Bridging the Gaps between GI and EO

Non-governmental organisations play a helpful, and sometimes essential, role in policy formulation and implementation in Europe at both regional and national levels. The value and benefit of the co-operation between policymakers and umbrella organisations with members of the golden triangle (government, academia and private sector) has grown steadily, and an open dialogue is needed to create at information-exchange infrastructure. To increase the societal-economic benefits for novel technological capabilities, citizens must be key players in deciding the direction of the market. The European Umbrella Organisation for Geographic Information (EUROGI) has decided to utilise its Europe-wide network of GI service providers for regional dissemination activities. The events, hosted by HUNAGI in Budapest in December 2013, will demonstrate how the GI community can yield a leveraged effect in public administration and in Earth observation.

Integration of Location in e-Government

The European Union Location Framework (EULF) aims to improve the integration of location information in e-government. The first workshop on 11 December is about understanding the issues e-government practitioners face in integrating location into real-world applications as well as learning from best practices of some countries in Europe. Co-organised by the European Commission, Joint Research Centre and the Catholic University of Leuven, along with support from EUROGI, the workshop will integrate the EULF and provide the forum for invited e-Government practitioners and GI experts to share and discuss their experiences.

Benefits of the EU Copernicus Programme

Meanwhile, the EUROGI-led Copernicus Market-Pull-Packs (MPP) initiative is aimed at bridging the gap between the GI and EO community by bringing together the private service industry, prime data providers, universities, value adders and individual consumers. A series of Copernicus-related Country Surveys on the capacities and technical capabilities are planned with evaluation workshops involving European stakeholders ESA, EC, EEA and EUROGI members as well as domestic users and service providers of GI in each country. A key objective of the first ESA-supported workshop on 12 December is to raise awareness of Copernicus and its benefits. If the potential of Copernicus data and services for updating GI data repositories and developing new applications becomes more decentralised, this will contribute to increasing both the societal and commercial acceptance of the EU Copernicus programme. The importance of the Copernicus workshop is emphasised by the fact that Hungary will begin accession negotiations with ESA in December.

INSPIRE solutions for a sustainable world

Unlike other products, digital content does not lose value by being openly shared. On the contrary! By way of example, the Europa Challenge challenges Europe's best and brightest to build sustainable solutions to be shared with the entire European community. The solutions are intended to serve the INSPIRE Directive and address local, regional, national and international interests. University students and SMEs are challenged to build their applications using NASA's open source virtual globe technology, World Wind. Accept the challenge here: http://eurochallenge.como.polimi.it.