power of location powered by crowd sourcing - simarprit singh - imia asia pacific conference

Power of Location – Powered by Crowd-Sourcing

Powered by Crowd-SourcingPower of Location -


We are truly entering the ‘Age of Location, where location permeates almost every aspect of daily life.

Today, it’s the people, and not the cartographer, asking the questions.

LIKE

“When should I leave for work to make my morning meeting?”

“Where should I buy coffee along the way?”,

“How do I avoid bad traffic?”,

“How do I get home on public transport?”

The centrality of location to everyday life: HOW?

Power of Location – Powered by Crowd-SourcingLocation Based Services

Location-Based Services (LBSs) provide the ability to deliver high-value content to an end user, based on knowledge of the end-user’s location.

Location-based services are an important, integral part of the Smartphone experience.

Enabling developers to take advantage of and extend a platform’s location data is a vital part of the ‘location’ value proposition.

Power of Location – Powered by Crowd-SourcingRevolution in map making

In the new map-making paradigm, users are often present at the location of interest and produce maps that addresses instantaneous needs.

The Internet allowed maps and location data to be shared, no longer running on a desktop in the corner of the office.

Examples


Mobile Location Technology and Context

Mobile is the new digital revolution. Now we can ask whatever question we wish at that time based on WHERE WE ARE.

There are various mobile location technology platforms such as hand held GPS devices, smart phones, car navigation systems, iPad, etc. Having the ability to ask questions and view information about where we are is the true power of mobile computing.


Harnessing Wisdom from the Crowd

With the development of mobile devices, and the prevalence of smart phones that boosted mobile internet access, people can provide various types of data such as photos, location, etc anytime and anywhere.

Crowd sourcing activates the transformative power of today’s technology, liberating the latent potential within us all.

Crowd sourcing has also triggered a dramatic shift in the way work is organized, talent is employed, research is conducted, and products are made and marketed.


Tomnod is a project owned by Colorado-based satellite company Digital Globe that uses crowd sourcing to identify objects and places in satellite images.Starting in March 2014 Tomnod took images gathered by their satellites and offered them to the public for viewing and identification in the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

DigitalGlobe satellites immediately began to document the devastation, capturing over 100,000 sq km of imagery. Digital Globe Crowd sourcing used this real-time imagery to map thousands of affected locations and rapidly assess the damage.

Mapping sites that utilize crowd sourcing include:

Google Map Maker, OpenStreetMap project, Geo-wiki, and Wikimapia.

Examples of Crowd Sourcing in Mapping


OpenStreetMapping – A Classic Crowd Sourcing Success

The OpenStreetMap project is the leading global example of the effectiveness of crowd sourcing of geodata. It has been so successful that it is challenging both traditional GIS systems and map data providers, by providing an easy to use, up-to-date and readily available data and map service to the GI community.

OpenStreetMap has over 140,000 contributors, and in many parts of the world already has compiled more detailed mapping than traditional mapping suppliers.


OpenStreetMapping – Mapping Gaza

The OpenStreetMap community stepped up to map Gaza:

HOW?

1. Volunteers digitized geographic features,

2. OSM raised funds to purchase recent imagery from Digital Globe

3. Through rapid crowd-sourcing, a comprehensive catalog of Gaza data sources was compiled, made consistent, and applied to OSM.


Mobile Crowd Sourcing

Mobile crowd sourcing offers great potential and new qualities when considering and exploiting the context of the user, e.g., his location.

Mobile, and especially location-based, crowd sourcing has the potential to go beyond what is commonly referred to as “traditional” (digital) crowd sourcing by bringing it to the real world.


Examples of Mobile Crowd Sourcing

Ushahidi is an open-source platform from Kenya, which allows for crowd sourcing crisis information by letting participants submit information on violence through text messaging using a mobile phone, email, and the Web.

India Citizen Reports has been using Ushahidi since 2011 to collect and disseminate reports in various categories like civic problems, crimes and corruption.


Examples of Mobile Crowd Sourcing (contd.)

Google uses crowd sourcing to accumulate the road congestion data and provide the traffic conditions. A user’s phone running Google Maps10 for mobile phones sends bits of data back to Google anonymously, describing how fast he is currently moving. The combination of the data provided by the crowds supply a good overview of live traffic conditions.


Real World Scenarios

Real-time weather information through the power of locations and crowd sourcing: Bob decides to to go skiing. He decides to ask the crowds in his three most favorite places about the skiing conditions and crowdedness. Within a few minutes he gets back information from other skiers that provide him with the information.

In demand situations: John is in China for two weeks. He decides to buy a very traditional souvenir for his folks. But unfortunately the guys in the store cannot speak English and John does not speak Chinese and so he needs help. With the mobile crowd sourcing platform he searches for someone nearby who can help him in translating English to Chinese.

power of location powered by crowd sourcing - simarprit singh - imia asia pacific conference

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