Speaker and session details for Open Source Junction, 5-6 July 2011

by Sander van der Waal on 20 June 2011

Introduction

Below you will find more information about the speakers and sessions for the Open Source Junction 2 workshop

Sessions

Building an Open Source Junction community - Gabriel Hanganu, slides

Industry-academia collaborations are notoriously difficult to set up, partly due to the different mindsets associated with their organizational cultures. These partnerships are even more challenging to manage when collaboration concerns open source software. However, challenges bring new opportunities. Gabriel will discuss some of these opportunities, and their relevance for an industry-academia community interested in open source mobile technologies.

Open innovation collaboration - Roland Harwood, slides

Open innovation combines internal and external ideas, as well as internal and external paths to market, to advance the development of new technologies. In this session delegates will become familiar with key open innovation concepts and models relevant to mobile open source software. The different ways in which open innovation is understood across various subject fields and organizational cultures will be discussed in connection with the different industry/academia interests and mindsets. This information will provide the general background for understanding open source development as an example of open innovation in software.

The Web of Things and context-aware services - Dave Raggett, slides

We increasingly own more and more personal devices. The challenge is how to enable developers to create innovative new applications spanning these devices. Web technologies are part of the solution, but additional work is needed on handling the context, discovery and binding of services, and integration of the federated social web. In this talk Dave will discuss the implications of building context-aware services for web-based and mobile collaboration, with specific reference to webinos and other EU-funded open source research projects.

Smartphones in context - Julian Harty

Smartphones are a mixed blessing. They can be an aide to navigation, communication, learning etc. However they can also be annoying or embarrassing, especially when they are not congruent with the context of use, e.g. while driving, while in a meeting, in company, etc. Also, users have different needs and preferences in terms of their interaction with their mobile devices. Some want haptic feedback, others need large text or small text, still others want different colours, gestures, on-screen keyboards, etc. What can we do about all these diverse, sometimes disparate, needs? This talk will cover many of the facets of context-awareness related to user experience and accessibility for mobile technology devices. We’ll also include several examples of technologies and applications which originated in terms of improving ‘accessibility’ capabilities of mobile phones running Android.

Open source mobile apps case studies

These sessions will showcase a selection of highly innovative open source mobile application projects interested in exploring collaboration opportunities with academic and industry partners. The presentations will highlight the distinctive elements of each project and its potential to influence the existing mobile apps landscape.

Mobile Campus Assistant (slides on Slideshare) is a JISC-funded Rapid Innovation project that makes time and location sensitive information available to students via their mobiles and location-aware smart phones. The source code, available under an open source licence, continues to be developed for the MyMobileBristol project and provides a ‘beta’ service at m.bristol.ac.uk. Nature Locator is another JISC project at University of Bristol that has facilitated development an Android and iOS apps that supports “citizen science”. Members of the public can submit photographic and geo-location evidence of leaf damage by a non-native moth to the Conker Tree Science project.

Molly and Mobile Oxford (slides on Slideshare) build on the outputs of another JISC-funded project, Erewhon. Molly is one of the most significant open source mobile frameworks for higher education institutions which allows the fast deployment of a range of mobile web services with little effort. Mobile Oxford provides students on campus with a mobile guide helping them with their day-to-day tasks. Whether it’s finding a library book, checking the next bus, or finding what time the nearest post box is collected, Mobile Oxford is always at hand to assist them. A device with a web browser is all they need to use the basic features, while those lucky enough to own a smartphone can use the more advanced features like GPS.

Sukey (slides ) is an app designed to keep people safe, mobile and informed during demonstrations. We crowdsource updates from twitter and other online sources in order to provide our users with a timely overview of what is going on at a demonstration. We also provide our users with a map view, a compass view and the ability to send us reports and updates through the app itself. This talk will introduce Sukey, touching on the development of the application to date and what the platform hopes to achieve in the future.

Open Source Junction self-pitch

In this interactive session the delegates will have the opportunity to pitch their mobile apps interests to the other participants, and get feedback on the level of interest their presentations raised. This session will allow them to identify ‘kindred spirits’ and potential collaboration partners for the workshop and beyond.

