Dr. Antti Jakobsson
Chief Engineer
National Land Survey
Finland



BIO
Dr. Antti Jakobsson (D.Sc. in Tech.) is a chief engineer at the NLS. During 2008-2012 he was the Programme Manager at EuroGeographics. He has been working with development of national mapping, quality management and data quality issues. His doctoral thesis is related to quality and he has participated in the development of ISO 19113, ISO 19114 and ISO 19138. In NLS he has been developing the quality model of the Topographic Database and the quality management system for the NLS.

Ingrid Vanden Berghe
Director General
National Geographic
Institute
Belgium


BIO
Ingrid Vanden Berghe started her professional career as a scientist at Leuven University, Belgium. In 1989 she joined the public service in the Flemish region. One of her tasks was the practical implementation of the European law on environmental impact studies. She also took the first steps in the implementation of GIS in the department. In the nineties she was an advisor to the Cabinet of the Regional Minister of Environment and Land Use Development (1991-1992), the regional minister of Public Works, Town and Land Use Planning (1992-1995) and the regional minister of Environment and Employment (1995-1996). During this time she solved the difficult issue of the implementation of the nitrate directive in Flanders.She moved even more into the core of the Belgian political world in 1996 when was appointed director of the Centre for Political, Economic and Social Studies (CEPESS). In 2002 she returned to her ‘first love’ of Geographical Information, when she was appointed General administrator at the Belgian national mapping agency, National Geographic Institute. She is also the President of EuroGeographics.

Ian Jackson
Independent
Consultant UK




BIO
Ian is an expert in the field of strategic geoscienceinformation management and communication.As Director of Information for the British Geological Survey he led the implementation of an acclaimed corporate information system thatmanages, shares, delivers and adds value to geoscience data across the organisation. Ian is now an independent consultant working for the European Commission,Rio Tinto, ESRI, and the BBC. He has led major EU projects that improve how surveys manage and deliver their data. Ian instigated and led the global project OneGeology, making geological map data accessible and shareable, and transferring the know-how across the globe.

ABSTRACT
Lessons for OneGeology and international SDI initiatives OneGeology is a global initiative to improve the accessibility of a fundamental dataset – geological spatial data. It set out toenhance the interoperability of that data and improvethe transfer and exchange of know-how and experiencethrough state-of-the-art web services. Since its inception in 2006 OneGeology has been regarded as hugely successful and 120 nations are now participating, with more than 50 of those nations serving over 250 geological datasets to a global and dynamic web map portal. The technical, logistical, cultural and political challenges of a project that aspiresto international implementation, and in particular build capacity in the developing world, are huge and complex. In the last two years, however, the experience of OneGeology has demonstrated plainly that these are not the greatest challenges for a community wishing to establish an international SDI based on multilateral effort. The greatest challenge is to sustain the venture by securing the essential long-termcommitment, governance and resources from national partners.This presentation will candidly review the progress and lessons learned in attempting to deliver a sustainable international SDI for geology.

Paul Hardy
Business Development Consultant
Esri
Europe



BIO
Paul graduated in 1975 with an M.A. in Computer Science from Cambridge University, England. He worked for 28 years at Laser-Scan Ltd, including as Chief Programmer, Product Manager, and Principal Consultant. As Product Manager for Cartography at Esri in Redlands California from 2003-6, he managed implementation of advanced cartographic capabilities into ArcGIS. He is now Business Development Consultant for Esri in Europe, focused on national mapping and cadastral agencies. He is a Chartered Engineer, Fellow of the British Cartographic Society and Member of the British Computer Society. His interests include automated cartography, map generalization, geospatial data models and data re-engineering.

ABSTRACT
Out of the Box, up in the Air: Software Solutions and Cloud Computing
The ELF (European Location Framework) project involves harmonizing the authoritative data from European national mapping agencies, to make it widely and usefully available. The prime deployment components of ELF are cloud GIS services, implemented using the Esri ArcGIS platform. ArcGIS Online thus complements the direct publishing of data via INSPIRE network services by the many national mapping agencies, by aggregating and amplifying it. This presentation reviews the advantages and strengths of cloud GIS services, focusing on scalability and availability. It overviews the cloud GIS capabilities of ArcGIS in the context of the ELF project, of spatial data infrastructure and INSPIRE, and of “maps of everything, everywhere, for everyone”. It covers “what is ArcGIS Online?”, and describes and demonstrates the various kinds of content that can be served and consumed. This includes multi-scale basemaps with overlaid operational layers, but also ‘feature services’ and analytical capabilities, as well as web and mobile ‘apps’ and applications. Finally, it positions ArcGIS Online within the ELF project.

