52°North Student Innovation Prize Winners

19 March 2010, 9:17am

52°North is pleased to announce the winners of the 52°North Student Innovation Prize for Geoinformatics 2010! This year's jury of prominent members of the GI community has decided to award two first prizes. The winners are:

1. Alexander McKeown and James McHugh from the Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization (CSIRO) ICT Centre in Tasmania, Australia with their proposal "Developing an SOS Client for Use by the General Public". The jury was impressed by their concept for mainstreaming Sensor Web Enablement technology. The proposed project will be a valuable addition to the currently available spectrum of SOS clients. The client described will allow the general public to consume sensor data provided by SOS instances, thus advancing Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) technology into the world of mainstream IT applications.

2. Daniel Naest from the Institute for Geoinformatics in Muenster, Germany with his proposal "SOS4R - Accessing a Sensor Observation Service from R". He impressed the jury with his innovative approach of extending R, an open source software environment for statistical computing, to integrate data provided by an SOS. The proposed R extension will allow the integration of real-time, as well as, historic sensor data sets into geostatistical analysis applications via a standardized interface. This will enable R users access to the broad range of sensor data sources that support the OGC Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) standards. Not only will this create a completely new user community for SWE services, it will also enable users with no knowledge of the underlying IT architecture to access SOS instances.

In addition to receiving a reward of 2.000,- EUR/prize, the winners have the unique opportunity to work together with 52°North students and academic personnel to develop their concepts and realize prototypical implementations thereof. This collaboration is coupled with a stay at the 52°North Initiative in Muenster.

This innovation prize was designed to encourage students to contribute to the development and practical realization of innovative concepts in the field of geoinformatics. It is being awarded by 52°North GmbH, con terra GmbH, ESRI Deutschland GmbH, the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC in Enschede) and the Institute for Geoinformatics at the University of Muenster. These institutions work together under the banner of the 52°North Open Source Initiative, with the common aim of promoting research and education in the field of geoinformatics. A central foundation of 52°North's activities is the continuous exchange of research topics and innovative developments between academia and business. Located in Muenster, the 52°North Initiative possesses a level of potential which is unique throughout Europe when it comes to the development of innovative solutions in the field of geoinformation as a whole, as well as in its constituent applications.

We congratulate the winners!

Geo: International