52°North Spatial Information Research GmbH

Advancing Spatial Information Infrastructures

Innovating Methods and Technologies to Unlock the Value of Geospatial Data

Spatial data sets are essentia for environmental planning, smart mobility, renewable energy forecasting, climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction and risk management, and many other applications. Our mission is to promote the accessibility and use of spatio-temporal data by innovating the methods and technologies for creating, managing, sharing, analyzing and visualizing the derived information.

52°North pursues three interrelated disciplines.

1. Research Data Infrastructures: The development of RDIs is based on 52°North’s experience in Spatial Data and Spatial Information Infrastructures (SDI/SII). A key component is the provision of Analysis Ready Data (ARD) for subsequent processing and analysis workflows. This is closely related to Spatial Data Science.
2. Spatial Data Science: The true value of existing data sets can only be unlocked by transforming data into information. Using classical and modern machine learning (ML) approaches, we facilitate this transition.
3. SDI Innovations: This addresses the technical solutions used to bring SDI and analysis to life. The research and development of new SDI architectures and concepts on modern IT systems facilitates the discovery of the true potential of spatial data.

We believe that applied research is best complemented by developing operational solutions that create tangible added value. This combination transforms scientific results into relevant innovations. 52°North supports the development of operational solutions by offering professional services, including training, consulting, software engineering, and data analysis.

A central idea is co-developing solutions with our project partners, customers, and a wider community. This enables us to address real-world problems with our innovations.

 

How we work

We conduct applied research. Our work starts with identifying and understanding real-world problems and associated innovation needs in selected application domains and information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructures. We then identify and discuss new approaches, applying common research methods to validate our ideas. Much of our work involves experimental software development, which leads to prototypes that can be refined into operational solutions in collaboration with the developer community. A particular focus is the evaluation and adaptation of new approaches in the context of current GeoIT trends.

Stefan Sandmann from the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) and Dr. Albert Remke, 52°North GmbH presented Peter Broßeit with the 52°North Student Innovation Prize for Geofinformatics 2012 at the Geoinformatik 2013. Gerard Casas Saez, who was absent from the ceremony, was awarded the 52°North Innovation Incentive Award. The winners received prize money of up to 5,000 Euros.

 

Peter Broßeit impressed the jury with a well written and conceptually solidly constructed paper “Providing methods for the capture and analysis of dynamic phenomena through a PostgreSQL extension”.  He proposes to extend PostgreSQL (and hence PostGIS) beyond time instances and time intervals, such that it can cope with more complex time representations, such as multiple instances or intervals, and regular (recurring) instances  or intervals. This extension allows time to be handled by a data base in a similarly dedicated manner as space is handled by the PostGIS PostgreSQL extension. The jury believes that the proposal, when carried out successfully, will address a wide user community and will have strong relevance for 52°North in particular for the Sensor Web and Geostatistics Communities.  If it succeeds, it could have a high overall impact.

Slides: Providing methods for the capture and analysis of dynamic phenomena through a PostgreSQL extension

 

 

Gerard Casas Saez’s proposal “gTweet, a Tool for the Geolocation of Social Movement” aims at developing a tool for locating social activities by analyzing geolocated twitter feeds. The jury, impressed by the applicant’s age (17) awarded an incentive award and praised the overall ambition of the approach, the likeliness of a useful outcome and the enthusiasm with which it was written.

Test the prototype!

Slides: gTweet – 52°North Innovation Incentive Award presentation

Innovation and Applied Research

Open Labs @ 52°North

The 52°North Open Labs are a means to temporarily focus R & D activities on a set of research topics of special interest. These Open Labs are initiated and managed by 52°North staff. They are  equipped with dedicated resources from 52°North and committed partners (staff, technical infrastructure). This organizational setup ensures a high level of commitment, goal-driven research and thus quick results.

• Thematic focus and related R&D activities of the 52°North GmbH
• Cross-linked with objectives and activities of the communities
• Initiated and managed by 52°North