Within the context of smeSpire exploitation activities, smeSpire has produced a video introducing EULF to the smeSpire communities in 4 steps: EULF in brief, EULF pilots, EULF & SMEs, EULF & smeSpire. Watch the video! Visit also our YouTube channel.

The Joint Research Centre of the European Commission is carrying out a survey to gain a better understanding on the use of location data in the energy field.

Find the online questionnaire here: http://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/runner/EULF_EnergyAndLocation

Thank you in advance for your cooperation!

The use of ISA Core Vocabularies for the smeSpire database, documented here, has been referenced as implementation in the Joinup Platform.

Energy density mapping at building level may enable utilities to succesfully target their energy demand management, as well as contribute to the broader objective of contributing to the sustainability of the municipalities with which they are working.

In June 2014 the smeSpire survey platform published a new survey about GeoICT organisations and “energy density maps”; the survey has been implemented by the Sunshine project and the GeoSmartCity project.

In one-month the survey collected 118 responses, mainly from Europe, about the knowledge of “energy density maps”, their potential use for Covenant of Mayors and other energy policies.

The results of the survey are available in this slideshare presentation:

The basic idea is that the information on energy consumption or energy performances, if georeferenced, can be used to automatically create urban-scale “energy density maps” (or simply “energy maps”), that may be useful inputs for planning activities and large-scale energy purposes. Energy maps are normally GIS-based and often prepared at the neighborhood, local authority or sub-regional scale .

An energy map might be used in a variety of ways:

• District heating network
• Energy strategy
• Identifying energy solutions
• Priority projects
• Carbon compliance/allowable solutions
• Inform growth options

The prize giving ceremony of the smeSpire Challenge took place in Aalborg during the INSPIRE Conference 2014. GETLOD, the joint submission of Sinergis and Planetek Italia, has been awarded the first track “Best Practices for INSPIRE”, while the open source HALE of Fraunhofer Institute has been awarded the second track “Open Source Software for INSPIRE”. Watch the photos of the event.

Show slideshow

The smeSpire training platform contains modules which can be used by the smeSpire network members in a very flexible way, coherently with the vocational training curricula developed by smeSpire, based on a series of Job Profiles and Business Processes related to INSPIRE implementations.

Access our training platform and follow the modules corresponding to the learning paths suggested by smeSpire for the three Job Profiles identified, or, alternatively, build your own self-customised learning path which best fills-in your knowledge gaps, selecting the modules in the list.

Available modules:

• Introduction to INSPIRE
• INSPIRE advanced
• Introduction to costs/benefits of INSPIRE & possible opportunities
• Introduction overview of Technological Geospatial Trends and potential opportunities/benefits for the geo-ICT market
• Basics of INSPIRE Data and service sharing
• Basics of INSPIRE Data Specifications
• INSPIRE Data specifications advanced
• Procedures for Data and Metadata Harmonization
• Metadata and Data validation for INSPIRE
• Examples of Data Transformation
• How to publish data as Linked data
• Introduction to Sensor Web Enablement
• Introduction to Business Process Modelling – BPMN
• Basics of INSPIRE Network Services
• INSPIRE Network Services advanced
• Innovative Cloud Computing solutions
• Introduction to Linked Data
• Introduzione ai Social Media

Two Geo-ICT SMEs of the smeSpire network, Altilia and DeltaTech, told their stories about the business models they are using to successfully sell their products and services.
Look at their interviews:

• DeltaTech
• Altilia

Contact us should you like to tell your story and see it published on our communication channels.

The SmeSpire Consortium in collaboration with SUNSHINE, i-Scope, C-Space and eENVplus projects is proud to announce the final winners of the first edition of the smeSpire Challenge.

After a long evaluation made by key experts in the fields of INSPIRE Directive and GIS sector, the most remarkable works deserving the first prize for the two available tracks are:

Track 1 – Best Practices for INSPIRE: 

GetLOD – Linked Open Data and Spatial Data Infrastructures by

• Massimo Zotti (Planetek)
• Piergiorgio Cipriano (Sinergis)

Track 2 – Open source software for INSPIRE:

HALE – An interactive tool for mapping custom schemata into INSPIRE by

• Christian Malewski (data harmonisation panel / Fraunhofer IGD)
• Simon Templer (Fraunhofer IGD)
• Thorsten Reitz (data harmonisation panel)
• Tomas Mildorf (University of West Bohemia)

The award ceremony will take place in Aalborg Denmark 16-20 June 2014 at the 8th INSPIRE Conference, a unique opportunity to meet the key players in the field of INSPIRE directive. The conference will also host the smeSpire Workshop on Tuesday the 17thwhich will be the place where the submitted works will be presented to the community. The event is open to all the interested conference attendees.

More information.

Take a look to the pictures we took of the smeSpire-Day(s), organized in 12 Member States during the first months of 2014.

• smeSpire-Day Germany  21st of February 2014
• smeSpire-Day Czech Republic 12th of March 2014
• smeSpire day Italy  17th of March2014
• smeSpire-Day Greece 19-20 March 2014
• smeSpire day Lithuania 27th of March 2014
• smeSpire-Day Bulgaria 2th of April 2014
• smeSpire Day in Cyprus 4th of April 2014
• smeSpire day Slovakia April 2014
  • Banska Bystrica 10.4.2014
  • Bratislava 17.4.2014
  • High Tatras 25.4.2014
• smeSpire day Spain 10th of April 2014
• smeSpire Day in Belgium 23rd April 2014
• smeSpire-Day Scotland 23rd April 2014
• smeSpire day Malta 24th of April 2014

Access the Gallery 

Others event galleries are available in the Publications section

The report provides an in-depth analysis and comparison of different Geo-ICT companies in Europe and how they relate to INSPIRE.
The short version of the smeSpire’s “study of Geo-ICT” is now available in the following languages:

  Study on the Geo-ICT sector in Europe – Italian

  Study on the Geo-ICT sector in Europe – Maltese

  Study on the Geo-ICT sector in Europe – Bulgarian

  Study on the Geo-ICT sector in Europe – Czech

  Study on the Geo-ICT sector in Europe – Deutsch

  Study on the Geo-ICT sector in Europe – Spanish

  Study on the Geo-ICT sector in Europe – Greek

  Study on the Geo-ICT sector in Europe – Lithuanian

  Study on the Geo-ICT sector in Europe – Slovak

More information

smeSpire Study Report disseminated in the Esri Deutschland Group‘s “EU Newsflash”
Internal dissemination of the smeSpire’s “study on the Geo-ICT sector in Europe” within the Esri Deutschland Group (comprising 7 companies, around 500 employees, 10 offices in Germany, Switzerland and Africa).
Study on the Geo-ICT sector in Europe: Full report. Short version.

New spatial data offer – AZ Germany-Grid INSPIRE
AZ Germany-Grid INSPIRE, newly developed by AZ Direct GmbH in cooperation with WIGeoGIS GmbH, connects the extensive data of AZ Direct seamlessly with the pan-European spatial data of the so-called “INSPIRE Grid”.
The data includes, inter alia, extensive statistical analyzes of socio-demographic, consume/lifestyle-related and psycho-graphic structures of the population, supplemented by thematic priorities such as with respect to residential areas, mobility, specific industries or product lines. These data can be used by individual municipalities, municipal associations and federal agencies as a supplement or reference for their own INSPIRE-related official data and projects.
Source.

Hosted by GDi GISDATA LLC, Esri’s official distributor in Croatia, the EUC will give you the opportunity to learn directly from Esri staff, network with GIS colleagues from Europe, and remain current on important industry issues.
Venue: Split, Croatia. Hotel Le Méridien Lav.
Date: October 13-15, 2014
More information.

GIS for Education conference
All educational institutions representatives – teachers, pupils, students, future employers, ministers and their advisors are invited to attend the conference “GIS for Education 2014″.
Venue: Vilnius, Lithuania
Date: October 1, 2014.
More information.

Lithuanian ESRI User Conference
Venue: Vilnius, Lithuania
Date: October 2-3, 2014
More information.

During April 2014, The Slovak Environmental Agency has organized 3 workshops in the context of the smeSpire days.

The worksops hosted over 70 participants during three days (10,17 and 25 April) and were held in Banska Bystrica, Bratislava and the High Tatras mountains.

The Workshop in the High Tatras was organized with the smeSpire Czech partner CENIA as Czech-Slovak smeSpire day.

Slovak Environmental Agency updated Slovak version of webpage about smeSpire project as part of national INSPIRE portal.
An updated version is available at http://smespire.sazp.sk.
This webpage contains information about results of the project and information about 3 workshops – smeSpire days organized for SME’s, research institution, universities and public administration in Slovakia.

April 27 – May 1, 2014. AUSTIN, TEXAS.
In his talk, ALTILIA Founder/CTO Massimo Ruffolo will present:
“HOW TO TURN BIG DATA INTO SMART DATA AND MAKE SENSE OF IT ALL”. Tuesday, April 29, 2014 (03:00 PM).

