The latest GKI white paper is developed based on the first year of a three-year global partnership program developing the concept of, and blueprint for a Geospatial Knowledge Infrastructure.
The WGIC is a Strategic Partner in this joint initiative by Geospatial World and the United Nations Statistics Division. In Year 1, the concepts were developed from a geospatial perspective, resulting in this paper. It has been developed with the aim of defining the concept of a Geospatial Knowledge Infrastructure that supports governments and industry to deliver sustainable economic, social, and environmental benefits. The paper was developed based on a July 2020 discussion paper, the GKI Summit held in February 2021, and a series of consultations across the world. It provides a blueprint to integrate digital economy, society, and citizens with geospatial data and technology.
Context
The 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR) has given way to total interdependence between human and digital worlds, which has in turn led to an explosion of data. The volume of data is quadrupling every five years and is estimated to be worth 5.8% of European Union’s GDP by 2025. But data is not the end-point, and the true value of data lies in its use to derive knowledge and meeting needs. Most of the world’s greatest challenges are time and place related, which in turn form the essence of geospatial and location data. Thus geospatial knowledge is crucial for solving the world’s greatest challenges, and it is important to place geospatial knowledge at the heart of tomorrow’s sustainable digital society. Geospatial data and technology have developed alongside the wider digital ecosystem, but there exists a degree of separation between the geospatial and the wider digital and knowledge ecosystem. Therefore the development of Geospatial Knowledge Infrastructure (GKI) is imperative to integrate geospatial data and technology into the wider digital ecosystem, and to place geospatial at the heart of knowledge co-creation.
IGIF
Next to describing the GKI concept, this paper also defines the relationship between GKI and the United Nations Integrated Geospatial Information Framework (IGIF) which supports the implementation of geospatial information management by national governments. Furthermore, the white paper examines how geospatial data, policies, processes, partnerships, and people make up the geospatial component of knowledge, and calls upon stakeholders of the digital and geospatial ecosystem to work towards the common end of better location-enabled knowledge and decisions.
Way forward, call for participation
Going forward in Year 2, the participants will engage with defined industry sectors to further develop the concept from a technical perspective. In this stage, anyone who’s interested in partnering is welcome to come and help develop the concept of GKI, and understanding the value of GKI in your country or sector.