Open source business models - Ross Gardler, slides

Only a few years ago, mentioning the words ‘business’ and ‘open source’ in the same sentence solicited strange remarks from audiences unaware that large business economies exist  around open source software. Indeed, over the last few years many different business models have evolved around open source, so it has become important for both open source producers and vendors to consider what business model may be appropriate for addressing the target market in question. This talk will present an overview of the various components of open source business models. Ross will also discuss a number of sustainability issues associated with building business models for the increasingly crowded mobile app market.

Maps and Apps with HTML5 - Ben Butchart , slides on Prezi

An overview of how HTML5 technologies can be exploited for developing location based services with an emphasis on maps and related applications. Covering the basics of using the geolocation API to display a users location on a map interface, we go on to look at uses of HTML5 Canvas for feature selection/ detection and terrain visualisations. We’ll also look at HTML5 Local Storage and HTML5 Cache for making mapping applications available offline.

Interactive labels and mobile mapping: crowdsourcing thoughts and visualising location-based data - Steven Gray

Find out how a 15 minute chat over coffee can turn into the 3rd most tweeted topic in the world on a single day and an installation at the British Library. Steven will give an overview of the tools in CASA`s crowdsourcing toolkit; SurveyMapper, Tweet-o-Meter and the Twitter Collection tools. These tools have been used by the public and commercial partners and we will present some of the challenges we experienced due to high volume and providing large scale web mapping services. We will also outline new developments in the location-based data collection we are extending to the SurveyMapper platform, crowdsourcing in a museum context, and introduce the next phase of CASA’s crowdsourcing toolkit, GEMMA.

Context-aware applications: industry landscape and commercial opportunities - Nick Allott, slides

This talk will give an overview of projects (mobile and non mobile) that are opening up the context-aware opportunities, as well as the significant challenges, security and privacy as always being pre-eminent, that need to be addressed. We shall look at the dynamics of the distinct vertical industries of mobile, PC, home media, automotive, that are principal focuses of webinos, and the combined opportunity that sharing context information horizontally across the classic silos, offers to application developers and service providers. We shall examine how the effective use of open source can be used to drive innovation in this space.

Participatory HealthGIS - Serge Pawlowicz, slides

Public healthcare is a particularly fruitful area for open source development. Healthcare decisions are based on a variety of data, and the ability to link and build those data into a coherent picture is fundamental to good decision-making. One such development at Nottingham University’s Centre for Geospatial Science is a smartphone ‘symptom checker’ for members of the public who may be suffering or fearing contagious diseases. The app captures a user’s response in real time, stamps it with GPS coordinates, forwards it to a central database for evaluation and epidemiological mapping, and relays self-care guidance back to the user. Serge’s talk will describe the development of this mobile app, in the context of other research carried out at the Open Source Geospatial Lab.

Content development with Wikitude - Philipp Breuss-Schneeweis, slides

Wikitude is a mobile application that provides an augmented reality platform. Augmented reality overlays virtual vision and information on the real world to enhance human visual perception. Current applications of Wikitude, such as Wikitude World Browser and Wikitude Drive, run on smartphones as travel guides and personal navigation devices. Other applications are being developed for travelling, military, city modelling, and shopping. Philipp will describe the current development work at Wikitude and a new collaboration/sharing feature ready to be presented to the public.

Processes and tools for open development collaboration - Sander van der Waal, slides

A key feature of open source projects is that software produced is released early and often. In order to do this, well-defined processes for managing communication and software contribution are needed. A number of tools are essential, including mailing lists for project communication, issue trackers for release-planning, and version control systems for tracking the released code. However, managing code and team communication is only part of the open source recipe for success. Projects need to make themselves known to the world if they want to attract new users and contributors. This session will provide an overview of the processes and tools useful for the management of open source mobile app projects. Sander will also introduce delegates to the OSS Watch project registry, a web application for the management of RDF/XML project descriptors that can help mobile apps projects enhance their discoverability, and thus increase their chances of attracting new contributors.

Open Source Junction speed-date

In this interactive session delegates will have an opportunity to select partners from among the other participants and discuss with them the most important issues associated with co-developing and monetizing open source mobile apps.

Open development and IPR - Rowan Wilson, slides

Writing software often results in more than one piece of property: program source code is property, as is the preparatory design material, the general organization, or user interface. When working as part of a group of multiple employers, contractors or individuals, or when some parties are based outside the UK, then the ownership of the resulting property can be complex. In order to be safe, one should make sure that agreements or contracts specify who will own the intellectual property that results from any collaboration, consortium or contract work. In this presentation Rowan will discuss open development IPR and licensing issues relevant to producing and distributing software through app stores and other forms of mobile software development.