More information

Join us at ENTERPRISE DATA WORLD – We’re looking forward to meet you at Booth #18.

In the European Satellite Navigation Competition 2014, two of Europe’s most relevant GNSS stakeholders, the European GNSS Agency (GSA) and the European Space Agency (ESA) are looking for your forward-thinking application based on satellite navigation:

The European GNSS Agency (GSA) will award the most promising European GNSS (Galileo, EGNOS) application idea with the opportunity to realise the idea at a suitable incubation centre within the EU28 for six months. To get started you may use the EGNOS SDK which has been designed to allow application developers to take advantage of the benefits of EGNOS, and to use these in any software they develop for mobile devices.

The European Space Agency’s Innovation Prize is looking for new ideas for the commercial use of space technology. Get support in the creation of your start-up company at one of the nine ESA Business Incubation Centres and win a cash prize of EUR 10,000.

Don’t miss to also sign up for one of the more than 20 regional prizes and double your chances to compete for the grand prize of EUR 20,000.

Take your business off the ground!
Take part in the European Satellite Navigation Competition (ESNC)! Since 2004, the international ideas competition rewards innovative applications using satellite navigation in everyday life. The competition is open to everyone, from developers and entrepreneurs to research scientists and students. Submission is possible from 1 April – 30 June at: www.esnc.eu

5 reasons to sign up now

• EUR 1 million prize pool
• More than 30 prizes to be won
• Access to customers and user communities
• Support from more than 100 global partners for your service or product
• Publicity in the world’s leading satellite navigation network

Meet us at the European Navigation Conference & the European Space Solutions
The ESNC International Kick-off will take place in line with the European Navigation Conference on 15 April in Rotterdam. The session scheduled for 16:10 – 17:40 will be free and open to public. Not able to join? Then meet us at the European Space Solutions in Prague from 11 -13 June. We hope to see you there!

 More information: 

European Satellite Navigation Competition 2014 Brochure

The smeSpire day Malta 2014 will take place on Thursday, 24th of April 2014 at the Victoria Hotel, Sliema, Malta.

 Here you can find the invitation.

 Here you can find the agenda.

As a dissemination action by the Hungarian Association for Geo-information (NGO partner in the smeSpire project), secretary-general Dr. Gabor Remetey-Fülöpp of HUNAGI delivered a lecture entitled “The role of National GI Association HUNAGI and other NGOs in the INSPIRE context” at the MSc course for Regional Environmental Management on March 31, 2014.

Upon request of Prof. Dr. István Tózsa, Head of Department of Economic Geography and Futures Studies at the Faculty of Business Administration of the Corvinus University of Budapest, the presentation referred to the impact and effectiveness of the GIS industry. By the courtesy of project manager Giacomo Martirano, even the recent smeSpire study on the “GeoICT sector in Europe” (coordinated by JRC and KU LEUVEN) was linked as recommended readings and widely disseminated on the HUNAGI Newsblog.

The host Department has recently published a volume on the methodological integration of economic foresights and geographical analyses resulting spatial economic information of the expected situation of Hungarian economic branches shown both in regional and timely aspects at the same time. This is a new approach giving GIS new possibilities and the title of the volume in Hungarian is “Futures Geography”.

The smeSpire day Slovakia 2014 will take place on 10^th of April 2014 in Banska Bystrica, 17^th of April 2014 in Bratislava and 25^th of April 2014 in the High Tatras. 

The last event is organized  together with the CENIA.

The Invitation and agenda of the events can be found on the Slovak SK smeSpire webpage (in Slovak)

The smeSpire day Spain 2014 will take place on Thursday, 10^th of April 2014 in Madrid.

The event is organized  together with the Spanish IGN, in their premises in Madrid from 16,00 to 18,00. Later on, a coffee will be served to facilitate the networking among the participants.

Find here the INVITATION (in Spanish)

Find here the AGENDA (in Spanish)

Thanks to the support of the EEN Italian partner Consorzio SPIN, smeSpire established a liaison with Enterprise Europe Network, which brings together business support organisations from more than 50 countries with its nodes in the EU 28 Member States and in 26 non-EU countries as well.

The liaison aims at:

• disseminating the smeSpire project results within EEN through the network communication channels;
•  recommending the EEN nodes across Europe to encourage their stakeholders to adhere to the smeSpire network;
• pursuing the joint organization of events/initiatives aiming at a cross-fertilization between geoICT SMEs and EEN.

The Shanghai Business Magazine is the business magazine of the economic and technological heart of China: SHANGHAI. It is directed by the “Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce” and sponsored by the “Shanghai Institute of Business Economics”.

Main audience:

• Decision-makers and administrative staff of industrial, commercial and financial fields
• Academic world
• Government research agencies
• Consultant service organizations

The magazine cannot be found in news-stands and is distributed to the main entrepreneurs of the following areas: Zhejiang , Jiangsu and Shanghai. These three provinces constitute the 47% of the Chinese GDP.

See here the full interview.

Don’t miss the opportunity to attend CSITF 2014 in Shanghai from 24th to 26th of April. Registrations open until 4th of April.

More information

Lithuanian smeSpire day will take place on Thursday, 27^th of March 2014 in Vilnius, Radisson Blu Hotel Lietuva. The event is organized by Institute of Aerial Geodesy (“Aerogeodezijos institutas”).

smeSpire network members, business and public administration companies are invited to participate in the event. The programme and registration form is available here.

During the event an overview of smeSpire project and its results (company data base, best practice catalog, training platform and SME survey) will be presented in depth.

The smeSpire day is organized jointly with the conference “Lithuanian spatial information portal available services for organizations”. This enables the users of Lithuanian SDI get acquainted with INSPIRE and smeSpire. 

More information (in Lithuanian)

The smeSpire day in Italy will be held next March 17th. The event will be hosted by professional associations of Engineers in Cosenza.

The programme of the event is available HERE.

This sponsorship is particularly relevant because it contributes to enlarge the INSPIRE user-base to the wide category of Engineers, actively involved in many vertical domains, all of them potentially benefitting from the use of geospatial technologies in general and from INSPIRE implementations in particular.

During the event, focus will be given also to the smeSpire contribution to the creation of new jobs, presenting the new functionalities of the smeSpire database, related to Job Vacancies and Job Offers

More information

The report provides an in-depth analysis and comparison of different Geo-ICT companies in Europe and how they relate to INSPIRE.

The study’s primary objectives were:

• Assessing the market potential for Geo-ICT companies in relation to INSPIRE
• Characterizing obstacles for Geo-ICT companies to enter this market, with focus on knowledge gaps and training needs

The study was carried out in four stages:

• Desk research using published statistics to describe the Geo-ICT SME sector and its context
• On-line survey to establish an overview of targeted Geo-ICT SMEs in 12 Member States
• In-depth interviews to establish the detailed circumstances of the targeted Geo-ICT SMEs
• Workshops where results were discussed and validated in a collaborative approach.

The report is available both integral: study on the Geo-ICT sector in Europe (integral) (9442)

and short version: study on the Geo-ICT sector in Europe (short version) (3580)

The national smeSpire day in the Czech Republic with participation from Slovakia will be organized on 12.3.2014 by project partners CENIA and SAZP in Prague.

The participants from SMEs, public, research and educational institutions will get information about project activities and results. During practical workshop they will have an opportunity to register their institutions in the smeSpire network and include their activities among best practice catalogue of the project.

The smeSpire day is organized jointly with eENVplus workshop which will follow the smeSpire session. Visitors to one of the workshops are given a great opportunity in participating in both events and maximizing their gain of information related to INSPIRE implementation. More detailed information including program can be found on the CZ INSPIRE info website (Czech only)

The Joint Research Centre of the European Commission is establishing A Reusable INSPIRE Reference Platform (ARE3NA).

ARE3NA is identifying and helping to share tools for the implementation for the INSPIRE Directive and looking to build bridges between INSPIRE and, broadly speaking, cross-border and cross-sector e-government activities related to ISA and the Digital Agenda for Europe, including open data portals. ARE3NA has recently launched a study to see how a common Resource Description Framework (RDF) vocabulary can be developed for INSPIRE and what approaches can be taken for the governance of global Persistent Identifiers (PIDs) for INSPIRE and location-related activities, including URIs and DoIs.

Part of this work has involved a state-of-play of RDF and PIDs in this context and we would like to invite you to two one-hour webinar workshops on the 13th of March to

• present to you the study;
• illustrate some of our findings and get feedback; and
• discuss related topics, such as which e-government services could benefit from this RDF vocabulary and where barriers to governing global PIDs could lie.

More details about the webinars, the agendas and how to connect can be found HERE  

The smeSpire project has been presented in the context of the 2nd. Italian Open Data Day held in Rome on February 27, 2014. Some results from the on-line hackathon organized by smeSpire were also presented.

