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Location data is creating new jobs, new products and vital public services for Scotland

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Location data is creating new jobs, new products and vital public services for Scotland

Three years ago, I embarked on a pilot programme – funded by the Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise and the Geospatial Commission – to transform services and create new products using geospatial technologies in Scotland.

I set out in October 2020 to grow a community of location-based organisations across Scotland, with the sole aim of driving innovation to create greater efficiency in the products and services delivered and used by organisations and the public sector in Scotland.




And so, Location Data Scotland (LDS) was born.

Geospatial data maps information through locations on the Earth’s surface. It is an essential component in many of the apps and mapping services we use today, from real-time travel updates and local weather reports, to fuelling location-based search engines.

LDS has championed the application of geospatial data in several key traditional sectors over the last three years, including financial services, agriculture, space, construction, travel, tourism and energy, as well as emerging sectors in telecommunications.

My goal was to show how geospatial technologies could drive innovation and create new products and services for a range of sectors. There have been some shining examples of this from the LDS community in Scotland.

Data and AI experts Eolas Insight are transforming how geospatial data is utilised in the environmental and ecological sectors to improve nature in light of the climate crisis. They are now working with the agricultural sector to combine the power of automation and analysing large scale data from space to help farmers, ecologists and land managers save time and money, while getting more vital groundwork done.

Edinburgh-based Topolytics, which use mapping and machine learning to generate data to track waste, is working with government teams to meet their recycling requirements and support the drive for a circular economy.

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