The South Dublin County Time Machine Launches
Last evening, as part of the innovation dublin festival, South Dublin Innovates in conjunction with the South Dublin Libraries launched the South Dublin County Time Machine (also known as the historical mapping project). Our previous blog entry refers.
You can now access this on-line project which uses the innovation of modern GIS technology with both out of copyright and licensed mapping, to allow the individual to trace back the history of the local area.
The Time Machine’s web address is http://gis.sdublincoco.ie/historical_mapping/
If this kind of stuff grabs your attention then you may also be interested in the Mannahatta Project which starts at a very similar point to the South Dublin Time Machine in merging the old and the new. Maps from yesteryear which showed Manhattan, New York from 1609 have been analysed along with the environs, habitats, flora and fauna, etc.. and merged with current day mapping and geo-spatial data, to produce fascinating vistas of Manhatten in the past, the present, and with some additional modelling, the future.
We came in contact with this project through the TED networks which enabled some of innovation weeks video content during the week’s activities. Below, from TED is Eric Sanderson who pictures New York - before the City.
This is a breathtaking project - another time machine as it were. In this case, a time machine which goes forward as well as back.
Dragons spotted in South Dublin!
As part of the Innovation Dublin week, South Dublin Innovates proudly presented a take on the popular Dragon’s Den TV series except this time the contestants were children from local schools who pitched ideas for the development of their local communities.
The ‘dragons’ for the day consisted of;
- the Mayor of South Dublin County, Mick Duff,
- SDCC County Manager, Joe Horan,
- Nicola Mountford of the Synergy Centre, Institute of Technology Tallaght Dublin,
- and Máiread NicGabhann, a past member of Comhairle na nÓg.
The location of the event or ‘den’ was the South Dublin County Council chamber and parents, teachers, and fellow students crammed into the available space to support their teams.
In keeping with the theme of innovation week the ideas which the children pitched needed to be new, realistic, financially viable, creative and most of all, innovative.
The event which had ideas being pitched from seven different teams was a huge success. Every one of the teams had brought in projects that were very informed and applicable to the current youth population of South Dublin. So what ideas did these budding social innovators and community entrepreneurs think would impress our dragons? The day produced such varied proposals as a new skate park in Tallaght, and a youth disco, and social facility in Whitechurch.
And the winner is…….
The winning group was the team representing Jobstown Community School, who proposed a skate park for their community. It was a well deserved win, as not only was their project highly researched knowing where they wanted it, about local CCTV, etc, but they had also drawn up plans and CGI of what the park would look like.
Borrow a Person / Not a book :: South Dublin County’s Living Libraries
Our library people are very smart and like to think about their business differently. Yesterday, 15th of October, 2009, the first ever Irish “living library” took place in the County Library, Tallaght. For the evening the County Library issued ‘loans’ of people rather than books. Yes, those attending who picked up their living library borrower card were able to take out take out a real person and listen to what makes them tick.
The catalogue for the evening included;
- a widow,
- a blonde lady,
- a person of the muslim faith,
- a school-phobic,
- a disabled person,
- a gay man,
- a single mother,
- an ex-illiterate,
- a black person,
- an asylum-seeker,
- an elderly person,
- a traveller and
- a recovering drug addict
This event was tremendously successful with more than 150 ‘borrowers’ attending. These borrowers spent a little time listening to the life story of the ‘living book’.
Georgina Byrne, County Librarian of the South Dublin County Libraries brought two of the ‘living books’, a gay man and a school-phobic boy into the RTE studios to chat with Ryan Tubridy on his radio show on Wednesday 14th of October.
The audio clip above is a pod-cast from RTE of the show.
Fields of Gold
“Fields of Gold”, the South Dublin County Biofuel project based on a crop of “Oilseed Rape” was featured on RTE’s Morning Ireland programme on the morning of the 14th of October, 2009.
The project aims to educate the public about Oilseed Rape and renewable crops in general. The crop which is a demonstration crop was grown in a 15 acre field located off the outer ring road in South Dublin County. The site on which the demonstration crop was grown had previously developed a pattern of anti-social behaviour. Tracks were clearly visible on the former site from use of ‘scrambler’ and quad bikes. The new use of this site is pro social in nature and environmentally friendly.
The yield was expected at 8 - 9 tons of biofuel oil (8,000 - 9,000 l). The potential is within the demonstration project to run 10 family cars for a period of one year. The impact of the resulting crop is that the oil yield equated to 88,000 vehicle kilometres which in theory, will fuel 3 council vehicles for a period of one year.
This has been a tremendously innovative and interesting project for the Council to be involved with. In this audio clip you will hear from staff as to how the project has progressed. A supplementary presentation has been uploaded to our scribd account and is available below.
After yesterdays blog about how South Dublin County Council use innovative technologies and techniques to assist the citizenry with issues and concerns - we thought that you might like to see and hear from our customer care team in action. With this in mind we have just uploaded a short video where you’ll hear some of our customer care team explain to the viewer how the customer care section works in South Dublin County Council.
Enjoy.
Connecting you to Customer Care
Innovative customer care is important in order to be able to deal with concerns and issues which South Dublin County’s citizenry have. For some time now, South Dublin County Council have been logging and tracking customer care issues throughout the organisation to ensure that they get dealt with in as orderly and effective a manner as is possible. Issues or concerns can be presented to our staff in a number of ways - by phone, by letter, in person, across the internet via email, or through an online logging facility on the council’s web site.