The second Italian International Open Data Day was a great success thanks to the participation and cooperation of all the Italian players in the field: from local Public Administrations to small and medium businesses, associations to large enterprises, from central government to big companies and university research centers.

During the NASA WorldWind Virtual Globe Technology Webinar, hosted by mundogeo on Thursday February the 13th and presented by Mr. Patrick Hogan and Prof. Maria Antonia Brovelli, the smeSpire project and its final challenge have been presented in conjunction with the NASA WorldWind challenge to a wide audience of interested users and potential challengers.

The Scottish smeSpire-day will take place on Wednesday 23rd April 2014, Royal Scots Club, Edinburgh.

Environmental Data Thinkshop: Opportunities for Small Business

Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are invited to a one day “Thinkshop” to debate how we can exploit the environmental data being freed up by the INSPIRE Directive for business growth.  Cameron Easton (Projects Manager with GiStandards Ltd)who was responsible for INSPIRE in the Scottish Government will moderate a round table discussion on the benefits and pitfalls of meeting the INSPIRE directive and how businesses can grow from exploiting INSPIRE.  SMEs are perfectly placed to exploit these opportunities and the ‘thinkshop’ will illuminate the issues around Why, What, Where, When and How to take advantage.

Download the Scottish smeSpire-day flyer

Register Here

We cordially invite you to gain insight into the smeSpire network on the premises of the Technical University of Munich. Main organizer will be PSU Professor Schaller UmweltConsult GmbH.

The German smeSpire-day will take place on 21 February for 2014.

There you will learn about best practices concerning the INSPIRE implementation and find out about ways how to develop new, profitable business ideas for your company.

Download the SmeSpire-Day Germany 2014 invitation (in German)

The SmeSpire Consortium in collaboration with SUNSHINE, i-Scope, C-Space and eENVplus projects is proud to launch the first SmeSpire Challenge to stimulate new business ideas originating from the INSPIRE implementation process having geo-ICT SMEs as key players.

The award ceremony will be at the INSPIRE Conference 2014, Aalborg, Denmark, 16-20 June.

The challenge is structured into two tracks: “Best Practices for INSPIRE” and “Open Source Software for INSPIRE”, encouraging submissions related to successful INSPIRE implementations in vertical application domains.

More information

The second Czech – Slovak Conference titled “Inspirujme se…otevřeností” (“Let’s inspire…by open data”) was held at the Hotel Tatra , Bratislava, Slovakia on 27 and 28 November 2013.

The event attracted a large number of participants and was organized thanks to the cooperation of CENIA (Czech Environmental Information Agency) the Slovak Environment Agency and the support of environment ministries of both countries.

The event was closed by the smeSpire project workshop, aimed to introduce some of the project results after a year and a half of its duration. The workshop was opened by the presentation of some information from the final report about INSPIRE and business activities of SMEs in project partners’ countries . It was presented e.g. how big (or rather small) are these SMEs, as well as who are their key customers, what strengths and weaknesses of INSPIRE the SMEs identify etc.; followed by on line presentation of the project components: database of SMEs, training materials and work the best practice catalogue (an example of one BPC record in detail).

All presentations and a selection of photos are available on the conference website (in Slovak)

The Geo-ITC SMEs community of Spain is invited to participate in smeSpire through a post on the IDEE (Spanish Spatial Data Infrastructure) blog.

More information.

Another strategic achievement of the smeSpire network has been made, thanks to the liaison established today with ATIGN (Association Tunisienne de l’Information Géographique Numérique).

As a first concrete step of this cooperation, the GEOTUNIS 2014 event (http://2014.geotunis.org/), which will take place in Hammamet from 2 to 6 of April, will represent a great opportunity to create fruitful and long lasting synergies between ATIGN and smeSpire network members.

A campaign entitled “Vogliamo anche l’Italia nel registro INSPIRE | We want Italy in the INSPIRE Register” started on Monday 10th of February 2014, subscribed by citizens, professionals, companies and institutions.

Click here for further details (in italian)

The Eighth INSPIRE Conference will be held from 16 to 20 June 2014 in Aalborg, Denmark.

• Aalborg University: Workshops on 16-17 June 2014.
• Aalborg Conference Centre: Conference Sessions on 18-19-20 June 2014.

For further information, please visit the official event site

smeSpire Day Germany scheduled for February 21st, 2014.

The event will take place at the GIS-Lab of the Munich Technical University (TUM), campus Weihenstephan, in Freising, Germany. It shall be hosted by Prof. Schaller UmweltConsult (PSU) and Esri Deutschland. During the event, the smeSpire project will be presented, as well as ArcGIS for INSPIRE and best-practice examples to inspire the participants to develop profitable business opportunities. Invitations have been sent out to the German smeSpire network and non-network Geo-ICT SMEs in the country.

Workshop Practical Knowledge SDI in Frankfurt am Main

The workshop on “Practical Knowledge SDI” with a focus on INSPIRE will take place on 24 and 25 February 2014 at the University of Applied Sciences Frankfurt am Main. Participants will get a practical introduction to the GDI-DE test suite.  The program can be viewed here.

ArcGIS for INSPIRE latest version released

ArcGIS for INSPIRE 10.2.1 was released together with esri core products latest version (ArcGIS for Desktop 10.2.1 and ArcGIS for Server 10.2.1).

• On November 19th, the workshop “Information & Communication Technologies in Horizon 2020” took place in Athens.
• On December 9th, the workshop “Program of the European Research Council for Horizon 2020, about Research & Innovation in European Union” took place in Athens. 

National Documentation Centre of Greece organized several sessions for promoting Horizon 2020 and helping businesses to understand the funding opportunities and challenges arising from the Horizon 2020.

This was a major opportunity for companies to expand their network and disseminate their projects and for future cooperation. Every company interested in participating in Horizon 2020 projects, with vision for the future, participated in this workshop. More than 300 representatives from companies all over Greece were in the National Documentation Centre.

EPSILON International SA participated in these two events. Its representatives Mr. Alkis Astyakopoulos and Mr Marc Bonazountas disseminated the smeSpire project presenting project objectives/initiatives to various ICT and Geo-ICT SMEs, to subscribe in the Network database. For this purpose, they also distributed smeSpire material.

The smeSpire Project has been featured on GIS Professional issue 56 : February 2014 Download the article

smeSpire project is organising an on-line hackathon within the Open Data Day Italy 2014.

smeSpire project, together with AMFM GIS Italia, CISIS–CPSG, Stati Generali dell’Innovazione and GFOSS association, is organising an on-line hackathon within the Open Data Day Italy 2014.
The online hackathon will focus on data transformation to provide open data compliant to INSPIRE requirements.

Those who wish to participate shoudd register HERE no later than 02/15/2014

Download the hackaton invitation
Hackathon invitation (in italian) (1607)

16-20 June 2014. Aalborg, Denmark

The call for abstracts for the INSPIRE 2014 Conference has been published.

Seven years have passed since INSPIRE was adopted as the EU’s legal framework establishing the infrastructure for spatial information in Europe serving policies and activities having an impact on the environment. During this period the framework of technical specifications necessary to underpin an interoperable infrastructure has been completed, and a major effort has taken place to implement the Directive in the Member States. It is now time for the mid-term evaluation to assess how well we are doing, and whether we are still on the right track. This conference comes therefore at a crucial stage to report on progress and get feedback from all the stakeholders involved.

The deadline for submissions is the 14th March 2014.

Details on how to submit are available on the INSPIRE Conference site: http://inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/events/conferences/inspire_2014/

The public consultation on INSPIRE implementation is still open.

The consultation is to seek the views of the general public and all stakeholders in order to help assess whether the actions already underway to establish an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community according to the INSPIRE directive 2007/2/EC are still on course to meet the objectives pursued.

The results of this public consultation will contribute to the INSPIRE interim-policy evaluation which according to the directive needs to be carried out 7 years after its entry into force. The outcome of the policy evaluation will be reported to the European Parliament and Council in 2014 and may lead to remedial policy action necessary to adapt current approaches so that they align better – in the light of a changing environment – with the achievement of the original objectives of INSPIRE.

The consultation is open until 24th February 2014. Full details and background information are available at: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/consultations/inspire_en.htm

SlideShare is a Web 2.0 hosting service for slideshows and Presentations. The smeSpire presentations uploaded on this content were among the top 3% of most viewed on SlideShare in 2013.
We Uploaded 40 Presentations and our content was viewed 5812 times in 2013.

More information.

Available in the smeSpire Best Practice Catalogue a report containing operational instructions about how to create INSPIRE compliant metadata, relevant to a dataset belonging to INSPIRE Annex II/III data themes, containing both discovery metadata (Commission Regulation (EC) No. 1205/2008) and metadata for interoperability (Commission Regulation (EU) No 1089/2010). Also available an example xml metadata file. The Best Practice is available here

More information.

A warm welcome to Geonovum, the GI standardization body in the Netherlands, who recently adhered to the smeSpire Network.

