Activities/Proposals/Geo-information meeting

In brief, this is a proposal to bring together the various geo-information-focused and -related organisations in the UK to discuss working together, and ways of growing their activities.

Outline

There are a large number of organisations in the UK interested in geo-information (e.g. mapping; tagging of information with geographical coordinates; etc.). These include:

• Geograph
• OpenStreetMap - OpenStreetMap Foundation
• Ordnance Survey
• ... and of course the Wikimedia projects, which host a whole lot of geo-information.

Wikimedia UK is not currently well connected with these organisations (and it's not clear whether the organisations are well connected to each other). The projects also aren't making the best use of each other at the moment.

In order to start tackling this, and developing ways to work together and grow activities, I suggest that we hold an in-person meeting one weekend that brings together all of the organisations, as well as the interested developer community. The meeting would be focused on two things:

• Information sharing - the mornings of the event would be occupied by presentations explaining everyone's interests and activities
• Hands-on developing/activities - the afternoons would be more focused on doing things, and making progress with obvious low-hanging fruit. This could involve technical activities (developers doing some developing) or more focused discussions/outlining of concepts, depending on the attendees interests.

The best location for such a meeting would be London due to its easy access from all parts of the country and abroad.

Benefits

• Better connects Wikimedia UK with other like-minded organisations in the UK
• Encourages the production of free content, and the optimal use of that content
• This event would lead into future events (that could be run by the Events Coordinator), partnerships and opportunities (including developer projects).

Some specific topics of interest would be:

• Scaling Geograph up so that it operates on a world-wide basis, in partnership with the various Wikimedia chapters (which have already shown interest in doing this).
• Improving the integration of OpenStreetMap with Wikipedia - already started by WMDE, but somewhat stalled at present.
• Making use of the vast historical information accumulated by Ordnance Survey

Requirements

• Meeting room for the weekend - could be sponsored/provided by an appropriate organisation.
• Tea/coffee on tap; food during lunch breaks
• Internet access throughout the event
• Some level of accommodation and travel sponsorship

Total cost would be estimated at circa £3,000. This would fall under the "Culture and Heritage Projects" budget.

Volunteering

If you're interested in helping out with this proposal, please sign below with * ~~~~:

• Mike Peel 21:54, 16 February 2011 (UTC)