Google geospatial specialist to lead University of Leicester workshop

A leading specialist from Google is set to address East Midlands’ businesses with hands-on demonstrations of how to make the best use of geographic and spatial data at the City Rooms, Leicester on 12 March 2015 from 9.30am to 4.00pm

Ed Parsons is Google’s Geospatial Technologist and responsible for “Google’s mission to organise the world’s information using geography, and tools including Google Earth and Google Maps”.

Ed will be showing how businesses can use free tools to display and share geodata with an opportunity for participants to live test the capabilities of the geographic mapping interface ‘Google My Maps’, and see how they can use their own business data. The event will also look at how Geographic Information (GI) can enhance and add a new dimension to a business.

It’s all part of a free event aimed at SMEs (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises) entitled 'GeoData: New Business; New Markets: New Customers’ which has been put on by IRSA – the University's ‘Innovation through the Research Support Accelerator’ scheme – in partnership with Google, Dr Ian Heywood from the University of Aberdeen, who will be a keynote speaker at the event, and the Leicester Google Developers Group.

Professor Paul Monks, Lead Director of IRSA and Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry at the University of Leicester, said: “Big Data is becoming increasingly critical to businesses across the UK but it’s a daunting subject to many, especially smaller companies. We are hoping to welcome around 100 SME delegates to this hands-on workshop and to give them a better sense of how to deal with geographic and spatial data and how a business can use it to their advantage.

“The event is free to attend – all we ask is that participants bring their own device and, if they wish, their own data. They must also have an active Google+ account. “

 Find further information and how to book your place

IRSA (part-funded by ERDF, the European Regional Development Fund) is a University of Leicester scheme designed to help accelerate the development and exploitation of new products, services, technologies, processes and markets for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in the East Midlands through supported collaboration on research and development.