Reciprocally beneficial will be the sharing of knowledge and experience in enabling geo-ICT SMEs to build successful implementations of INSPIRE in particular and of GI standards in general.

05-09 MAY 2014. Centre International Conferences Geneve Switzerland.

Now in its 6th edition, Geospatial World Forum has gained a repute of being a not-to-be-missed conference for the professionals engaged in geospatial sector and its application domain. It is the most premium global platform for geospatial community and offers the best opportunity for learning, sharing, connecting, networking, branding and positioning with senior decision makers associated with geospatial world.

The conference aims at enriching the geospatial ecosystem with market intelligence, technology trends, success stories and capacity building. It is a confluence of a variety of activities in the form of plenary, technology showcase, symposia, workshops, panel discussions, dialogue and exchange forums – covering the vast gamut of technology, application, policy, use cases from across the world.

More information.

W3C/OGC Workshop: Linking Geospatial Data, London
5th – 6th March 2014, Campus London, Shoreditch

Call for Participation
What are best examples of data-driven Web applications you’ve ever seen? The updates to Open Street Map after the Haiti earthquake? The mapping of all 9,966,539 buildings in the Netherlands? The NHS Prescription data? Things like SF Park that help you ‘park your car smarter’ in San Francisco using real time data? Bing maps and Google Earth?

All these and many, many more data-driven applications have geospatial information at their core. Very often the common factor across multiple data sets is the location data, and maps are crucial in visualizing correlations between data sets that may otherwise be hidden. It’s this desire to work with multiple data sets in different formats about different topics and link those with the powerful technologies used in geospatial information systems that is behind the linking geospatial data workshop.

How can geographic information best be integrated with other data on the Web? How can we discover that different facts in different data sets relate to the same place, especially when ‘place’ can be expressed in different ways and at different levels of granularity?

On behalf of the Smart Open Data project, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), in partnership with the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and the OGC GeoSPARQL Standards Working Group, the UK Government Linked Data Working Group, Google and Ordnance Survey, invite you to share your experiences, successes and frustrations in using GI.

More information.

Official results of the event “Kommunales GIS Forum 2013” (Municipal GIS Forum 2013)

For the first time the Round Table GIS organized a municipal GIS Forum with focus on “What INSPIRE brings to municipalities”. With around 130 participants mainly from Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria – including representatives from municipalities (almost 80), from state agencies and providers of GIS products and services – the attendance surpassed the organizers’ expectations. Source.

FOSS4G Europe Conference 2014 at Jacobs University Bremen 

Europe’s largest ever event on free geospatial and location-based software will be held at Jacobs University in Bremen, Germany from July 15 through 17, 2014. More info.

New Report on Data Quality in INSPIRE published

On 22 October 2013, a new Technical Report has been published on Data Quality in INSPIRE: Balancing Legal Obligation with Technical Aspects. More info.

Hugo de Groof at Esri Bulgaria UC 2013 

Hugo de Groof, Chief Scientist at DG Environment and one out of 4 European Commission staff who wrote the legal text of the INSPIRE Directive, gave a keynote at the Esri Bulgaria UC on 19 November 2013 in Sofia. His slides are posted on the INSPIRE Forum.

PSU joins the Runder Tisch GIS e.V.

The Runder Tisch GIS e.V. (or Roundtable GIS – http://www.rtg.bv.tum.de/) is one of the largest volunteer-organized networks in the area of geographic information in Germany.

The MCA’s Digital Inclusion Strategy, launched by the Maltese Communications Authority on 2012, cover the period 2012-2015 and developed into two different strategies called: “Networked society” and “Networked Enterprise” was designed to facilitate the improvement of a Networked Society that exploits on the opportunities brought about by ICT for social cohesion and economic development.

GeoICT in Malta is mostly developed through the initiatives of the Maltese public authorities in exploring and developing new horizons in the field of ICT. Geographical information is necessary for infrastructure planning, business analyses, preparation of building sites, optimizing of the division of ground plots, and as a foundation for political decisions. The demand for making large quantities of data with a spatial component interpretable and clear has increased enormously in the last few decades.

For that reason the Thrust 4 of the Networked Enterprise, aimed to identifying the opportunities that ICT open up to the Maltese market, exploring how such opportunities could benefit the economy, generating awareness about these opportunities, locating barriers hindering their exploitation, and intervening where warranted.

More information.

Another strategic achievement of the smeSpire network has been made.

An important Memorandum of Understanding has been signed by smeSpire and SIBA (Spatial Industries Business Association) of Australia and New Zealand.

The scope of this MoU is to establish a framework collaboration agreement between smeSpire and SIBA aimed at exploring further collaboration scenarios between the two Parties as a whole, as well as between their present and future members, in order to the exploit joint business opportunities in the geospatial sector in general and in SDI implementations in particular.

View the MoU

The European Enterprise Network is organizing a series of EEN days to present the priorities of Horizon2020. The next Monday 25.11.2013 in Cosenza (Italy)  it will be presented the ICT priority and smeSpire has been invited to present its success story as ICT project funded under FP7.

The program of the event is available here.

GDI-DE New Publications – Recommendations for the provision of geodata and INSPIRE download services

From now on the updated recommendations of the working groups Ad-Hoc-AG and Geodienste can be viewed:

1. Preparation of Geodata for INSPIRE
2. Preparation of INSPIRE compliant Download Services (Version 1.1, 21.10.2013)
3. Summary of the current status regarding Spatial Data Services and Invoke Services

Training Seminar “Basics of GDI & INSPIRE” – Applications • Developments • Perspectives

18-22 November 2013 at the Training Center of the IHK Potsdam. For more information: GEOkomm-Academy – GeoServiceCenter – DELPHI IMM GmbH

INSPIRE Bodensee-Geodatenpool reaches finals of European Competition

In February 2013, the LGL – the State Office for Geoinformation and Land Development of Baden-Württemberg – announced the project “Prototypical transformation of spatial data according to INSPIRE in the border region of Lake Constance” at the European Prize for Innovation in Public Administration. Participation was open to public administrations, with projects that bring benefits to citizens, companies or education & science. 

Further details about the competition, the participating administrations, finalists and winners can be found here. Source: DVW News 4/2013 

INSPIRE as an opportunity?

The challenges and opportunities of the INSPIRE Directive for municipalities stand on 19 November in New Ulm at the center of this year’s GIS Forum. 

The event is aimed , among other, at decision makers from municipalities, cities and counties, GIS vendors and service providers, representatives of state survey offices, publicly appointed surveyors and surveying firms, representatives of municipal associations and representatives of SDIs from Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. Source

ICT 2013 in Vilnius was a unique opportunity for projects and companies to showcase their research, ICT products and innovative creations.

The exhibition linked todays’ research and innovation with visions for the future. More than 200 exhibits covered a diverse set of research results and products, ranging from cars and advanced robots to very small components, software, new business or new ICT services.

EPSILON International SA participated in the event with a booth. Its representative Mr. Alkis Astyakopoulos disseminated smeSpire project presenting project objectives/initiatives and encouraging, as many interested Geo-ICT SMEs as possible, to subscribe in the Network database. After the closure of the event, a massive email campaign took place contacting around 300 companies and researchers

Trentino Sviluppo is the agency set up by the Autonomous Province of Trento (Italy) to foster the sustainable development of the Trentino system by taking action and providing services aimed at supporting the growth of business skills and the capacity for innovation.

For this purspose the smeSpire project was identified as key project to support the growth of companies devoted at the GEO-ICT sector, gaining the support if Trentino Sviluppo to disseminate the project and its result.

More information can be found here

FreeGIS.net releases the a virtual machine with free and open source solutions for the management of geographic data according to OGC standards.

The FreeGIS.net project aimed at finding solutions to capture, analyse, visualize and download geographic data, using open formats and free software tools. FreeGIS.net is an Interreg Italy-Switzerland project financed by the Program of superregional cooperation Italy-Switzerland 2007-2012 of the ERDF and the European Union. Project partners are the Free Software Center of the TIS innovation Park of Bolzano, Kanton Graubünden of Switzerland and the company R3 GIS of Merano (Italy). 

The FreeGIS.net Virtual Machine is a solid proof of the applicability of the work done in the FreeGIS.net project. In the scope of this project many activities were undertaken to reach this point. Among them are:

• the analysis and implementation of the features required by INSPIRE in MapServer, a leading map generating software. Of particular interest were the implementation of multilingual capabilities and improvements in the layer structure as exposed through WMS. A detailed report on this work item is the subject of a report included on the DVD.
• the analysis and implementation of additions to HALE, a powerful data harmonization and transformation tool, including substantial improvements in the scalability and performance of the software. This work is described in major detail on the DVD.
• numerous enhancements to the GisClient web mapping software, which is used as a gentle shell for most of the included server side GIS software.
• the FreeGIS.net Viewer, a client based on openlayers which communicates with the server only through OGC-Standards
• packaging many GIS software for the popular RPM package manager found in current enterprise Linux distributions.

