The spring sun was shining in the city and the atmosphere was warm also at the first Geomob Finland event in Turku. Dozens of participants had gathered to hear good examples of how geospatial data can be used to solve a wide range of challenges.
Meri Malmari from Gispo kicked off the afternoon by talking about their project in partnership with UNESCO’s International Institute for Educational Planning, which uses rainfall data and QGIS to find optimal school hours in sub-Saharan Africa. The project has developed a QGIS plug-in to help analyse regional rainfall to find the most optimal times in the calendar, as heavy rainfall in the region affects children’s attendance at school.
Arttu Koskinen from the Regional Council of Southwest Finland introduced the audience to biodiversity issues. The work on green infrastructure in the region of Southwest Finland has been looking for ways to protect biodiversity and the habitats of endangered species. Data can be used to identify areas, but the real challenge is to get people to act.
Msilikale Msilanga from the University of Turku took the audience to Tanzania. Finnish universities have been working in close co-operation with Tanzanian universities for the past twenty years, and the co-operation has been very fruitful. Tanzania Resilience Academy is working with local university students and industry to find ways to improve urban development and flood management using open geospatial data, FOSS tools and community mapping.
With summer just around the corner, electric scooters are a hot topic. The most emotive issue is scooters parked in dangerous places, blocking passages and causing incidents. Jere Sipponen from the City of Turku explained how Turku has tackled the problem. One way was to analyse the areas where the scooters are most used and paint special parking spaces for them. The city has also designated areas where skateboards are not allowed. One of these no-go areas is Kauppatori.
At the end of the evening, the audience were asked to raise their hands to vote for the best talk. This time the vote was extremely close, with the first round ending in a draw and the second round being almost as close. In the end, the honour went to Iiro Seppä, whose research on deep learning and computer vision at the University of Turku inspired the audience. A case study of processing historical Finnish basic maps showed that computer vision is already capable of identifying objects on the map quite well.
Professor Niina Käyhkö from the University of Turku was chairing the event.
”Geomob Turku was a really nice opportunity to learn from impactful geospatial projects and activities in a cosy and interactive environment. We are definitely looking forward to our next Geomob in Turku”, Käyhkö says.
Turku Geomob was organised by Location Innovation Hub’s Turku regional partners Lounaistieto and the University of Turku. Previous Geomob Finland events have been held in Helsinki and Oulu.
