
UKHO
TENET

With topics ranging from:

INSPIRE
Data harvesting
OS OpenSpace
Geospatial Web Services
Delivering Web Forecasting
Implementing a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI)
CityGML for 3D modelling
Neogeography

With experts from across Europe presenting their views on regional and international requirements, the two days promise to provide a unique insight into data conversion, data manipulation and data sharing.

Sponsorship and Speaking Opportunities

If you would like to sponsor or speak at "GeoXchange - from Mashup to SDI", please contact Snowflake Software.