Working installation of the above mentioned software is available in the FreeGIS.net Virtual Machine, which can be downloaded from the link https://www.freegis.net/web/guest/virtual-machine. THe Reference implementation is also distributed on a DVD.

This award is designed to reward and encourage SMEs in the Geographic Information sphere for engaging with and taking advantage of INSPIRE implementation.
The AGI Annual Awards Ceremony will be held on Thursday 5th December 2013 at the AGI, London.
More information about the event and the participation conditions can be found here.

smeSpire will be presented in LATAM during the IX International Surveying Congress which will take place in Colombia from 21st to 23rd of November.

Alejandro Guinea de Salas, from Geograma, member of the smeSpire network, will show how INSPIRE is managing Geographic Information in Europe, in order to share the knowledge and find synergies between the companies on both sides of the ocean.

More info.

Join today these interesting groups on LinkedIn:

1) H2020 INSPIRE, NSDI Strategy, Law & Policy, SDI Research and Public Sector Innovation  

2) H2020 GEO-ICT, Advances in GIS, LiDAR, Spatial Databases and Geospatial Computing 

Project: Prototype transformation of spatial data in the Lake Constance Region according to INSPIRE

Looking at the cross-border aspects, the Surveying Authorities of the Lake Constance bordering areas – Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Switzerland and Austria, coordinated by the Runder Tisch GIS e.V., have initiated a common INSPIRE pilot project. With this project, prototype geo-reference data of real estate cadastre and topography developed by the Surveying Authorities were transformed into the INSPIRE data models. To complete the themes of Annex I, successively more specialized data will follow.

More info.

Training: Spatial Databases

Munich (TUM), 10 and 11 February 2014 – 9:00-16:30 and 9:00-17:00 Organizer: Runder Tisch GIS e.V.

Spatial databases gain more and more importance because of the global network and the increase in demand for the use of spatial data. New application areas are for example mobile applications, 3D building information models, 3D surface modeling and the management of 3D laser scanner data.

More info.

The second joint Czech – Slovak INSPIRE conference will take part in Bratislava on 27.-28.11.2013.

The conference is a meeting point for professionals from both countries who will be informed about current status of INSPIRE implementation in Czech Republic and Slovakia as well as the latest INSPIRE news in Europe. Speakers across many public and private institutions will present how the INSPIRE implementation is influencing their institutions and how they can profit from that. Conference participants will also have an excellent option in meeting colleagues from other country and starting new cooperation. This year’s main topic is the use of open data and how it relates to INSPIRE.

One of the conference sessions is dedicated to smeSpire project seminar which will inform about the project, present its aims and introduce its results (best practice catalogue, list of SMEs, INSPIRE training options) to audience coming mainly from SMEs.

The complete information can be found at the conference website http://www.inspirujmese.cz.

During 3-days of intense business meetings and thanks to the impeccable organization of EBPC  (European Business Promotion Center), concrete steps have been done to explore further collaboration scenarios between the smeSpire network members (present and future) and the potential Chinese institutional partners (National and Local Authorities, SMEs associations, Universities, Research Centers), coherently with the MoU signed by smeSpire and EBPC at the end of July.

Mission Gallery

Download the mission report

Bern, 31 October -2 November 2013

Esri joins European Location Framework

Esri has joined the European Location Framework (ELF) project to assist in harmonising and sharing geospatial data across Europe.ELF is funded under the European Commission’s Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP). It brings together 30 organisations, including 14 European National Mapping Authorities, to harmonise and share authoritative national mapping and cadastral data across Europe. Esri has agreed to a grant offer with EuroGeographics to help its 59 members implement ELF and INSPIRE compliant services. Under the grant, Esri will be providing the ArcGIS platform, including ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS for INSPIRE software; support and training; and entrance to the Esri International User Conference.

More info.

GeoBusiness Forum at the INTERGEO 2013

Representatives from government, business and management discuss current topics such as open data, licensing, privacy, business models for Geo-ICT companies, and more.

More info.

 Event: Forum Municipal GIS 2013 – What does INSPIRE brings to municipalities?

On 19.11.2013 in Neu-Ulm, Germany.

The European INSPIRE Directive, aimed at building cross-border spatial data infrastructures, is now also at the gates of the local town hall. In many places there is at first a discomfort – another set of rules for the already burdened communities. But in the long run INSPIRE can benefit the municipalities because generally accessible data in standardized form of machine-readable services can simplify administrative procedures and relieve authorities. Technological innovations such as mobile GIS applications are used more effectively with uniform (geospatial) standards. In addition, unlike many other demands on the local communities, INSPIRE means give and take. The regional government authorities have even in advance gone through numerous data services within their infrastructures for spatial information. Therefore, can INSPIRE be also an opportunity for local authorities?

In the municipal GIS Forum of the Roundtable GIS e.V. will participate GIS managers and decision makers from municipalities, cities and counties, GIS vendors and GIS Services, public appointed surveyors and surveying firms, representatives of the municipal umbrella organizations, representatives of SDIs from Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg as well as representatives of local trade media and numerous other guests.

More info.

Event: How do I tell it to the people ?

Press relations with topics from the Survey and Geoinformation areas.

Press and public relations are an important factor for the external representation of a company and any other organization and are considered part of the so-called marketing mix. This also applies to the field of Geoinformatics. But precisely this environment is faced with unique public relations (PR) challenges: the issues and projects are often difficult to explain to the outsider. They deal mostly with technologies that require explanations and lengthy processes with terms such as SDI, INSPIRE or ALKIS that are only to the insiders quickly clear.

This seminar will show practical examples on how to turn abstract Geodesy and GIS specialist topics into interesting stories to the press – and also how and where such stories should be published. Therefore, it provides basic knowledge about media requirements and working methods and how your own (company’s) messages and (user)-stories can fulfill these needs. the basic framework of public relations will be addressed and, that is both the organization’s internal requirements and the development of the media landscape.

If interested, follow-ups depth training with practical exercises are possible.

More info.

In May and June 2013 two major events highlighted the importance and strength of “geospatial” SMEs (or Geo-ICT SMEs) regarding INSPIRE.

The first one was the dialogue session “Leveraging SMEs strength for INSPIRE” organized in May by JRC during the Geospatial World Forum, in Rotterdam.

The second one was the workshop “Concrete Steps to Implement INSPIRE: Synergies Between The Public and The Private Sector” organized by the SmeSpire project in June at the INSPIRE Conference, in Florence.

A complete report of this events is available in our Publications & Media section

smeSpire project, together with AMFM GIS Italia and CISIS–CPSG are organizing a first series of webinar to discuss about operative solutions for harmonizing spatial dataset at sub-national level in Italy, and implement INSPIRE requirements.

During the webinars we will discuss about operational and technological aspects around ICT, implementing rules, validation and conformity. As a reference theme, we will start the discussion about “Administrative Units” theme.  The discussion will focus on transformation of existing spatial datasets towards an INSPIRE compliancy.  

More info…

In the frame of the smeSpire training initiatives, Spatial Applications Division of KU Leuven (SADL) just launched an intense program of seminars which will take place in Leuven from Autumn 2013 to Spring 2014.

More info.

Open Government Data in Germany
DDGI (Deutsche Dachverband für Geoinformation e.V.) President Udo Stichling presented the new DDGI position paper “Open Government Data – Free management data for business and society ”
The position paper shows the innovation potential of open government data for citizens and businesses, analyzes the conditions for a sustainable strategy and presents six recommendations for action. Examples of open government portals complete the recommendations.
Paper (in German)
More info…

DVW GIS Best Practice Award 2013
The DVW GIS Best Practice Award 2013 goes to the consortium of the Simkas 3D Project led by the Center for Technology and Society at the TU Berlin.
More info…

Course – Data Harmonization for INSPIRE (IN GERMAN)
On 14 and 15.11.2013, 09:00 – 16:30 h, Kornwestheim, Germany
In this event solutions are presented for the implementation of the INSPIRE Directive. Relevant processes are addressed for the provision of data, such as data transformation and harmonization, as well as service providing.
More info…

Event: 2nd National INSPIRE Conference – INSPIRE kommunal – 9 October 2013, Essen, Germany
On October 9th, 2013 the second National INSPIRE Conference – INSPIRE municipal – takes place during the largest conference and trade fair for Geodesy, Geoinformation and Land Management, the INTERGEO, 2013, in Essen, Germany.
More info…

Event: 2013 Europe, Middle East, and Africa Esri User Conference (EMEAUC) – 23-25 October 2013, Munich, Germany
Esri Deutschland GmbH will host the 2013 Esri Europe, Middle East, and Africa User Conference (EMEAUC), October 23–25, at the International Congress Centre in Munich, Germany.
More info…

Publication: new edition of the report “GIS-Report 2012/13” about German GIS software, data and companies
Available here

The main objective of this mission is to present our network to Chinese key institutional players, who may concretely support further bilateral business agreements, and to create a favorable ground for the network members aiming to commercially exploit in China their geo-ICT competences. More info

Check these interesting events:

• 24th railML.org meeting
• Geodesign Summit Europe
• INSPIRE KEN Schema transformation Workshop

In case you want to promote a conference or inform us about an event, please contact us.