Using OpenStreetMap to build location-based geospatial networks - Yuwei Lin and Mick Lockwood

The speakers will introduce Maxamundo - a locative media platform built upon OpenStreetMap and other open source software components - and the strategies for outreaching, community engagement and business models that are under development to maximise its values.

Open Source Junction community: next steps - Gabriel Hanganu

This final session will review the most important issues likely to affect the creation of a mobile tech industry-academia open source community. Using the knowledge accumulated during the workshop, the delegates will identify the next steps necessary to start building this community.

Speakers

Nick Allott

Nick is the founder of NquiringMinds Ltd, which delivers strategic and technical consultancy to internet and mobile companies and research institutes. Nick has influenced the mobile industry as the CTO of Open Mobile Terminal Platform Ltd and Interim CTO for Wholesale Application Community Ltd (WAC), where he helped shape and deliver over 40+ collaborative technology projects including the Universal Charging Solution. Previously Nick was Strategy Director and CTO for the VC invested fastmobile, later acquired by RIM, and Technical Director for Motorola’s European Internet division. He has had a number of other executive and consultancy positions with companies as diverse as Shell, Pearson Group, Dorling Kindersley and Neural Computer Sciences.

Philipp Breuss-Schneeweis

Philipp studied computer science and history at the University of Salzburg and the Bowling Green State University, Ohio. After working for various companies including KPMG Consulting and Sony DADC he founded Mobilizy GmbH, a software startup specializing in Augmented Reality software for smartphones. When on the road, he uses Wikitude to search for Mexican or Thai restaurants nearby.

Ben Butchart

Ben is a senior software engineer with 13 years experience of web and distributed application development in both commercial and academic (research) environments. For the last 3 years Ben has worked for EDINA, where he heads up a team of 15 software engineers delivering geospatial services for the HE/FE community. Recently, Ben lead the JISC ““Digimap mobile scoping” project, evaluating current trends and technologies relevant to delivering location based services with the Digimap platform and authored the JISC Observatory Report “Augmented Reality For Smartphones”.

Samuel Carlisle

Sukey was invented by Samuel Carlisle (an Electronic Engineer) and Samuel Gaus (a Computer Science Undergraduate) at the UCL Occupation at the end of last year. There is now a core team of around 10 volunteers helping to develop the application and associated web services. More information can be found at www.sukey.org

Tim Fernando

Tim is the technical project manager behind ‘Mobile Oxford’ (http://m.ox.ac.uk) and a driver behind the open source Molly Project community (http://mollyproject.org). In addition to Mobile Oxford, he and his team of agile developers specialise in delivering geo-spatial and mobile software applications for external clients and have worked on varied projects from individual tracking systems to elephant tracking systems. Tim’s background comes from studying Computer Science at the University of Bristol and an absurd love of gadgets and how we, the humans, interact with them.

Ross Gardler

Ross is Vice President of Community Development at The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) and and co-founder of OpenDirective, a new spinout from OSS Watch. Ross engages with and advises on community management in a wide range of projects, from newly funded short-term research and development projects, international educational and research collaborations, and open source spin-outs. Ross is also chair of TransferSummit, an open innovation conference focussing on the collaborative exploitation of intellectual property in software.

Steven Gray

Steven joined UCL’s Center for Advanced Spatial Analysis in September 2009 and is currently working as part of the NeISS project which aims to provide a platform to meet the demand for powerful simulation tools by social scientists, public and private sector policy makers. Last year his Twitter work and Tweet-o-Meter gained a large media following with reports from the BBC, Metro and usage during the 2010 Carling Cup final. The Tweet-o-Meter was also used by CNN during the 2011 Japanese Tsunami to gauge twitter response in Japan, and an analogue version is currently on display in the British Library Growing Knowledge exhibition. His research interests include Human Computer Interaction, mobile development, accessible web development with a focus on Social Media and Ubiquitous Computing.

