Geomatics for Collaborative Innovation

Twenty-first century systemic global change in health, water, environment, energy, business and socio-economic structures is challenging our communities’ management of resources. For a community to adapt to this systemic change, while maintaining and even enhancing its economy and quality of life, the World Economic Forum has recognized the need for new approaches to enable collaborative innovation (CI) and related action among both the leadership and concerned members of the community. Many see the web as an approach to CI and as a new form of creativity machine that can augment our intelligence. This paper outlines the concepts of an approach to CI based on asset mapping and how it has been supported through a web-based technological framework. Based on the experience using the framework in designing and building over 50 systems that incorporate asset-mapping CI, it is clear that CI takes many forms. We illustrate some of these forms through specific examples in environment and socio-economic development and planning. We conclude that it is not possible to build a single set of tools to support CI. Rather a framework and a set of meta-tools is needed which can be used to build tailored systems to fit specific situations that arise when web-based collaboration is to occur. The Centre for Community Mapping and the Computer Systems Group at the University of Waterloo are using the Web Informatics Development Environment (WIDE) to support collaborative innovation, with services related to temporal and spatial data, distributed role-based access controls, reporting, document management, social networks and other collaboration tools. Two examples are discussed: • Invasives Tracking System, developed for the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters for agencies and the general public, with facilities for capturing, identifying, mapping and reporting on invasive aquatic and terrestrial species in search, discovery, remediation and monitoring stages of invasives management and for capturing, reporting and tracking of remedial action. • NewsAtlas, a community development service for Family Service Toronto, with an open and accessible web based asset mapping process that puts mapping tools into the hands of the groups who have the least resources in the community. WIDE is an example of the type of meta-tools that are needed. Lessons learned from WIDE are being applied in the creation of WIDE 2.0.