Events - Location Data

GeoBiz 2023 update

GeoBiz 2023 update

June 2023

From Innovations in Space to Environmental Impact, it was all going on at GeoBiz 2023!

Hosting the Scottish Innovation Village at Geo Business in London for two days we caught up with the 7 organisations who exhibited alongside Location Data Scotland to find out more about their technology and what their highlights were from being at the show.

Eolas Insight provide automated mapping solutions predominantly for the environmental sector. Their highlight of being at Geo Business was the ability to be part of the Scottish Innovation Village and talking to the other companies on the stand to discuss potential collaborative opportunities.

Space to Consumer capture real time satellite imagery of people, animals and life form. They met with some key brands at the show who were very interested in their technology including Tom Tom and Amey. Space to Consumer also formed a strong partnership with one of the companies on the Alley and were discussing a potential collaboration.

Trade in Space’s technology uses satellite data analysis and blockchain technologies to make agricultural commodities traceable and sustainable. They attended the show to introduce their two highly innovative solutions; Digitrak and Sustainimaps.

NERC Field Spectroscopy Facility are a lending library for researchers sharing specialist equipment. They came to Geo Business to identify and build partnerships with key players to help improve their commercial activity.

Topolytics are a data analytics company providing solutions to make the waste supply chain more visible. Their CEO and founder Mike Groves highlighted how important it is for companies such as Topolytics to be part of the wider Scottish ecosystem and collaborate with other companies to share best practice and form partnerships.

Geovation are an accelerator programme supporting geospatial businesses in Scotland. Their partner manager Jess Sibley highlighted why it is essential for Geovation Scotland to be part of the Location Data Scotland community.

Craft Prospect is a NewSpace company providing AI-enabled space technologies, quantum encryption services and mission systems consultancy.

Alan Corbett, Head of Geospatial at the Scottish Government said,

Location data plays such an integral role in stimulating and promoting innovation within the Geospatial Sector. Location Data Scotland is working with some highly innovative organisations across Scotland and the UK, promoting the fantastic things currently being undertaken with location data. Having our own dedicated Scottish Innovation Village at Geo Business highlights the importance of the innovation and entrepreneurship being generated in Scotland, and the pivotal role Scotland plays in the wider UK Geospatial ecosystem.

LDS to host a ‘Village of Innovation’ at Geo Business 2023

May 2023

Location Data Scotland is hosting the Scottish Innovation Village for the first time at Geo Business 2023. Taking place in ExCeL, London on the 17th and 18th of May, Geo Business is one of the UK’s largest geospatial and location intelligence exhibitions showcasing the newest tech, tools, and solutions for geospatial. The show is co-located with Digital Construction Week highlighting the latest trends in digital construction in which geospatial plays a pivotal role.

The Scottish Innovation Village is situated at the heart of Geo Business and will showcase some of Scotland’s leading-edge technology organisations working in geospatial including:

Read the full story in Scottish Business News

Private and Public sector unite to unlock the Power of Location Data

April 2023

March Webinar Update

In our March webinar we heard from Simon Roberts, Data and Engagement Manager at the Improvement Service and Arun Gopinath, CEO of Vahanomy talking about their partnership formulated through an introduction by Location Data Scotland and where they saw ‘The Power of Location Data’.

The Improvement Service is owned by the 32 Scottish Local Authorities, COSLA and SOLACE and one of their focuses is to create a more consistent and comprehensive evidence base for decision making by enabling better access and usability of local government data.

The Spatial Hub is the Improvement Service’s flexible and scalable, online platform that provides standardised access to Scottish local authority data. A key objective of the platform is to stimulate innovation and improve productivity for organisations across Scotland. The platform addresses the challenges that organisations face around accessing public sector data.

Local government data custodians are invited to provide data sets to the Spatial Hub, which are then transformed and published into more harmonised national datasets which can be accessed by any authorised organisation or user. Organisations such as EDINA at the University of Edinburgh are sharing the Spatial Hub data via their DigiMap service with most academic and research institutions across the UK.

The Improvement Service has been working with Vahanomy Limited, an Edinburgh based start-up developing innovative artificial intelligence data driven B2B solutions to enable the accelerated rollout of electric vehicles (EV) charging infrastructure globally. Through an exploratory licence for the Spatial Hub, Vahanomy can access local authority data sets that have been critical to the development and testing of their innovative technology.

Arun said:

When we started out, we encountered lots of challenges accessing data around where electric charging points could be located including:

sourcing accurate, current, standardised, easy to handle and affordable data,

developing predictive models to use this data to pinpoint the electric charging points.

