Loomio
Mon 19 Nov 2018 9:58PM

Gov Funding: Learning how crowdsourcing data could change the geospatial sector

R RobJN Public Seen by 235

UK Government are launching a funding competition (£50k-750k from a £1.5 million pot) for "Learning how crowdsourcing data could change the geospatial sector". Please see the links below for more detail. The eligibility criteria include strong UK ties (this is UK Gov funding after all!) and we would be delighted to see some OSM related projects winning - after all crowdsourcing is our expertise.

Happy to discuss further with anyone should you wish to chat. As a reminder OSM UK are a UK based businesses so would be eligible.

You can register for the 3rd December briefing event here https://ktn-uk.co.uk/events/geospatial-commission-crowdsourcing-competition-briefing

Info is also up on gov.uk here https://apply-for-innovation-funding.service.gov.uk/competition/268/overview

P.S. Weekly OSM pointed out that the total pot (£1.5m) is approximately the same as OSM’s total running costs for its entire 14 year existence! Another reminder of the value of OSM's mapping community :-)

GMD

Gregory Marler (former Director) Fri 23 Nov 2018 4:32PM

This creates some interesting questions, like... What would you do with £50k for OpenStreetMap in the UK?

I disagree that it's a reminder of OSM's value. If you add up all the hours of time put into mapping, teaching, coding, documenting, and multiplied it by the legal minimum wage, then you might get close to the value. OpenStreetMap is worth much more than what it costs to run. OpenStreetMap has played a strong part in getting this £1.5m released by the govt, so you can also add that to the value of the community.

R

RobJN Fri 23 Nov 2018 6:11PM

Sorry Gregory, I wasn't saying that OSM is valued at 1.5 million. I was making the statement (or more to the point repeating the WeeklyOSM statement) about how great value OSM is to it's users. OSMF has made 1.5 million last 14 years, UK Gov will spend it all in one go. But off topic and not really relevant here.

HW

Harry Wood Mon 26 Nov 2018 11:57AM

Oh the briefing event is this afternoon. I was thinking I might try to make it along, but sadly too late for me to take a holiday day for this. Wonder if any other Londoners have flexible working hours time for this kind of thing. Probably not.

It is the kind of thing we should do though. I'd love it if OSMUK could be an organisation capable of submitting project proposals for grant money. Tricky with volunteers though. I mean, it usually involves proposing a project with full-time people working on it, and getting paid for their work. I reckon we could swell the coffers of OSMUK with various UK grant money pretty well, if only we had enough money to pay people's salaries to do the work. Bit chicken-n-egg.

JN

Jez Nicholson Mon 26 Nov 2018 12:20PM

I believe the briefing event is next Monday 3 Dec https://ktn-uk.co.uk/events/geospatial-commission-crowdsourcing-competition-briefing ( https://ktn-uk.co.uk/events/geospatial-commission-crowdsourcing-competition-briefing ) at the Future Cities Catapult in Clerkenwell (the old Geovation office)
It is the competition itself that opens today (26 Nov).

Details at https://apply-for-innovation-funding.service.gov.uk/competition/268/overview

GMD

Gregory Marler (former Director) Mon 26 Nov 2018 12:51PM

I reckon we could swell the coffers of OSMUK with various UK grant money pretty well, if only we had enough money to pay people's salaries to do the work. Bit chicken-n-egg.

I've been thinking about that chicken and egg.

OpenStreetMap US (not an OSMF chapter) has a paid Executive Director... https://www.openstreetmap.us/2018/10/welcome-jaye-new-execute-director/
I can't find the job advertisement other than this. They previously had someone paid freelance to run SotM US.

This might going off-topic. Although, would it be worth OSM UK having a full-time staff member for 10 months? (and hopefully longer if they/we get additional grants). What would they do for 10 months that would excite the competition. Could be to train and promote OSM around the country.
OSM US took quite some time and struggle to find someone suitable to fill the role, and we could have the same issue.

R

RobJN Mon 26 Nov 2018 10:23PM

Hi @harrywood. This is one reason why we set up the Talent Directory. We can go after grant funds (or sponsorship) with more confidence if we know there are people looking for OSM-related work. Note that projects would have to be aligned with our aims and has to be of benefit to the OSM community. No point chasing money if not delivering for our community.

If I'm understanding things right here, the issue with this funding competition is that it is grant funding (50%/50%). Finding other UK orgs willing to invest is crucial.

@gregorymarler : A "Mapper in Residence"?

AH

Adam Hoyle Tue 27 Nov 2018 11:21PM

If no one else is free on Monday then as I’m close to London I can see if I can re-arrange things to make it work - have there been any takers so far? @harrywood are you able to make it on Monday?

R

RobJN Mon 3 Dec 2018 10:26PM

Did you make it along to this @adamhoyle? If not then we can ask others how it went. I saw on twitter that Steven Feldman was there. Apparently lots of interest in crowdsourcing to create proprietary data :-(

AH

Adam Hoyle Thu 6 Dec 2018 8:10PM

Annoyingly I couldn't make it in the end, so would be great to get a report from anyone that did manage to make it.

GMD

Gregory Marler (former Director) Thu 6 Dec 2018 12:19PM

For those looking, the geodatacomp hashtag seems the best way to find tweets from Steven & discussion with others.
https://twitter.com/hashtag/geodatacomp?f=tweets&vertical=default&src=hash