Ready to MASH IT UP?

Here is the idea in a nutshell:

• Leverage the 20 years of research conducted by WPI students at the Venice Project Center together with
• other publicly available data and
• make the data and maps available (via open APIs) to the conference participants who will then
• mash-up, manipulate and interconnect these datasets with other web-accessible information to create web applications that one can
• visualize on web browsers and on interactive multi-touch tables that will allow participants to
• simulate a variety of scenarios of future socio-economic development and/or natural or human-caused emergencies in a way that will
• assist local authorities in managing and preserving the urban infrastructure, heritage and overall quality of life in the city using techniques that
• can be exported to other UNESCO World Heritage Sites around the globe

We foresee two conferences in Venice and a follow-up in Santa Fe:

1. a preliminary gathering in November 2009 to bring together a select group of the topmost geohacking, urban planning and heritage preservation experts with the goal of determining the technical and logistical direction of the idea on a global scale and to demonstrate its potential with “real” applications of immediate practical use for the City and for UNESCO;
2. a larger conference in June 2010, open to the public to test the concept with a wider audience and to become the model of future UNESCO heritage information management conferences around the world
3. a follow-up conference in Santa Fe in May 2011 to begin the worldwide dissemination of the idea.

Where 2 next? Whither Venice?