SmartOpenData is a €3.2m pan-European project of 16 partners, that aims to bridge the gap between linked open data and spatial data, and create new unprecedented sources of intelligence and business opportunities particularly in environmental management data. The project’s initial research into the requirements for its Linked Open Spatial Data platform (including software tools and data) has just been completed.

The SmartOpenData Linked Open Spatial Data platform will harmonise geospatial metadata (ISO19115/19119 based) using the principles of the Semantic Web, provide spatial data fusion using principles of Open Linked Data, improve spatial data visualisation of Geospatial Open Linked Data and publish the resulting information according to user requirements and linked open data principles. It will allow geospatial and linked data specialists to communicate easily: for instance using Resource Description Framework (RDF) to describe a location or point of interest, Geospatial Information (GI) to define where it is on the Earth's surface.

The platform will initially aim to satisfy the requirements of four classes of target users: (i) Public bodies, (ii) Researchers, (iii) Companies and (iv) Citizens, in using public data resources, existing sources for biodiversity and environment protection in European protected areas. Specifically the SmartOpenData platform will support users in pilots in the Czech Republic, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Slovakia and Spain over 18 months focusing on (a) Agroforestry management, (b) Environmental data reuse, research and Biodiversity, (c) Forest sustainability and (d) Water monitoring.

The SmartOpenData platform will be provided as a common cloud-based open source package of existing and new tools for each pilot, to enable relevant external data sources to be listed and crawled to generate and store linked open data that will persist after the project ends and that users can configure to address their requirements and use cases during the project.

The SmartOpenData requirements report is available at www.smartopendata.eu/public-deliverables

The SmartOpenData Project

SmartOpenData is a European Union Framework Seven Environment project that began in November 2013, and will run for 24 months. Its total budget is €3.2m with EU funding of €2.4m under Grant Agreement number 603824.The project’s Coordinating partner is Empresa de Transformación Agraria S.A., www.tragsa.es ,Spain, while the other 15 partners are:

• 1. Czech Centre for Science and Society, www.ccss.cz/en ,Czech Republic
• 2. Direçáo Geral do Territorio, www.dgterritorio.pt,Portugal
• 3. Environment Protection Regional Agency, www.arpa.sicilia.it ,Italy
• 4. European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics, www.ercim.eu ,France
• 5. Fondazione Bruno Kessler, www.fbk.eu ,Italy
• 6. Forest Management Institute, www.uhul.cz/en ,Czech Republic
• 7. Help Service-Remote Sensing SRO, www.bnhelp.cz ,Czech Republic
• 8. Latvijas Universitates Matematikas Un Informatikas Instituts, www.lumii.lv ,Latvia"
• 9. MAC, The National Microelectronics Applications Centre Ltd, www.mac.ie ,Ireland
• 10. Mid-West Regional Authority, www.mwra.ie/ ,Ireland
• 11. Sindice Ltd, http://sindice.com ,Ireland
• 12. Slovak Environmental Agency, www.sazp.sk/public/index/index.php?lang=en" ,Slovakia
• 13. Spazio Dati, http://spaziodati.eu" ,Italy
• 14. Stiftelsen SINTEF, www.sintef.no/home,Norway
• 15. Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, www.upm.es ,Spain"

MAC, The National Microelectronics Applications Centre

MAC, The National Microelectronics Applications Centre, www.mac.ie, is located in Limerick, Ireland and was established in 1981. MAC delivers distributed monitoring and control systems, providing dispersed smart irrigation in agricultural, smartgrid fault monitoring for electric power utilities, and remote water quality management in the environmental sector.

MAC’s main focus in the project is its user requirements, Environmental Research and Biodiversity data, support of a validation pilot in Ireland and sustainable exploitation of the platform.

Data Innovation Day

Data Innovation Day is held on January 23, 2014 and features events in Washington, DC, Philadelphia, PA, Austin, TX, and Palo, Alto, CA among others. In addition, over 100 global partners in India, Ireland, England, Turkey, Nepal, Russia, Ukraine and Australia, will participate in social media and other virtual activities. For more information, visit www.datainnovationday.org.

The Day is organised by the Centre for Data Innovation conducts high-quality, independent research and educational activities on the impact of the increased use of data on the economy and society. In addition, the Centre for Data Innovation formulates and promotes pragmatic public policies designed to enable data-driven innovation in the public and private sectors, create new economic opportunities, and improve quality of life. Learn more at datainnovation.org.