A warm welcome to iDA, the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, who recently adhered to the smeSpire Network.

Reciprocally beneficial will be the sharing of knowledge and experience in enabling geo-ICT SMEs to make business innovation and to implement e-Government policies.

During the recent INSPIRE Conference in Florence, Glenn Vancauwenberghe (KU Leuven) and Piergiorgio Cipriano (EC JRC) presented the first results of the online survey on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) working on Geomatics and Information Technlogies (GeoICT).

http://www.slideshare.net/smespire/leveraging-smes-strenght-for-inspire

Some key findings:

• almost 90& of GeoICT companies have been founded between 1988 and 2008
• 90% of companies are “small”, with less than 50 employees; “micro” companies (less than 10) represent 60% of all companies
• 75% of companies have an annual turnover of less than 1 million Euro
• Public sector is the main customer for most companies (60%), mainly at local/national level
• 69% of companies are aware of INSPIRE but …
• … only 34% are really directly involved in some INSPIRE related activities
• Data modeling, view services and metadata are the main developments related to INSPIRE, while …
• … data schema transformation is the lowest
• INSPIRE has already had impact on companies, mainly in terms of new products and services
• Barriers to innovation are mainly related to financial issues, and difficulties in entering R&D projects (only 1/3 of companies participated to co-funded R&D projects)

The survey (still available online at http://tinyurl.com/smespiresurvey) has been already completed by 295 companies from more than 16 European countries.

More presentations about the smespire project and from SMEs members of the smespire Network are available on slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/smespire

An important Memorandum of Understanding has been recently signed by smeSpire and EBPC (European Business Promotion Center), with HeadQuarters in Shangai, China. 

After years of experience in institutional projects, in Europe and in China, EBPC gives EU companies the guarantee to be under Chinese Institutions protection, having the same Chinese companies rights.

EBPC objectives are to support EU SMEs to enter the Chinese market, to build Chinese “Land” Company, to be the brain banks and think tanks for the Chinese Government, local government and enterprises, to be the bridge for EU Academic and Industrial bodies and Chinese stakeholders.

The scope of this MoU is to establish a framework collaboration agreement between smeSpire and EBPC aimed at exploring further and more specific collaboration scenarios between the present and future members of the smeSpire Network and the Chinese geo-ICT stakeholders, belonging to the commercial as well as to the institutional and academic and research domains.

View the MoU.

Recently three calls for tenders have been published on European Commission web sites:

• Authentication, Authorization and Accounting (AAA) for Data and Services in EU Public Administrations.
• SMART 2013/0063 – Study on a “European data market” and related services.
• E-leadership skills for small and medium size enterprises.

More information.

symposium GIS Ostrava 2014 – “Geoinformatics for Intelligent Transportation” will take place from 27 to 29 January 2014 in Ostrava (Czech Republic).

The aim of the conference is to present and discuss new methods, issues and challenges of the geoinformatics contributing to make transportation more intelligent, efficient and human friendly. It is a chance for GI experts, geographers, transportation planners, developers, public sector as well as industry transportation specialists, and other professionals who are interested in using geoinformation technologies for transportation purposes to get together and share experiences, innovations and inspirations.

Visit the conference website http://gis.vsb.cz/gisostrava.

The full paper submission due is on the October 11, 2013. We are looking forward to see you in Ostrava. In case of any question do not hesitate to contact our secretariat at gisostrava@vsb.cz.

A joint initiative of Infologica and Plovdiv chamber of commerce and industry, held on 13 June in the city of Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

The aim of the workshop was to inform small and medium enterprises, public institution and organisation about smeSpire project and the opportunities which offers INSPIRE directive. The workshop was a joint initiative of Infologica company and Plovdiv chamber of commerce and industry. The workshop was held on 13 June in the city of Plovdiv, Bulgaria.The aim of the workshop was to inform small and medium enterprises, public institution and organisation about 

More than 30 participants from different branches mainly in the field of geodesy, cartography, information and communication technologies, education and environment protection participated in the workshop.

During the workshop had been presented the current status and implementation of INSPIRE directive in Bulgaria,

 adoption of data and services standards, smeSpire project – overview, aims, project results.

Speakers at the event were Lilyana Turnalieva, Head of department “Spatial datasets” at Executive Agency “Electronic Communication Networks and Information Systems”, Martin Ford from GiSt, Georgi Georgiev, Zhenya Valcheva and Vassilen Dontchev from Infologica.

The discussion during the workshop considered new opportunities for innovations business opportunities about SMEs and public sector in regard to the implementation of INSPIRE directive on national level.

“Concrete steps to implement INSPIRE: synergies between the public and the private sector”: a smeSpire round-table at the INSPIRE Conference.  Let put it in your diary and join us Monday June 24th.

More information

Thanks to a cooperation agreement with CEKTRA – Centre for Knowledge Transfer from Slovenia, in the coming months an intense activity aiming at taking on board of the smeSpire network also geoICT SMEs located in 8 SEE Countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia) will be done.

Particularly beneficial will be the translation of project material in additional six languages (Albanian, Croatian, Macedonian, Romanian, Serbian, Slovenian).

The Instituto Geográfico Nacional (IGN), or National Geographic Institute is a Spanish government agency, dependent on the Spanish Ministry of Public Works. It is the national mapping agency for Spain, together with the Centro Nacional de Información Geográfica (CNIG).

ICT 2013 in Vilnius offers a unique opportunity for Framework projects and for individual companies to showcase their most advanced research, ICT products and most innovative creations.

More than 150 exhibition stands will show the latest results. The exhibition will cover 5 themes:

• digitally empowered citizen;
• smart and sustainable cities for 2020+;
• industry and business for tomorrow;
• intelligent connecting intelligence;
• culture, science and creativity.

A call for proposals is open till 7th June 2013 16.00. ICT Framework projects as well as individual companies are encouraged to submit proposals covering ICT in all its forms and from all parts of the ICT Framework Program, provided they fit the exhibition concept. Successful proposals will be selected based upon their attractiveness, innovation, ease of understanding and for their impact and potential contribution to co-creating the future .

Vilnius on 6-8 November, 2013

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Environmental Informatics and Industrial Environmental Protection: Concepts, Methods and Tools.

The EnviroInfo 2013 is the 27th edition of the long-year established international and interdisciplinary conference series on leading environmental IC Technologies to make the world a better place for living. It has for a long time been shaping the Applied Informatics field of Environmental Informatics on a national as well as international scale.

Date: September 2nd – 4th 2013 

More information

In the frame of the Seminar “Cooperation opportunities between Austrian enterprises and research centers and the Innovation Pole of University of Calabria”, held on the 15th of March 2013 at University of Calabria Campus, Giacomo Martirano, smeSpire coordinator, had the opportunity to present the smeSpire project to Mrs. Martina Madeo, Representative of the Commercial Section of the Austrian Embassy in Rome (www.advantageaustria.org/it).

Thanks to the interest and the kind cooperation of Mrs. Madeo, in the next weeks there was a follow-up with initial contacts with geoICT Austrian SMEs, as a confident start of the smeSpire network expansion also in Austria.

smeSpire on an insert dedicated to research, technology and innovation published the 29 of April and distributed with the “Sole24Ore”, the most important Italian financial newspaper.

Article link (in italian)

Next Thursday April 18th 2013, during the study visit at JRC of the coordination for the City of Zagreb Physical Planning Information System (PPIS), smeSpire will present the preliminary results of its study on the market potential existing for geo-ICT SMEs working with INSPIRE.

In cooperation of Slovenian national standardisation organisation  SIST and project SMEST 2 on Wednesday April 24^th 2013 in Ljubljana Slovenia a workshop “Benefits of involvement of small and medium-sized enterprises in standardization and the benefits of using standards” is being organised. Mr. Simon Vrečar from CEKTRA – Centre for Knowledge Transfer from Slovenia, which is the supporting organisation for smeSpire project in South-eastern Europe, will in his presentation “Good practice – the importance of the participation of SMEs in the development of European standards” present the benefits of smeSpire projects.

WORKSHOP “INSPIRE IMPLEMENTATION: A CHANCE FOR SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES”

The aim of the workshop was to inform small and medium enterprises about the smeSpire project. On the basis of best practice examples the participants learned how their company can develop new profitable business opportunities by implementing the INSPIRE directive. The workshop has been offered in Kranzberg near Munich on 19 March and in Münster on 20 March.

Participants mainly took part to learn about new developments of the Geo-ICT sector. They came from different branches and with different backgrounds such as training for GIS solutions, developing specialized software solutions for nature protection or calculation of potential of solar energy for cities. The entrepreneurs heard lectures on smeSpire, feasible implementation of the data standard and potential business models.

