Using Crowdsourced Geosocial Intelligence for Civic Infrastructure Planning

Etienne Turpin - VC’s Postdoctoral Fellow Tomas Holderness - Geomatics Research Fellow

Rohan Wickramasuriya Denagamage – Research Fellow Katina Michael – ICT Policy Specialist

23rd July 2014 UAV Triple Zero Summit Melbourne

Urban MegaCities

Associated Challenges

Megacities - Now and Then

Mega Cities = Mega Problems Toward Sustainable Development

• Environmental Stresses – Air pollution – Traffic management – Climate change

• Infrastructure – Energy – Water – Transportation – Health care

• Mobility/ migration – Economic development – Food supplies

• Power consumption – Cont. to build out

infrastructure and use them more efficiently

– Proactively manage demand

• Governance/ coordination

• Financing • Public-private

partnerships (PPP) • Natural vs human-made

disasters

Human-made Disasters

Natural Disasters

Emergency Services + Social Media

Not about emergency response per se Longer term infrastructure stability

Not just fancy tech but civic planning/design Not focused on band-aid solutions

Touting ‘Technology’ as the Answer

• Social Media – Content Analysis

• Automatic ID – Who?

• Location Tracking – Where?

• Condition Monitoring – What?

• Points of View – How?

• Evidence-on-demand • Validation • Risk minimisation

• Control Applications – Air and transport management

• Care Applications – Water + health resources

• Convenience Applications – Power consumption

• Electricity, gas

• Efficiencies • Effectiveness • Resource optimisation • Big data as an input • Internet of Everything

Location-Based Social Media

• Mobile

• Location-based services

• Social media

• Cloud computing

• Text

• Images

• Video

• Location data

SMART – Twitter Data Grant

• ISTAS13 – Veillance.me (S. Mann, K. Michael, R. Janzen) • Two environmental views-

– Sensors on me or my environment – Sensors on the mobile or the fixed – Sensors on the dynamic or static

Digital Sensing of the Environment

http://www.citizensense.net/about/

Citizens Playing an Active Role in Participatory Local Government

Different Points of View (POV)

• Satellite View

• Street View

• Building View

• Light-post/tree View

• What about Person View?

From Satellite to Drone View to ‘Person as Sensor’ View

Original diagram Michael, Michael & Abbas, 2009; adapted with Perakslis 2013

First Picture from Explorer VI Satellite

• This is the first crude picture obtained from Explorer VI Earth satellite launched August 7, 1959. It shows a sun-lighted area of the Central Pacific ocean and its cloud cover. The picture was made when the satellite was about 17,000 miles above the surface of the earth on August 14, 1959. At the time, the satellite was crossing Mexico. The signals were received at the South Point, Hawaii, tracking station.

Source: NASA http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/ABSTRACTS/GPN-2002-000200.html

Google Earth

(L-R) Street View Trekker, Street View Trolley (used in indoor locations), Street View Trike and Street View Car

Street View

15 cameras mounted on this unit above the Street View Car allows for 360-degree panoramic stitches

Person View

Google’s NEST: Making Everyday Home/Office Fixtures Come Alive in the IoE

The Big Data Potential

Legal and Policy Implications

How far can we go with the mobile Internet? What is at stake?

Are we breaking the law? What about ethics applications?

The Open Data Movement

• Internet of Everything

• Nothing should be private

• Look at the great things big data will herald

• The end of starving children in Africa/Asia

• The end of criminal activity by underground networks

• No more corruption, only transparency

• Nowhere to hide

• Sensors everywhere

The Collective Awareness Movement

• Equitable access to energy • Sharing energy toward sustainability • Smart grids, smart homes, smart meters, smart

cars, smart phones, smart people – What’s wrong with this model?

• I know who you are, where you live, what condition you are in because of the energy you draw

• If you have something your neighbour does not, why not share it? Redistribution is great!

The Cons of Transparency

– Data quality, integrity, accuracy, reliability • GIGO principal – prone to spoof attacks

– Information resides on the cloud and it is ‘public’ • Can we take copies of the data?

– Limited to no discussion on privacy • Usually in the context of security alone

– Cross border flows of information – What does reasonably identifiable data mean?

– What does consent truly mean in this set up? Do the public really know where there data is going and how it might be used retrospectively?

– Lack of comprehension around ethical use of data by private companies and public institutions • Some deleting permanently information that is not needed to complete task

on their server

– An acknowledgement that data can be misused is necessary and safeguards to combat against this

Future Paradigms

Drones Humanus (Perakslis, Michael & Pitt)

Drones ‘R Us (Michael, K.)

IS that the future us?

Backup