Magnus Guðmundsson
Director General
National Land Survey of Iceland
Iceland

BIO
Magnús Guðmundsson is the Director General at National Land Survey of Iceland since 1999. He completed his degree in Geography from University of Iceland and a High Diploma in Business Administration from University of Iceland. He has over 29 years of work experience working in various senior positions in the National Land Survey of Iceland. Magnus was the President of EuroGeographics from the period of 2007-2009. He is also Chairman of Arctic SDI Board and President of Association of Directors of Government Institutions in Iceland.

ABSTRACT
Arctic Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI): Pan-Arctic Cooperation among Ten Mapping Agencies
The Arctic SDI is a pan-Arctic cooperative initiative among ten National Mapping Agencies from Canada, Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, the Russian Federation, Sweden and the United States. With the current interest in climate change, increased navigation, as well as natural resource extraction and management, the Arctic has been subjected to intense scrutiny in recent years. A wide array of spatial data has been generated, but these datahave been largelymanaged nationally or dedicated to specific issues. As a result, existing datasets are distributed throughout multiple organisations; they are often not integrated or coordinated and it is difficult to find an environment in which these diverse datasets can be combined and analysed together. The aim of this project is to jointly develop an Arctic spatial data infrastructure (SDI)that reinforces pan-Arctic science and decision making. It seeks to establish technical collaboration among the national mappingagencies surrounding the Arctic in order to provide national geographic reference data as abasis for analysis and monitoring environmental and climate change. The work on the Arctic SDI will make use of technologies, data and experiences gathered from other SDI projects.

Clemens Portele
Managing Director
Interactive Instruments
Germany



BIO
Clemens Portele is an expert in the field of spatial information modelling, SDI- related standards and SDI architectures. Mr. Portele is a key contributor to INSPIRE (as chair of the INSPIRE Drafting Team "Data Specifications") and to the international standardisation in ISO/TC 211 and the Open Geospatial Consortium, for example as chair of the Geography Markup Language (GML) and GeoServices REST API Standards Working Groups. In the European Location Framework (ELF) project he chairs the Working Group "Cloud Service Platform".

Dave Lovell
Executive Director
EuroGeographics
Belgium



BIO
Dave Lovell is Secretary General and Executive Director of EuroGeographics, representing 56 national mapping, cadastre and land registry authorities in Europe. He is also a member of the Advisory Committee of the British Geological Survey and President Elect of the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Association. He started his career with Ordnance Survey (Great Britain) and spent 40 years with them in a variety of roles in Surveying and Sales & Marketing. He concluded his time with them as their Head of Public Affairs. This role incorporated management of the National Interest Mapping Agreement, delivery of their Corporate Social Responsibility programme, including support for formal education, and developing a positive profile of Ordnance Survey with its many stakeholders in parliament, government, the private sector and wider community. He has been on the Council of the Association for Geographic Information and was a member of the Steering Committee of the Intra-governmental Group for Geographic Information. He is an Officer in the Order of the British Empire (OBE), a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (FRGS) and a Chartered Geographer (CGeog). He is a volunteer with The War Graves Photographic Project He is married with two sons, one a philosopher and ardent global traveller the other the global lead on sustainable real estate advice at Deloitte

ABSTRACT
The European Location Framework
The European Location Framework project (ELF) will during the next three years deliver the first implementation of the European Location Framework (ELF) - a service based technical infrastructure which harmonises national reference data to deliver authoritative, interoperable, cross-border geospatial reference data for use by the European public and private sectors. It will enable this reference data and associated components to be used cost effectively in multiple applications, bringing cost savings at global, European and national levels. Furthermore, it will enable SMEs to develop innovative applications based on trusted location information. The ELF project consortium consists of 30 partners: 16 data providers (National Mapping and Cadastral Authorities), 4 application developers, 4 commercial software providers and 6 organizations representing user groups and regional bodies. The European Location Framework will be an important contribution to the Digital Agenda for Europe and the United Nations Global Map for Sustainable Development (GM4SD).

