Amy Rose was recently named the first CTO of the Overture Maps Foundation (Overture) and will lead Overture’s work in making its datasets interoperable and accessible to all kinds of users. She has also recently been appointed to the federal government’s National Geospatial Advisory Committee (NGAC), where she’ll join others in advancing the mission of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) Strategic Plan, updated last year and found here. We spoke to Amy about her role at Overture, with the committee, and the increasing importance of open data to a functioning national spatial data infrastructure. Edited excerpts:
Q: What will be your focus this year as Overture CTO?
A: Overture is now in its third year so it is still a little bit like a startup, but we’ve got a rapidly growing list of members. We’ve released GA datasets that many companies and application developers now use. And, we’ve established a standard to enable other datasets to more easily link to each other and create richer map content. That’s done via unique identifiers known as GERS IDs which reference unique map features as part of our Global Entity Reference System. As CTO, I will focus on technical strategy across all of our task forces and working groups. I’ll also focus on the design and build of our data pipelines and other infrastructure so that Overture is sustainable.
Q: You were appointed to the National Geospatial Advisory Committee (NGAC). What is that and why is it important?
A: The NGAC includes stakeholders from local, county, state, and tribal governments; nonprofits, industry, and members of the federal government to make recommendations on federal geospatial programs including the US National Spatial Data Infrastructure. The NSDI encompasses everything from data to people to software, processes, standards, and basically anything that comes together to build, maintain, deploy, or use spatial data. The end game is to make all data findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable, and therefore useful to all stakeholders, including the public.
Q: What role do you see Overture playing in the NGAC?
A: The national spatial data infrastructure has traditionally focused on government data, government programs, and government software. The reality is that commercial datasets and open datasets, especially with the rise of mobile devices, are now hugely impactful to everyday life for billions of people. So, for any national spatial data infrastructure to be the best that it can be, we believe those government assets should be augmented with assets from the private sector, and open data sources like the ones being built and managed by Overture. The public sector has large collections of authoritative data and establishes policies around data governance, while industry brings deep technical expertise and the capacity to efficiently scale solutions. Putting these together for a shared mission can be very powerful. With public-private partnerships that are more akin to public-private-philanthropic partnerships, we can have a national spatial data infrastructure that really delivers to all stakeholders.
Q: What is Overture’s role in this specifically?
A: We bring the data together and then make it interoperable, which is key to having a functioning national spatial database infrastructure. It doesn’t work if every organization has data that doesn’t connect easily to other data. Natural disasters don’t respect state or county boundaries. We need to bring data together very quickly from everywhere, whether government or commercial, so that decision makers can access good data quickly. This is exactly what Overture is enabling – the interoperability piece that has always been missing from the national spatial database infrastructure.
Q: What’s the role of open data as part of the NSDI?
A: An open data focus is really what we see as the backbone of all of this. It can support the public sector, especially in terms of keeping data fresh, up-to-date, and interoperable. In the past, government agencies have been a little wary of open data because it’s viewed as separate from authoritative data which is managed by an entity with a legal, policy-based, or assigned mandate to do so. But there’s been a real shift in the last couple of years to realizing that open data and mechanisms that enable interoperability—while maintaining good governance over data and security—can be really advantageous.
Interoperability is where GERS comes in. By giving every feature in the Overture datasets their own persistent unique identifier, like a fingerprint, other data sources can know that they’re linking their data to the right place—every time. And they can do it a lot easier than before, too. Because Overture is open, and the GERS IDs are open, there’s full transparency including traceability. This is the backbone that can enable all other data sources to connect to Overture datasets as a reference map, but also simply to each other.
Q: Why does this data backbone have to be open vs. owned by this or that company or organization?
A: The backbone has to be open so that there’s an easy way for everybody to use it, providing a consistent and well-maintained central place for reference. Say we have a road in an Overture database. Anybody can use that road as a reference feature and link other data to it. People can also contribute features that are missing from the Overture reference map to ensure complete coverage. Keep in mind, the applications on top of the open reference map don’t need to be open. They can be proprietary, but the backbone needs to be open so that everybody can use the reference map to enable other services.
Q: Do you have any hopes for your work this year with the NGAC?
A: I’d like to have a role in helping shape how multisector partnerships can best be leveraged in federal geospatial programs including the NSDI. I’d also like to bring an even greater awareness of the benefits of open data and how it can bring additional value to the national geospatial data portfolio. A well-functioning national data spatial infrastructure will help commerce, government, non-profits, and consumers. I’m excited for all of us to make progress on this long-desired plan.
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