Logging your issue via the Council’s web site on-line form is the most effective way which you can note your issue or concern. It provides ample capacity to accept your details, provide a map reference to the geographic area where you are contacting us about (if relevant), and full details of your issue can be entered. The beauty of using this on-line form is that when submitted it is placed within the Council’s customer care system exactly as you have entered such that the staff which will actually deal with your issue will have your entire text as you have provided it. This helps enormously with bringing issues to the point of finality.
Once an issue is received and logged, an internal work flow process happens where your issue is transferred electronically via a computer system to the department that is responsible for the effected area. Within the responsible department, the issue is assigned to a staff member who is responsible for resolving the issue. The issue is then monitored and reported on to ensure it gets dealt with within designated target times as set out in our customer care plan.
However, it doesn’t stop there. You may not even be aware of it but our customer care team take an active role in ensuring your issue is resolved internally within the Council. These staff will follow up with our departments on your behalf to ensure that the issue gets handled with suitable priority and that you are kept informed where appropriate. Should an issue not be getting due attention for any reason these staff will champion your issue internally working behind the scenes on your behalf.
The technology which runs the entire customer care logging, tracking and work flow application has been designed and developed in house. Staff from our corporate services department / customer care unit have worked closely with our Information Systems staff / Development and Design unit to produce a bespoke application which is suited to the needs of serving the citizen in South Dublin County.
Open Source Hub
South Dublin County Council use fit for purpose best in class solutions to assist us discharge our services to the citizen of the county. No matter what project we embark on we will ask ourselves two questions; (a) is there an open source solution which could help us, and (b) is such a solution appropriate to the needs of the project. Beyond open source - the council also utilise free on-line services (again where appropriate) for media and content distribution.
We have successfully integrated the use of on-line services such as scribd (content presentation and distribution) and tubmlr (that which this humble blog is prepared on) to projects as profound as the innovation week or indeed the County Development Plan process. Our colleagues in the south dublin county library service are champions in this regard. They have blazed a trail with blogs and tweets way in advance of any corporate direction. As they put it themselves “At South Dublin County Libraries we like to think differently. That’s why we use Open Source software – which is free to use software developed by global on-line communities”.
During Innovation Week the County Library are taking the opportunity to showcase how open Source Technologies are used. The ‘Open Source Hub’ which runs throughout the week will let interested people sample how open source looks and works in practice. You can join in on the Digital Floor of the County Library in Tallaght, one of Ireland’s 21st century public libraries and check out Open Office, Mozilla Firefox and Drupal website builder!
During turbulent financial periods government and industry must ask themselves - why pay for software when best in class can be free to you?
Open source represents more than free software. There is community spirit which on the larger open source projects, is usually spread across the globe in a distributed coalition of interested individuals - some interested in using the product of the open source efforts, others interested in being to the fore in the development of such projects, others who are interested in helping others innovate and implement with the open source initiatives.
Be sure to drop in and see what you can do with open source. The open source hub runs at the County Library HQ in Tallaght during innovation week from 14th – 20th October, 2009.
South Dublin County’s Time Machine Innovation
We blogged here recently about the innovations which South Dublin County Council are utilising to enable the citizen to partake in shaping South Dublin County online. Such innovations are great for shaping the future of our county but South Dublin County is full of history and heritage.
The guys in our county library local studies section together with the folk from our Information Systems Department spatial data team have produced a significant innovation to bring the citizen back in time - to be able to view how the county was in the past and trace how it has developed up to present day.
Using out of copyright and copyright licensed mapping you can trace back to the year 1760 (Rocque) and see what your locality or any locality within South Dublin County was like in cartography terms. Finding your desired location is easy - navigate or search the map for an address or a townland. There is a wealth of information available to discover in these maps. You can simply click between mapping from the years 1760, 1816, 1821, 1843, 1906, 1911-12, and 1942.
The service is presently in pre-release which means that it may change slightly over the coming week or so, but it is expected to launch online during Innovation Week (October 14th to 20th).
In the meantime as a reader of this blog you can preview the ‘time machine’ by following this link
Innovative Places :: RUA RED
RUA RED, South Dublin Arts Centre: celebrating innovation in the arts
Rua Red will be celebrating Innovation Week by showcasing our top creative websites and screening digital media films created by Irish artists. Tours of the building will be available on Friday 16th October and Saturday 17th October.
The digital media labs will be available to hire with a special 10% discount throughout the week. Visit www.ruared.ie or call 01 451 5860
Digital Treasure Hunt
Join in the Digital Treasure Hunt in Tallaght – an interactive quiz using your mobile phone and your wits. Solve the clues and visit areas of interest in Tallaght. – all within walking distance.
Follow the event on www.southdublininnovates.ie for information on the starting locations and details of how to get involved. Clues are delivered to your mobile phone by SMS or by a GPS application. Solve the clues and get the information on the next location. Successful contestants supply their contact details and are entered in a draw for an iPod.
Anyone can take part – all you need is a mobile phone and a capacity to solve clues This is a fun way to visit landmarks in the Tallaght area.
