World-class speakers at Terra future 2006

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, will introduce and inspire debate on the future of location information. Key themes will include the future of the World Wide Web and the growing importance of geographic information (GI).

GI is stimulating new uses of the World Wide Web, evolving existing applications and underpinning the creation of new ones to adapt to global trends. I am delighted to be addressing the attendees at Terra future and anticipate a productive and inspiring debate between those driving the development of location data and the information businesses looking to embrace it. Tim Berners-Lee

Professor Glenn Lyons is the Director of the Centre for Transport & Society at the University of the West of England. Having originally conducted research in the areas of artificial neural networks, driver behaviour and urban traffic management, the prevailing theme of his research today is transport and society. This encompasses the three-way interactions between telecommunications, personal travel and social participation. He has long-standing expertise concerning traveller information services and the role of the Internet and is currently an external advisor to the Department for Transport's Transport Direct Programme.

Mike Liebhold is a Senior Researcher for the Institute for the Future (IFTF), California, USA, focusing on proactive, context-aware and ubiquitous computing including the social implications and technical evolution of a geospatial web. Most recently, Mike was a producer and program leader for the Technology Horizons New Geography Conference at the Presidio in San Francisco. Previously, Mike was a visiting Researcher at Intel^® Labs working on a pattern language based on semantic web frameworks for ubiquitous computing. Mike is also co-author of Proactive Computing through Patterns of Activity and Place, publication pending. In the 1980s and early 1990s at Apple^® Advanced Technology Labs, Mike led the Terraform project - an investigation of cartographic and location-based hypermedia. Mike also led the launch of strategic partnerships with National Geographic^®, Lucasfilm, Disney^®, MIT, AT&T Bell Labs and others. As Chief Technology Officer for Times Mirror Publishing, Mike helped launch over 20 professional and consumer web content services, led very early large-scale Intranet designs and then worked as a senior consulting architect at Netscape. During the late 1990s Mike worked on start-ups, building large-scale international public IT services and IP networks for rural and remote regions in China, India, Europe and Latin America. Mike occasionally publishes his thoughts about micro-local and geospatial computing on his web log at http://www.starhill.us.

Leticia Gutierrez Villarías is the DIP Ontology Engineer at Essex County Council (ECC). DIP (http://dip.semanticweb.org/), a European Integrated Project running for 3 years, aims to produce a new technology infrastructure for Semantic Web Services (SWS). ECC leads the eGovernment use case, identifying real eGovernment scenarios which may benefit from these new technologies and implementing them in order to prove their usefulness. We are currently working on a GIS-based emergency planning system which combines SWS and GIS technologies together in order to facilitate the automation of information sharing among different governmental organizations and other partners based on a spatial point of view during an emergency situation.

Sheila Moorcroft, Director Research for Tomorrow, Today, has over 20 years experience in futures research. Sheila specialises in identifying and assessing the potential (and constraints) of ‘soft’ changes – social change and changing values and attitudes – likely to affect the development of new markets and the application of new technologies. Her approach to futures relies heavily on workshops to create new insights by integrating wide-ranging knowledge together with research findings. She works extensively across the private and public sector and projects include the future of local governance, future cities, changing consumer needs for mobility, connectivity and advertising, future financial needs and services. Sheila speaks on futures at conferences and training programmes – such as the International Foresight Programme at PREST, and writes a regular column in the Shaping Tomorrow e-Newsletter.

Dr. Tracy Ross is a Research Fellow at the Ergonomic & Safety Research Institute, Loughborough University. She has been conducting user-centred research in the area of driver information systems and mobile services since 1987. All of her work has been in collaboration with commercial partners and clients to ensure the end user is provided with usable, safe and valued systems. She has managed public and private funded projects with partners across Europe and in the UK, most recently managing the ‘Valued Location-Based Services’ project which has generated a great deal of interest from industry. She is a committee member of both BSI CPL/278/-110 Road Transport Informatics: Man-Machine Interfaces and the Royal Institute of Navigation, Land Navigation & Location SIG; and has recently been invited to serve on the Editorial Board of the newly launched Journal of Location-Based Services.