Speakers at both events were Prof. Dr. Jörg Schaller, one of the founders of Esri Germany, and Antje Kügeler and Benjamin Quest from con terra. Beyond the presentation of the general conditions of the directive and software solutions to meet its requirements, the group discussed concerns, problems, and visions regarding different approaches for private sector companies to the new opportunities initiated by the INSPIRE directive.

Following the workshops some participants agreed to take part in interviews. The goal of these interviews was to collect information about the behavior and experiences of different Geo-ICT companies and about the general characteristics of the Geo-ICT sector in different member states.

Scientific conference “From cartography to geographic information science” 31 May – 1 June 2013, Vilnius University Botanical Garden, Lithuania.

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Annual Conference of Lithuanian Surveyors Association “Spatial data for sustainable development”. Lithuanian Association of Surveyors conference will be held April 19 in Trakai, Lithuania.

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COM.Geo Conference is the leading-edge computing for geospatial conference, focusing on the latest computing technologies for multidisciplinary research and development that enables the exploration in geospatial areas.
The COM.Geo 2013 will be held at the Fairmont San Jose in San Francisico Bay Area on 22-24 July 2013.

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The International Symposium & Exhibition on Geoinformation (ISG) will be held on 24-25 September 2013, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

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EuroSME2013 will take place 11-12th June 2013 at The Printworks, Dublin Castle, Dublin, Ireland and will focus on three main themes:
1) Visions of innovation in the 21st century
2) SMEs in a networked world
3) Supporting Innovative SMEs in their Ambition to Grow

More information

From 7 to 21 May 2013 in Cagliari, Rome, Venice, Milan, Genoa, Catania.

More information.

Empowering Military and National Security decision makers with Geospatial Intelligence to support operational excellence and complex mission success

More Information

smeSpire welcomes Sparx Systems in the smeSpire network and is glad to announce to all the network members that they can benefit from special conditions that Sparx Systems may wish to reserve to them (e.g. extension of the trial version of Enterprise Architect until the end of the project, discounts on the purchase of Sparx Systems products and services, etc.).

For more details, please contact directly sales@sparxsystems.com mentioning your smeSpire network membership.

The 17th edition of the National Conference ASITA (the Italian Federation of Scientific Associations for Territorial and Environmental Information) will be held at the congress center of Riva del Garda (TN) from 5 to 7 November 2013.

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In 2013, Directions Magazine and Oracle are collaborating to offer consecutive events over two days in Washington, DC. First, on May 21, Directions Magazine’s Location Intelligence Conference will offer a multi-track program exploring the latest industry trends. Then, on May 22, the Oracle Spatial and Graph User Conference will offer a day of technical deep dives and use case sessions around Oracle’s spatial technologies.

More information.

The aim of the workshop is to inform small and medium enterprises about the smeSpire project. On the basis of best practice examples the participants learn how their company can evolve new profitable business opportunities by implementing the INSPIRE directive. The same workshop is offered at two different locations on the 19th and 20th of March.

• March 19, 2013 in Kranzberg, Germany. Venue: Esri Germany GmbH
• March 20, 2013 in Münster, Germany. Venue: con terra mbH

Please contact Stefanie Brandl from PSU for more Information.

FOSSGIS Conference is the leading conference in the German-speaking countries on Free and Open Source Software for GIS. They treated alongside FOSSGIS the topics of Open Data and OpenStreetMap.

12 -14 June 2013, Rapperswil, Switzerland.

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FOSS4G is the global conference for Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial, organized by the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo). In 2013, FOSS4G will be held in in the United Kingdom for the first time, at the East Midlands Conference Centre in Nottingham, from 17th to 21st September.

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The Institute of Geospatial Science & Technology (INSTeG), UTM is hosting the 8th International Symposium on Digital Earth 2013 (ISDE 2013). The theme for the conference is “Transforming Knowledge into Sustainable Practice”.

Where: Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia

When: from 26th – 29th August 2013.

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In conjunction with The 2013 International Conference on Computational Science and its Applications (ICCSA 2013)

When: June 24th – June 27th, 2013

Where: International University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam http://www.iccsa.org/

More information.

The Esri UC covers the entire spectrum of the geospatial industry, bringing together social, economic, business, and environmental leaders who are redefining how people work together at every scale. At Esri UC, GIS professionals can spend five days experiencing more than 900 GIS success stories, best practices, and real world projects. This year includes presentations on mobile devices, cloud-based computing, GIS workflows, data management, and new features that improve the efficiency of GIS solutions.

San Diego Convention Center July 8–12, 2013

More information.

The aim of the INSPIRE Conference is to exchange views and experiences on how INSPIRE is meeting past and emerging challenges and needs. To identify new opportunities and to finally, reflect collectively on how INSPIRE can further evolve to maximise its benefits for society.

The INSPIRE Conference 2013 will take place from Sunday 23rd – Thursday 27th June 2013 in Florence, Italy.

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Where: Frentani Congress Centre, Rome

When:  28/02/2013

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2012 was an important year for the Open Data in Italy: many Italian regions have been moving in the direction of open data and the government has established the openness to all data from the Public Administration.

The subject of Open Data is at the heart of the “Conference OpenGeoData – Instructions for use” promoted by OpenGeoData with the support of SINERGIS. During the conference we will discuss:

• Costs and benefits of Open Data
• Updating Intelligent Geo Data
• Services download
• Reuse of data
• Feedback from users and developers
• Applications in various areas such as traffic information and management of Smart City

Attend the Location Intelligence 2013 and the Oracle Spatial User & Graph Conference

May 21-22, 2013 Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, Washington, D.C.

More information: http://www.locationintelligence.net/ 

Conference Theme: Location Analytics – Turning Big Data into Better Decisions Sessions include the following:

• Location Analytics – Modeling, Dashboards and Visual Intelligence
• Mobile LI / BI – Bringing LI/BI to the Mobile Enterprise
• SoLoMo & Location Analytics
• Unstructured Data & Real Time LI Analytics
• LI in Retail & Finance

As an opening session of the first Czech and Slovak two day International INSPIRE Conference, there has been a smeSpire project workshop on 27th of November jointly organized by CENIA, Czech Environmental Information Agency and SAZP, Slovak Environmental Agency. SMEs and other participants from both countries, in total more than forty participants, have been informed about the smeSpire project, its activities, methods and goals. Within the 90 minutes workshop also the project website was introduced and SME participants were encouraged to register on the website if they have not already done so.

The great deal of the workshop time was dedicated to the introduction of smeSpire survey that will help to map and understand the INSPIRE dealing bodies and their level of knowledge and involvement. Participating SMEs were also informed, that thorough interviews are foreseen with them in order to get as much practical information as possible for the smeSpire project activities in mapping the GeoIT and ITC SME scene. At the end of the workshop there has been a lively discussion with the participants, where the organizers from CENIA and SAZP explained project activities and other questions raised by the public.

On the second conference day, a smeSpire project presentation was held by SAZP at the main afternoon block to inform also the broader INSPIRE community coming from both countries about the project and its main goals.

March 4 and 5, 2013. Brussels, Belgium

For more information: http://www.poweredbyinspire.eu/

Spatial data are indispensable ingredients for decision making concerning our environment. Powered by the European INSPIRE programme, spatial data under 34 environmental themes is made digitally available for re-use. These data can be connected cross border. How can you benefit from this? You are welcome to find out in the conference Safety, Mobility, Sustainability and more …Powered by INSPIRE

Danny Vandenbroucke and Glenn Vancauwenberghe of KU Leuven will make the presentation “smeSpire – Turning the challenges of INSPIRE implementation into business opportunities for European geo-ICT SMEs”, during the parallel session “Making business of data”. The presentation will provide insight into the current role of the private sector in the implementation and use of INSPIRE with a particular focus on geo-ICT SMEs and the innovation potential in the GI sector.

Potentials of geospatial information to meet the challenges of a changing world.

• First Eye on Earth User Conference (4-6 March) http://www.eyeonearth.org
• ENVIROFI Day Conference (6 March) http://www.envirofi.eu
• EUROGI imagine Conference (7-8 March) http://eurogi.org

When: 4-8 march, 2013

Where: Dublin Convention Centre, Dublin, Ireland

More info: http://eurogi.org/2013-dublin-conferences.html

We are pleased to inform you that the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission is organizing a one-day Dialogue Session at the 2013 Geospatial World Forum (http://www.geospatialworldforum.org/).

The objective of the Dialogue Session is to share the experiences of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in developing innovative solutions based on INSPIRE (http://inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu) and Open Data policies, and make recommendations on how to exploit the opportunities further.

We are looking for high-quality examples of SMEs to explore the extent to which INSPIRE and related policies increasing access to environmental and PSI are offering opportunities to SMEs to innovate, create new services, growth, and jobs.

