Observing the Earth

Observing the Earth
AGI Conference, November 13th 2014
Sir Mark Walport
Chief Scientific Adviser to HM Government

Humans have had a very long relationship
Public Domain Public Domain Public Domain
2 Observing the Earth– AGI, November 13th 2014
with maps
Babylonian Imago
Mundi, c.500BC
Hereford Mappa Mundi, c.1300 Bowen & Owen, from
Britanica Depicta, 1720

Humans and animals both navigate the
world
Credit: Viewpoint/Phenosys

Specialist cells in the brain handle
navigation
• Human and animal brains
record locations visited
and link them to
memories, forming a
“GPS system”.
• Place cells are linked to
single locations, grid cells
track movement between
locations.
Credit: MGH Human Connectome Project Acquisition Team
Credit: Stuartlayton/CC BY-SA 3.0

Their discovery recently won a Nobel Prize
• Professor John O’Keefe
(UCL) discovered place
cells in 1971.
• In 2014 he was awarded
the Nobel Prize for
Medicine, along with
Edvard and May-Britt
Moser, who discovered
grid cells in 2005.
Credit: UCL

Priorities for the Government Chief
• Wellbeing, health, resilience &
security
• Knowledge translated to economic
advantage
• The right science for emergencies
• Underpinning policy with evidence
• Advocacy and leadership for
science
Scientific Adviser
Credit: iStockphoto

Wellbeing: mapping deprivation and need
Charles Booth, 1889 OpenDataCommunities, 2014

Wearable GPS tech has transformed the
health and fitness market
• Strava is an app for
runners and cyclists,
tracking both distance
and speed.
• Not only can you record
your route, but you can
compete with other
people.
• It operates on a
“freemium” business
model. Credit: Strava

Fitness bracelets also collect data during
emergencies, such as earthquakes
This graph not only shows how many people were woken up by the
earthquake, but also the “collective anxiety” – how many stayed
awake for the rest of the night.

Mapping of past military campaigns: Napoleon’s
disastrous march on Moscow, 1812

Tactical level analysis: Ditch & Flow in Helmand
Aeronautical Data
Meteorological Data
Hydrographic Data
Oceanographic Data
Terrain Elevation Data
Topographic Data
Population movements
Population density
Tribal Distributions
Geodetic Data
Combined Operating Picture
Source: Sir
Stuart Peach,
Cambridge
Conference
2013
Walk Stalk Crawl
Mapping in modern military operations

Mapping and resilience: diseases
1854: Mapping Cholera 2014: Mapping Ebola

Mapping and resilience: threats
• Government does
complex mapping of
threats to our security.
• Released publicly as
FCO travel advice, as
here.
• Can we predict
instability from
economic, political
and social media
maps?

Increasing use of satellite and UAV data, e.g.
for agriculture and climate science

Remote monitoring can help plan food
security and the global economy
Length of the growing season, calculated from optical
depth of vegetation

Resilience Direct: a new tool for use by
government and emergency responders

How do mapping services help businesses
and the economy?
From a January 2013 report by
Oxero:
• Global revenue from geo services
is $150-270 billion per year (one
third the size of the global airline
industry)
• Geo services save 1.1 billion
hours of global travel time every
year, and 3.5 billion litres of fuel
• Faster emergency response from
geo services saves around 150
lives per year in England alone

Popular consumer goods like smartphones
and smartwatches rely on mapping
Credit: koya979/Fotolia Credit: Apple

There will be more and more geo-enabled
devices: the Internet of Things
Healthcare
Smart Meters
Transport
Credit: Masimo
Credit: Hyginex Credit: Vigilant
Credit: google
Credit: HiKoB
Credit: ComEd
Credit: jamieonline

The UK is leading Europe in IoT tech
• IoT companies in
Europe shown.
• GO-Science IoT
report to be released
in December.
• How can we position
geo-services, within
and outside
government, to do
the best for both
science and the
economy?

Credit: bizbuzz

Augmented reality: adding mapping
information to visual input in real time

Combining social media data with mapping

But careless use of geo-data poses threats
to personal privacy
One customer’s Boris bike use, as released openly by
TfL. Possibility of identifying an individual.

Privacy controls are not binary but fall
(Everyone) (Accredited researcher)
on spectra
Obfuscation
Openly identifiable
Anonymised to the
point of losing
valuable content
Access / Environment
Free on the
internet
Locked in a steel-lined
room
Governance and
Little legislation accountability Highly legislated

Will autonomous vehicles and IoT mean the
end of geographic skills?
Mapping and navigation used to be a specialist trade:
now we expect this service to be provided automatically
Credit: Fairfax Media/Getty Images Credit: ULTra PRT

Government funding skills and capability for
the future: The Turing Institute
Credit: Duane Wessels/CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
The Mission
1. To undertake research and
knowledge sharing in the key
disciplines of mathematics,
computer and data science
2. To develop networks between
leaders
3. To enable industry and academia to
work together on research with
practical applications
4. To provide advice to policy makers
on the wider implications of
research
5. To provide strategic oversight and
leadership
The vision
1. Promote the development
and use of advanced
mathematics, computer science
and algorithms for human benefit
2. Conduct first class research and
development
3. It will be a world leading
institute that will provide a fitting
memorial to Alan Turing

@uksciencechief
www.gov.uk/go-science
Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. We apologise
for any errors or omissions in the included attributions and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated
in future versions of this slide set. We can be contacted through go-science@bis.gsi.gov.uk.

Observing the Earth

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