Yaniss Guigoz
Geographer
UNEP/GRID-Geneva
Switzerland

Biography
Mr Yaniss Guigoz is a geographer sharing his time between UNEP/GRID-Geneva and the University of Geneva. He is specialized in the implementation of open source Spatial Data Infrastructures as well as websites development. He participates in FP7 European projects such as Afromaison, EOPOWER, IASON and EcoArm2era, focusing on the spatial data sharing aspect through Spatial Data Infrastructures.

Abstract
Geospatial World Forum 2014 abstract

The open data concept, that consists in making public data free to use and share, is increasingly accepted and promoted worldwide. There is a growing awareness that public data, funded by the collectivity through tax payments, should be freely redistributed to the community. This ? freed ? data will in turn stimulate innovation and eventually become a higher added-value for the country than if it had stayed proprietary.

UNEP/GRID-Geneva is involved in several projects in which it systematically promotes the use and provision of open geospatial data. Among these projects, open geospatial data coupled with open source softwares and programming languages, has proven to be an effective way of sharing geospatial data, mainly through webservices. This optimal data flow, made possible by open data, allows to release the power of data to spend more time on the projects themes than on searching for data.