John Darlington has over 20 years in the software industry working for companies including IBM, Microsoft and Sony. More recently he has helped establish and grow a number of technology startup companies. He is currently working with the University of Southampton to help engage business and government in adopting semantically rich web services. One of the projects he manages is the AKTivePSI project which aims to explore what is possible with a broad range of public sector information, using recent advances in web-based information technologies.

Jens Jacobsen, product designer and partner of The Marketing Consultancy 4U, Hamburg, Germany, is a creative consultant for enterprises and entrepreneurs, institutions and inventors. Together with other creative professionals from Denmark, Sweden and Norway, he has founded a non-profit organisation, BDT - Baltic Design Transfer, a network for design & innovation in the Baltic Sea Region.

In a very quick and easy process, this network is publishing annual IdeaBooks about the Future. He will report about the latest books about> kitchen design for generation +50 and > Future Mobility.

Ed Parsons

Ed Parsons is Ordnance Survey's Chief Technology Officer and is responsible for all IT operations at the national mapping organisation, including the development and implementation of the IT strategy to underpin all business activities. Ed also manages Ordnance Survey’s web presence and is in charge of its geospatial management. He also leads the organisation’s Research Group, charged with exploring and developing Ordnance Survey’s long-term future. Ed has worked in the GI and LBS industry throughout his career.

Daniel Erasmus has, for the last 10 years, been facilitating scenario processes to a diverse body of clients across 3 continents. He has worked with a range of private and public sector clients including Nokia, Rabobank, the city Rotterdam , the Rijksgebouwendienst, Schlumberger, Telenor, Vodafone, etc. As a trainer he has taught scenario thinking to more than a 1000 executives and post graduate MBA students at companies and business schools from Helsinki to Cape Town, and from Paris to Seoul. He is a fellow of the Rotterdam School of Mangement. His recent web 2.0 teaching initiative scenariothinking.org is an open wiki on scenario thinking where work and thinking about scenarios are shared in the public domain. In 1996 together with Niall Murphy, Daniel foundered the DTN to facilitate deeper thinking about the future and the emerging information society. For commercial clients DTN scenarios has anticipated the rise of the internet, the long recession that followed the dot com-crash, delay in 3G implementation and the dominance of WiFi, the failure of WAP and success of SMS, a $70 oil price (when it was $23), the foundering of the European constitution, shifts in television viewing patterns, Web 2.0, new modes of learning, etc. The DTN’s scenario work has guided the strategic acquisition for its clients- securing a profit of more than € 350 million in 4 years. Visit the DTN’s web site for more detailed information (www.dtn.net). Daniel’s first web site, the Van Gogh Gauguin experience received a Cannes Nomination, and ID magazine bronze prize. He is a board member of the European Internet Archive, the foundation Reflecting, and co-developer of Ci’Num.Daniel lives in Amsterdam with a wonderful wife and he is convinced the two most beautiful daughters in the world. He can be found in his office in Amsterdam on the Prinsengracht or on planes, trains and cafes with a laptop, a ristretto and a yearning for the warm plains of Africa.

Dr. Chris Parker heads the Research & Innovation Department at Ordnance Survey. He is currently implementing a program of Foresight for Ordnance Survey which is about understanding external drivers and trends of the future in combination with research, innovation, creativity, design, prototyping and imagination, to meet the challenges of future. Ordnance Survey’s Terra future event is part of this Foresight activity and is the brainchild of Research & Innovation. Before joining Ordnance Survey, Chris worked abroad in countries including Zambia, Sultanate of Oman and Pakistan as a consultant project manager on geographic information and land and water resources projects. He is a geographer, land and water resources scientist and Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Chris leads a vibrant research and innovation team which looks at how geographical information will be captured, managed, traded and used now and in the future. This work is published at www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/research

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