The Dialogue Session will address through keynotes and open participation by SMEs the following items:

• What SMEs stand to gain by contributing to INSPIRE and related policies increasing access to environmental and spatial information
• The roadblocks that hinder their fruitful participation • Ways to overcome these challenges and evolve profitable business models for SMEs
• Needs of end-user organisations with respect to INSPIRE data and the applications needed to make use of these data
• Success stories of innovative application using open access to environmental data
• Ways of collaboration between the key stakeholders–SMEs, data providers and end-users

If you wish to participate as selected speaker, please send a short abstract (500 words max.) to smespire@jrc.ec.europa.eu or contact smeSpire.

Important Dates:

• Abstracts submission: Friday 1st March 2013
• Evaluation: Friday 15th March 2013
• Authors Notified: Monday 17th March 2013

Scientific Committee:

• Massimo Craglia (European Commission Joint Research Centre)
• Paul Smits (European Commission Joint Research Centre)
• Piergiorgio Cipriano (European Commission Joint Research Centre)
• Giacomo Martirano (smeSpire project coordinator)
• Bhanu Rekha (Geospatial Media and Communication)
• Megha Datta (Geospatial Media and Communication)

The first issue of the smeSpire newsletter is available here: http://bit.ly/XlJRkr Subscribe now!

A warm welcome to HUNAGI, the Hungarian Association for Geo-information,  who confirmed its interest to participate in the smeSpire Network, with special emphasis on sharing knowledge and experience as well as fostering network development and user involvement mobilizing the Hungarian SMEs and other market players.

HUNAGI was established in 1994 as non-profit, interdisciplinary umbrella GI association with the mission goal to foster and facilitate the availability, accessibility and usability of geospatial data in line with the INSPIRE directive. It has more than 60 institutional and organisation members from government, academia, SMEs and NGOs.

As far as the dissemination strategy is concerned, a project-oriented website http://smeSpirehu.blogspot.com is foreseen, but the blogs HUNAGI Events’ Calendar and HUNAGI Newsblog will also publish information on project related actions as it was posted first on 25 November 2012.

News on HUNAGI’s adhesion to smeSpire project and the recent JRC Questionnaire will be circulated to members and partners of HUNAGI in the Newsletter 18/2012 to be disseminated later this week. The project participation will be also on the agenda of the Presidential Bord Meeting of HUNAGI scheduled for December 12, 2012.

reference websites:

• http://www.hunagi.hu
• http://hunagi8.blogspot.com (HUNAGI Napló)
• http://unsdihu.blogspot.com (HUNAGI blog in English)

Giacomo Martirano presented some preliminary outcomes of the smeSpire business model at the Eurogi workshop “The future of the Data-Economy: Business strategies and models for spatial data” held in Lisbon (PT) the 16th of November 2012.
Participate to the discussion created in the smeSpire Group on the INSPIRE forum.
View the presentation in the Publications & Media section.

The smeSpire project will be widely disseminated at ASITA 2012, the biggest geomatic event in Italy. Join us at the stand n. 4 of Epsilon Italia.

Fondazione Graphitech, within the project VISION – “VIsualisation SImulation and visual cOmputing techNologies”, is organizing a Workshop to be held in Brussels on the 4th December 2012: EU position and future potential including recommendations for Horizon 2020 Workshop.
This event has been designed to attract senior representatives from industry and leading research institutions across the EU in the fields of computer graphics, visualisation, simulation and visual computing, and to engage them in the definition of recommendations for Horizon 2020. The events will first introduce the
results of the study through several keynote speakers and then it will, through a set of roundtables, collect feedback on the results of the study and in particular on the recommendations for research and innovation under Horizon 2020.
For more information, visit the website of the event at http://www.vision4eu.net.

The smeSpire project has been widely disseminated at the ESRI European User Conference 2012 in Oslo from 15 to 17 October.
In virtue of the ESRI adhesion to smeSpire Network, during the presentation “SDI & INSPIRE Business: A New Approach for SMEs” emphasis has been given to the ArcGIS for INSPIRE Solution Pack, fostering new opportunities to/for the smeSpire Network members as well as to/for the geo-ICT SMEs looking for INSPIRE enabling solutions.
Find the presentation in the Publications & Media section.

On the 15-16 October, JRC organised a workshop in Ispra for INSPIRE Member States Contact Points, to share experiences in assessing the costs and benefits of implementing the INSPIRE Directive.
During the first day JRC presented an overview of smeSpire project to participants, also to ask their availability in supporting smeSpire partners in studying and analysing GeoICT sectors in the 12 countries represented by the project.
Participant Contact Points appreciated the initiatives, and asked about possible extension to other countries not included in the ones represented by the smeSpire partnership.
Find the presentation in the Publications & Media section.

Created a new smeSpire open group in the INSPIRE forum.
Visit it at http://inspire-forum.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pg/groups/97587/smespire/
Join it, participate to the open discussions, post new discussions and disseminate it widely.

The smeSpire project will be widely disseminated at the Esri European User Conference 2012. The conference will take place on October 15-17 in Oslo (NO).
A presentation “SDI & INSPIRE Business: A New Approach for SMEs” by Joerg Schaller and Giacomo Martirano will take place Tuesday 16 of October at 11.25 within the SDI and Mapping Breakout Session.
Fore more details please visit the conference website http://www.esri.com/events/euc/index.html

The event “Enterprise Lithuania” will take place on October 12-13th in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Dissemination material of smeSpire project will be distributed.
More information: http://www.verslilietuva.lt/lt/verslo-pradzia/renginiu-ciklas-versli-lietuva/versli-lietuva-renginys-vilniuje/

Geoinformatics for City Transformations (GIS Ostrava 2013), January 21 – 23, 2013 in Ostrava, Czech republic.
Website: http://gis.vsb.cz/gisostrava/index.php

The European SME Week 2012 will take place from 15 – 21 October.
Find more information here:
http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/initiatives/sme-week/index_en.htm

smeSpire dissemination material will be distributed during the Lithuanian ESRI users conference in Vilnius,  Lithuania the 04-05/10/12 .

A presentation of smeSpire project has been accepted for the next JIIDE Conference and dissemination material will also be distributed.
The 3rd Iberian Conference on Spatial Data Infrastructures will be held from 17 to 19 October in Madrid, Spain.
More information at: http://www.jiide.org/jiide2012/inicio

The National INSPIRE geoportal http://geoportal.gov.cz is project is successfully aiming towards its end, the new data sharing module will be available shortly. It will handle data access, provisioning and licensing among national and European institutions in both horizontal and vertical level. Members of the INSPIRE Coordination Committee forming the national coordinating and steering body will gather on October 5^th to discuss the status of INSPIRE activities and plans for the future.Content experts in the domains of Annex II and Annex III datasets are being informed, that their input would be very much welcome towards the end of the year to improve the quality of the official Czech translation of the Regulation documents once they are made available by the EC.
CENIA, Czech Environmental Information Agency together with SAZP, Slovak Environmental Agency, are organizing the 1^st Joint CZ – SK INSPIRE Conference (5^th CZ INSPIRE conference).
The event will be held on 27^th – 28^th November in Pruhonice near Prague. Community of SDI and thematic domain experts from public and private sector will have an opportunity to meet, discuss current activities and exchange experience. Besides other presentations, smeSpire workshop will be organized to inform the audience about the smeSpire project and its aim. All the INSPIRE related information from the Czech Republic are available on a dedicated INSPIRE website http://inspire.gov.cz.

CEN/TC 287, AGI Scotland and smeSpire invite you to the workshop “Smart approaches vs traditional methodoligies: What are the benefits and pitfalls for SME’s and Public Authorities”, which will be held in Edinburgh (Scotland) the September 12^th 2012, an interactive workshop that will raise awareness of the difficulties encountered in complying with standards. Scrutinizing these issues will hopefully lead to problem solving strategies which will be of benefit to SME’s and public authorities alike. For more details and registration please visit http://www.centc287.eu/index.php/whats-happening-in-tc-287/31st-workshop

The first progress meeting of smeSpire will be held in Edinburgh (Scotland) the September 11^th 2012. The progress of the project tasks already started will be presented, together with the first draft methodology to conduct in the 12 participating Member States the study to assess the market potential for the geo-ICT SMEs in relation to INSPIRE.

A smeSpire workshop will be held at the INSPIRE Conference 2012 in Istanbul.  The name of the workshop is “Are SMEs ready to capitalize the INSPIRE benefits?“ and is scheduled Saturday, June 23, 2012 at 16:00 in the Emirgan Hall 1.
The speakers: Giacomo Martirano, Maria Cabello, Giuseppe Conti, Raffaele De Amicis, Martin Ford, Martin Koska, Jiri Kvapil, Giorgio Saio, Paul Smits and Danny Vandenbroucke.
We hope to see you there!

The smeSpire project fact sheet is available in the Publications section

Joint Research Centre – Ispra (IT) – 22 May 2012