Britain leads the way as Ordnance Survey helps to drive economic growth and digital innovation through open data | WPN World People News

To coincide with International Open Data Day, when countries across the globe will show their support for open data policies, Ordnance Survey (OS) is announcing it will launch a world-leading digital map as open data and create an engagement hub in London.

This consolidates the UK’s reputation as the most advanced country in the world on open data, as recognised by World Wide Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee last month. It will generate opportunities for enterprise, drive innovation in the digital economy, increase demand for new apps and services and help data-driven businesses to grow.

The February 21's announcements from the government’s mapping service are underpinned by a more liberalised approach to licensing designed to maximise the benefits of the UK’s most valuable data.

This weekend OS will support the UK’s first ever Open Data Camp in Hampshire. Two hundred developers, innovators and entrepreneurs will have a first chance to trial some of the new data to create fresh insights and innovative products and services.

Vince Cable, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills said:

Giving access to data opens up job opportunities. Britain is already a world-leader at designing and making innovative products. But we need to keep investing and supporting our technology businesses to stay ahead.

Making this data more accessible means more small and medium companies will be able to use Ordnance Survey’s world-leading maps, combining geographical data from multiple sources and visualising them at a high level of detail.

I am sure this will inspire a number of companies to create sophisticated new products.

OS OpenMap, which will be available at the end of March 2015, has been designed to work with the latest mobile and web platforms and will allow developers to build new products incorporating some of the most sophisticated mapping data in the world. It will also enhance the wide range of existing apps that use geospatial data.

Targeted at both public sector and commercial users, the map provides an enhanced level of building detail, extended naming of roads and identifies sites such as hospitals and schools - all in a customisable and easy to style format.

The Geospatial Innovation Hub in London will provide a space for OS to meet face-to-face with developers and to support the creation of new products and services. The Hub builds on OS’s experience of working with start-ups through their successful GeoVation programme, allowing developers to benefit from expert OS advice.

Matthew Hancock, Business Minister at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said:

Ordnance Survey has world-beating data and its expertise means that the UK has access to the best and most comprehensive mapping data in the world. I announced earlier this year that Ordnance Survey would move to a government company to ensure that it could operate in an increasingly agile and flexible manner in the fast changing geospatial market, and the announcement goes hand in hand with that change.

Ordnance Survey data is already being used by a range of businesses and these developments will enable its open data, as well its commercial activity, to continue to support growth and innovation in this country.

Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office said:

As part of this government’s long-term plan for the economy, we are driving an ambitious transparency programme. Open data is a new raw material and the Ordnance Survey announcement builds on the progress which has seen us recognised as the world’s most transparent government. Transparency is an idea whose time has come and we must keep challenging ourselves to do more.

Source: UK Department for Business, Innovation & Skills