Denise McKenzie
Executive Director
Marketing and Communications
Open Geospatial Consortium
UK


BIO
For over 12 years Denise worked with all sectors of the geospatial industry on behalf of the State Government of Victoria (Australia) in areas of strategic policy, collaboration and innovation and led the formation of the OGC ANZ Forum in 2012. She has worked in a wide variety of domains including emergency, environment, asset and risk management, business intelligence, positioning and navigation. Her collaborative work has earned local, national and international industry awards.Throughout her career Denise’s focus has been to utilize public-private partnership and community building to move geospatial from being a niche to a core service within mainstream information technology and decision making process.In November 2012 she took up the role of OGC’s Executive Director Marketing and Communications.

ABSTRACT
Interoperability is rarely easy and as the technologies of the world develop at an ever increasing pace, ensuring there are open and relevant standards and specifications is vital to achieving this goal. The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) through its strong partnerships in the European region has been working to test and develop standards and specifications to help in the realisation of the objectives for the European Location Framework (ELF). This session will discuss some of the work that has been undertaken in this program by the OGC, how we as an organisation work to support regional initiatives such as ELF, the fundamental role that standards and specifications play in working towards regional interoperability and the fun of trying to get the mix right.

Olaf Østensen
Director of Strategic
and Technological
Development Kartverket
Norway



BIO
Olaf Østensen is responsible for the coordination for Kartverket. Since 1992 he has been heavily involved in international standardisation, first as convenor of WG 1 in CEN/TC 287 and Norwegian Head of Delegation. In 1994 he became the first chairman of ISO/TC 211, a position he still holds. He is also a member of the planning committee of OGC, member of the INSPIRE Drafting Team on Network services, chairman of the Norwegian government council for ICT standardization (eGovernment). Currently he is director of the Strategic and technological development unit within Kartverket.

Dr.-Ing. Anja Hopfstock
Senior Engineer & Cartogrpher
BKG
Germany

Dr.-Ing. Anja Hopfstock has been deeply involved in several international projects dealing with cross-border harmonisation of spatial data, such as VMap, EuroGlobalMap and especially EuroRegionalMap. She was a member of the Thematic Working Group ‘Hydrography’ and the ISA working group Core Location Vocabulary. In the ESDIN project she was the leader of work package ‘ExM (medium/small scale) that prepared the migration of the existing EuroGeographics data products into the INSPIRE framework. She obtained her Master’s degree on Cartography at the Novosibirsk Institute of Engineers for Geodesy Aerial Phototopography and Cartography in Russia in 1991. Her doctoral thesis is related to the visualisation of harmonised pan-European topographic reference data.

ABSTRACT
Data Specifications for Global, European and Cross-Border Harmonization
Making national geo-information assets available across Europe through a technical infrastructure is challenging. EuroGeographics and its members know from their production experience that utilisation of national data in a global, European or regional cross-border context poses additional requirements for data aggregation. The ELF specifications are a set of technical specifications setting the requirements for data provision and aggregation for interoperable topographic, administrative and cadastral reference data according to the requirements set in the INSPIRE directive and to other user requirements beyond the national level. They encompass data specifications for master and regional/global level of details, data maintenance and processing specifications as well as product and service specifications. The development of a Map for Europe providing a topographic basemap for viewing and backdrop reference is key for providing the interface to the underlying data. The ELF DS put the INSPIRE obligations at cross-border and European level into practice. Based on these specifications the ELF platform will support the one-stop production of, and access to seamless, consistent and up-to-date authoritative topographic, administrative and cadastral reference data. EuroGeographics and its members expect from the implementation of the ELF DS and interoperability processes a more effective and cost efficient production and data maintenance. Besides, conformance to the ELF DS will enable NMCAs to fulfil their INSPIRE obligations.

Aaro Mikkola
Chief Expert
National Land Survey
Finland



BIO
Aaro Mikkola graduated M.Sc. (Forestry) from Helsinki University (Finland), 1986 and worked in National Land Survey Finland since then, first as a satellite and aerial imagery expert and later in forest classifications duties. Since 1997 Mr Mikkola has worked in several international development projects like developing Russian Cadastre, SLICES (Project Manager), EuroGlobalMap (Technical Manager), ESDIN (WP partner) and INSPIRE Thematic Working Group-LandUse (member). He currently works as a Chief Expert at NLSFI Development Center responsible for map publishing and digital data production.

