[open-development] Fwd: Call for participiation

Thu Jun 16 09:50:56 UTC 2011

Hi Thomas,

Thanks for your mail - I hope you don't mind that I CC the list as our
conversation might be interesting for others as well.

Your idea sounds very interesting and is certainly worthwhile
exploring - the Open Economics group is certainly not dead; in fact,
we are just getting started and considering how to allocate our
resources for the next projects, so your new idea is very welcome.

Three points to from my side for now:

1) In terms of economics, your idea fits well into the (new) "new
economic geography" literature on locational decisions and
agglomerations. The spatial dimension has also received a lot of
attention in development policy, and there are initiatives that
started mapping rural areas in developing countries (Wikimapia, see
http://www.researchintouse.com/resources/ext/ibm0904folksomaps-ictd.pdf).
There are also projects where people have started mapping rural areas
by setting up house numbers and "postcodes" themselves - that said,
I'm CC'ing the development list as you might also want to get in touch
with them.

2) Could you add your idea to the OKF incubator?
http://ideas.okfn.org/ ? This might help get some additional feedback
-

3) Finally, feel free to drop in during our Skype conversation next
week - please drop me your Skype id (in private) so I can add you to
the session. We will be discussing/brainstorming for coming projects
so it might be a good opportunity for you to join in and meet the
others.

Again, thanks a lot!

Guo

PS: I'm also based in Berlin at the moment, but English is better for
the list :)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Thomas Kandler <hallo at thomaskandler.net>
Date: 16 June 2011 11:28
Subject: Re: Call for participiation
To: guo.xu at okfn.org

Hey Guo,

I am enlisted for some weeks now in your mailing-list. Though I
already believed it to be dead, the digest on 15th of June, teached me
otherwise. I am really interested in your activities and projects and
may contribute by a setting up a completely different project in your
"sphere".

I'll sketch it out real rough and short, since it's more of an idea,
yet. I am planning to write my master's thesis on open geodata. I want
to explore how and why open geographical data can/could affect the
businesses already existing or set to exist. The industry dealing with
geodata is quite a large one - see Google, NavTeq, survey agencies,
etc. So it should be really interesting to see if projects like
OpenStreetMap or initiatives like Open Data or PSI can contribute to
transformation process taking place in the geobusiness.

I really doubt if my point is getting across the right way already,
but I am trying to substantiate it in the next few weeks. So, anyway,
if you think my idea is interesting, please let me know. I would love
to get in contact with some people who are into booth - open AND
business.

And in case you could need my abilities, here's a quick overview:
student of geoinformatics, therefore strong skills in GIS, databases
and the like, intermediate on webtechnologies like wordpress,
textpattern, wikis, etc. (you could visit my blog:
threelittlebirds.de), quick on grasping new knowledge, always an eye
outside the of the box.

So, I would be very delighted to hear from you.

Kindest regards,
Thomas

P.S. Ich las gerade von deinem Studium in Berlin. Wahrscheinlich hätte
ich alles in Deutsch schreiben können, richtig?

-- 
Coordinator, Open Economics Working Group
The Open Knowledge Foundation
http://www.okfn.org · http://openeconomics.net