I was recently invited to give a lightning talk at the West Midlands Open Data Forum’s Data Dig, which looked at Civil Society data Open Data, including open source mapping for the voluntary sector.
The event was rescheduled due to poor weather, and as I couldn’t make the rescheduled date, it was suggested that I record my talk.
As well as giving an overview of my research, I posed the question, what is special about geospatial data that is created and used by third sector organisations?
To get discussions started, I suggested that the data may give a unique sense of people and place that is understood only by third sector organisations, and particularly grassroots organisations. The sector is not motivated by profit or voter preference, and as a result the data use looks different to that of the public or for-profit sectors.
Great emphasis has been put on the importance of geospatial data for the public and private sectors, but the third sector has been consistently left out of key developments, such as the Geospatial Commission, as a result of the lack of evidence detailing third sector use of geospatial data.
My research over the coming years hopes to change that! The full talk can be watched here.
jamesjbowles.com 