ABSTRACT
In My Mind’s Eye: Providing User Defined Visualisation
As one part of the ELF. project EuroGeographics members will provide their topographic data as an ELF Basemap that allows viewing at Global, Regional and National levels. Project will provide also common visualization to this data via SLD-techniques. Data providing tools and web-architecture are created in WorkPackage 3, visualization definitions in WP4. All these parts of the project will be opened more during the presentation. All users are not happy to get visualization just given but have increasing needs to have tailored versions. During the presentation some existing visualization services and editors are compared (Googlemaps, Cloudmade, MapBoxStreets). ELF project will provide it’s own solution to this: open source SLD-editor as a part of OSKARI Platform. OSKARI Platform (OSP) is an open source modular geospatial service platform developed in National Land Survey of Finland. OSP is offering also administrative tools for web-service, security/authentication, embedded map windows to end users and much more. Audience has possibility to comment on their own successful approach to visualization.

Chris Parker
Head of Research
Ordnance Survey of Great Britain
UK

Premysl Vohnout
Software Analyst
WirelessInfo
Czech Republic

BIO
Premysl Vohnout graduated from the University of West Bohemia with specialization on Geomatics. He is working for WirelessInfo already five year. He participate on the solution improving of GMES, GEOSS and INSPIRE services including raster data (e.g. satellite images, orthophoto, geophysical measurements, climate data) and vector data including basic topographical layers (e.g. thematic environmental data). He has experience with architecture design, but also with implementation.

ABSTRACT
Out of the Box, Up in the Air: The Creation of Innovative Value-Added Services
Plan4business is one of pilots at E.L.F. project. The plan4business project aims to develop a service platform for integration, analysing and presenting spatial planning data. The platform should serve as a catalogue of planning data enabling user automated data integration and spatial analyses. The contribution presents the approach for data integration, relation to INSPIRE and the technical solution including the user interface and the server side integration, storage and analysis engines. Plan4business should significantly contribute to decision making processes on various governmental levels and in cross-border activities by providing integrated data according to the INSPIRE Directive and enabling analyses of these data for planning purposes.

Clare Hadley
INSPIRE and UK
Location Manager
Ordnance Survey
of Great Britain
UK

BIO
Clare Hadley is a GI Professional with 30 years’ experience in a variety of fields including GI, survey, cartography, public sector marketing and sales, public affairs, data policy, licensing, consultancy and international affairs with Ordnance Survey. She has also worked on data policy with the Australian Surveying and Land Information Group. In recent years she has been active in trying to achieve better and greater data sharing by chairing the INSPIRE Data and Service Sharing Drafting Team. In UK she is also chair of the UK Location Business Interoperability Working Group.

ABSTRACT
The Challenges of Legal and Technical Interoperability – a Data Provider Perspective
Part of the ELF project will consider legal interoperability and how this should be implemented through interoperable technology. As such there are important linkages between the work packages concerned with the creation of a service platform and the legal aspects in order to be able to implement the legal framework in a services environment. This is a significant challenge to data providers who are seeking to implement INSPIRE services. The presentation will consider practical aspects of the context in which a data provider has to provide access to data and services. In particular the challenges of user engagement, integration with other providers’ services, data and service assurance, security, traceability, chained services and the technological solutions required will be considered. By taking this perspective into account we will bring a pragmatic approach to the work of the Project.

Dr. Katleen Janssen
Postdoctoral Researcher
ICRI and Head of Unit of the Information Rights
Management KUL
Belgium

BIO
Dr. Katleen Janssen is a postdoctoral researcher at ICRI and head of unit of the information rights management unit. She is specialized in legal issues relating to PSI, open government data, geographic data and spatial data infrastructures. She obtained her PhD with a dissertation on the relationship between PSI, INSPIRE and access to environmental information. She has been involved in many research projects and publishes and presents frequently on matters relating to PSI.

ABSTRACT
European Location Framework: A Cloudy Policy Context for a Cloud Architecture?
E.L.F. will provide up-to-date and interoperable cross-border geo-information to many different types of users in the public and private sectors. This requires a sustainable data and governance policy. Such a policy will have to function against the background of an elaborate European regulatory framework. This presentation sketches the main legal and policy requirements that have to be taken into account in developing the E.L.F. data policy.

Dr. Ir. Bastiaan van Loenen
Assistant Professor
Delft University of Technology
The Netherlands