Gabriel Hanganu

Gabriel is a social scientist with an interest in the social dynamics of open communities. In this capacity he coordinates OSS Watch’s project support and provides consultancy on the community-building aspects of open source development. After a Masters in France and PhD research at Oxford, Gabriel worked on various projects funded by JISC and the UK Research Councils. More recently he started a series of video interviews with open source leaders from open source software foundations and open source businesses.

Julian Harty

Julian is driven to help people through technology live fuller, more complete lives. He is also the Tester at Large for eBay where he has a rich, diverse, international role helping the company to improve the engineering and testing practices across the group of companies. Open source software is integral to his mission and he is an active committer on various projects related to mobile applications, development, and web accessibility testing. He has spoken at several hundred events, written lots of material, much in the public domain.

Roland Harwood

Roland co-founded 100%Open, coming from NESTA where he was Director of Open Innovation. With a PhD in Physics from Edinburgh University, he has held senior innovation roles in the utilities and media industries and in addition has worked with hundreds of  start-ups to raise venture capital and commercialize technology. In addition he has worked as a TV and film music producer for SonyBMG.

Mike Jones

Mike is a Senior Technical Researcher at the Institute for Learning and Research Technology (ILRT), University of Bristol. Mike works in the Web Futures group at ILRT, which undertakes R&D projects in the areas of social software, data visualisation, semantic web, linked data and mobile technologies.

Yuwei Lin

Yuwei is Lecturer in Future Media in the School of Media, Music and Performance at the University of Salford. Yuwei has been studying socio-technical dynamics in free/open-source software communities and their broader impacts on society from a sociological perspective for more than a decade. She is also experienced of working with people from diverse backgrounds to co-realise information and communication systems, especially in terms of gathering and extracting user requirements and understanding human-computer interactions. For more information about Yuwei’s work, please visit http://www.ylin.org.

Mick Lockwood

After graduating from Salford University in 2001, Mick went on to work for BT Exact Technologies within their Research Labs at Adastral Park, Martlesham. He then went on to work as a freelance 3D modeller for the computer games and architectural industries. In 2006 Mick joined the University of Salford where he teaches on a range of programs in the School of Art and Design. His main area of expertise is 3D modelling, but he also has extensive experience in design process and practice, web and interactive, and graphics technologies. Mick’s current research area is location-based media and mapping, and he has worked on various related projects, the most significant being Maxamundo.

Serge Pawlowicz

Serge joined the Center for Geospatial Science as a PhD candidate in September 2008. He has a Masters in Engineering and Science from Wroclaw University of Technology (Poland). He has over 15 years experience in industry, mostly in IT/security audits and large scale systems management, including a position at the BBC. Serge’s research interests are related to Geographical Information Systems, with focus on location based services, mobile devices, environmental monitoring, dispersed networks, computer simulations, visualisations, high scale computing and GIS IT audits.

Simon Price

Simon Price manages the Web Futures group at the Institute for Learning and Research Technology (ILRT) at the University of Bristol and is the project manager for the MyMobileBristol project. He also a member of the Intelligent Systems Laboratory in the School of Engineering where he works on applications of machine learning to data integration, the Semantic Web and e-Research/e-Science.

Dave Raggett

Dave has been closely involved with the core technologies of the Web from 1992 onwards, working on standards for HTML, HTTP, math, voice and multimodal interaction, as well as on open source and research projects. He is currently working as part of the EU FP7 webinos and Serenoa research projects, and previously on the PrimeLife project which focused on privacy and identity management. Dave is a visiting professor at the University of the West of England.

Sander van der Waal

As one of the most technical members of the OSS Watch team, Sander has presented at technical workshops on best practices in open development. He uses his extensive hands-on experience as a Java Software Engineer in the private sector to advise open source software projects on how to make best use of the key tools in open development. Sander has a specific interest in the fields of green IT, big data and linked data. He contributes to the development of the open source project registry framework, Simal, which uses semantic web technologies to catalogue open source software projects of interest to the academic sector.

Rowan Wilson

Rowan has been involved in web development using a variety of CGI languages since 1996. He was the co-creator of the earliest fully automatic domain-name ordering, DNS setup and virtual-server allocation software deployed by a UK ISP (FDD), using a combination of Apache-SSL, Sendmail, Perl and Bind. Since then he has developed web-based internal product management systems for the ISP Netscalibur, again using open source software (Postgres, Perl, Apache). He now works within the Research Technologies Service of Oxford University Computing Services.