Through Location Data Scotland (LDS) we have been introduced to a number of key data suppliers like the Improvement Service, which has been important for us to access quality data. We also were able to connect with Ordnance Survey, Scottish Government, Registers of Scotland and the Geospatial Commission. As a start-up with limited resources, it is difficult to connect with the right contacts. Ashley at Location Data Scotland has a fantastic network of connections and she easily started opening doors for us to the right people across the location data domain.

The Spatial Hub has provided Vahanomy with access to 40 spatial datasets through their exploratory licence.

Simon Roberts commented:

The Spatial Hub could become a sort of ‘one-stop shop’ for Scotland’s local government and public sector spatial data if this was deemed necessary and we are working with other parts of Government such as health organisations and SEPA to evolve the data sets we currently support. Companies who are interested in accessing or supplying this data should get in touch with us via our website.

A list of available data sets from across the UK can be found here.

Available Data Sources

Public/Private Sector Disconnect

There is a massive question around how we bring together the public and private sectors to unlock the data being generated across the public sector? Lots of best practice is already being created in the private sector as organisations find solutions to similar data challenges. To address the issue and find solutions, first we need to understand the challenges. And bring together suppliers to share their insights and knowledge to try and solve the challenges.

Project Manager for Location Data Scotland Ashley Stewart said:

Our role in Location Data Scotland is to bring together an inclusive community of entrepreneurs, industry, third sector, academia, and public sector to collaborate, drive innovation, create opportunities and efficiencies and unlock the value in location data across multiple industries and sectors. We have a key role to play in helping address the public/private sector disconnect and our strong community of members could be the conduit to unearthing both public and private sector challenges and finding solutions.

The Power of Location Data

March 2023

Location Data is integral to the technological advancements of many industries.

Location technologies (both indoor and out) are spurring the evolution of rapid digital transformation and innovative new solutions across almost every part of daily life.

These systems rely on three main location data sources:

Geographic information systems (GIS) which use a variety of types of location-based data to build 3D visualizations and maps
Indoor positioning systems (IPS) that find and track people or things indoors using a range of different technologies
Internet of Things (IoT) devices (like beacons, sensors, etc.), which provide data to inform GIS and IPS systems

Location Data Scotland’s webinar, The Power of Location Data on Tuesday 30th March, will provide a case study of Scottish technology company Vahanomy Ltd discussing the importance of accessing rich data for their technology and the partnership they have formed with the Improvement Service to access datasets via their Spatial Hub.

Register below for this event to uncover a rich library of data sources and form partnerships with key data providers generating data and others looking to source data.

With the global geospatial market forecasted to be $681 billion in 2025 according to Geobuiz, we have seen data become exponentially richer over the last 5-10 years. The market is estimated to grow at a much faster rate post-2025, making it $1.44 trillion by 2030; this is largely being driven by strategic public policy reforms, increased government investment, the increased role of national geospatial agencies as well as industry acceleration strategies and innovation in the digital twin and metaverse paradigm.*

*Source: Location Data Scotland Market Intelligence Report

EVENT DETAILS

DDK Positioning’s journey from idea to commercialisation

October 2021

Our recent event ‘Where’s the Value in Location Data’ told the journey of DDK Positioning, an Aberdeen based organisation who provide GNSS Precise Point Positioning Services globally to make position more accurate.

Simon Canning, Operations Director at DDK Positioning shared his insights at the event, highlighting how they developed the idea, secured several rounds of funding, built the solution and selected their route to market using Value Added Resellers as that provided them with a global sales team of around 1000 individuals and gave access to an already significant ecosystem of customers.

Simon also provided 3 key lessons learned from their journey so far:

It’s important to strike a balance. Your product doesn’t have to be 100% perfect before it is released, so strike a balance between the minimum viable product and polishing the diamond!
Stay Focused. Don’t get distracted by other opportunities that will take the business focus away from the key products/markets you want to focus on.
Make sure you leave a realistic amount of time for each stage in the process and build this into your development/delivery time

If you missed this event, catch up on Simon’s presentation on YouTube here.

We also had a really engaging networking session as part of the event. Anne Robertson, Head of Services and User Engagement, EDINA, The University of Edinburgh commented,

“Location Data Scotland’s recent event had a dedicated networking session where attendees had the opportunity to meet other individuals at the event in break-out rooms. This was a great opportunity to find out about what others in the sector are doing and to hear about some of the really interesting, innovative products and services utilising and/or generating location data. With the return of physical events still unsure, it is important to have virtual networking events such as these to build communities and help organisations collaborate.”