The Linux Foundation | 11 March 2024
As we step into March, marking Women's History Month, we're excited to share a conversation that's a bit closer to home and very much in the spirit of the occasion.
Meet Amy Rose, the new technical director at Overture Maps Foundation, who joined us last November. Amy's journey into the world of maps and geospatial technology is as intriguing as it is inspiring. Her career path, paved with curiosity, learning, and a deep-seated belief in the power of open, collaborative efforts, began somewhat unexpectedly in the mid-'90s.
In our interview with Amy, we're not just talking to a leader in her field, but also to a fellow enthusiast who's seen the map of her life take many exciting turns thanks to her passion for geospatial science.
Could you share with us your journey in geospatial science and technology leading up to your new role at Overture Maps Foundation?
I got my start in geospatial in 1995 when it was still fairly niche. I accepted an internship and started as part of a team that was developing a linear referencing system for FHWA’s National Highway Planning Network. It involved paper maps and plenty of digitizing, but the visual/analytical pairing that geospatial technology offered was intriguing. I hadn’t planned on a career in geospatial, but I was hooked.
I shifted gears to applying geospatial S&T to environmental assessment and remediation, working at The Shaw Group, Inc., developing spatial decision support systems for remedial investigation / feasibility studies and global asset management programs. From there, I joined Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where I worked with large interdisciplinary teams on scalable approaches for mapping and modeling global phenomena.
Throughout, map data has been the one constant in my career. There’s never been a time when I haven’t had to invest in data collection, creation, conflation, curation, or any of the related tasks that are necessary starting points for mapping and location intelligence. Being part of Overture now, I’m excited to be part of making that happen in an open, collaborative, and sustainable way.
What is your vision for the future of Overture under your technical leadership?
I’ve spent enough of my career developing geospatial datasets that I intimately understand the required investment of time, money, and infrastructure. It’s a burden that’s exponentially expensive, given its duplication in some form across thousands of organizations. When I think of this current state of things, it’s clear we’re long overdue in collectively building a more sustainable approach. The future of map data is one where organizations don’t have to start from scratch but can instead tap into Overture’s vibrant ecosystem of data.
The need is no longer to map all the features of a city with exquisite detail or to map a single type of feature for the whole world. Instead, it’s both at once, where the demand is continuing to trend toward mapping anything, anywhere, at any time. In many ways, the requirement is for a global living map of sorts—one where the features, representations, information, and details are constantly evolving but still have a traceable lineage or history. So that’s ultimately the vision—working toward that future state, but all the while keeping an eye toward building a strong foundation to support it.
What do you see as the biggest challenges in creating interoperable open map data, and how do you plan to address them?
Data are not one size fits all; fundamentally, interoperability requires some level of standardization. With that standardization comes upstream decision-making, which can impact how and if we can use data for certain purposes. The challenge is to find the right balance between the level of required standardization and what that means in terms of data or detail loss. Even with a goal of deferring any lossy processes as far as possible downstream in the data pipelines, we want to do that in a way that carefully considers all trade-offs, ensuring the development of a repeatable and reliable process.
In my experience, it’s difficult for data producers to have a full picture of how others will use their data. Even in cases where the development of data is for a very specific purpose, they’re inevitably repurposed in various unforeseen ways. Even so, during the design and development process, we’re putting significant attention on example use cases. This helps us make decisions about anything from schema design to what we can consider as acceptable levels of data loss.
In your opinion, how will the availability of reliable and interoperable open map data impact industries such as agriculture, automobile, and climate change mitigation?
Globalization will continue to redefine how the world is economically, socially, environmentally, and politically interconnected. Understanding the full scope of these relationships and how they translate to the way we work and live depends on good data. You can’t optimize the solution if you don’t know the full system. While we may never know the full system, reliable and interoperable open map data will enable organizations to make better decisions faster.
A great example of where accurate map data makes an impact is the improved visibility it can bring to all aspects of a supply chain. This is just as important in local contexts as it is on a global scale. For example, harnessing the full potential of location-based business intelligence will improve our ability to integrate sourcing decisions with environmental considerations.
How do you plan to foster collaboration among the diverse organizations involved in Overture?
Coming into Overture, I was interested in seeing how that was currently happening and, from there, developing an idea of what sustaining that collaboration would look like. It was immediately clear that the shared vision drives the collaboration. Overture members may have different business reasons for being part of this effort, but ultimately, the core vision is incredibly well-aligned across member organizations.
This is particularly evident in working groups and task forces. These are highly collaborative spaces where member organizations come together to generate ideas and decide on solutions. Being in a room with such talented people from a wide range of companies is a unique opportunity. It’s an extraordinary combination of think tank and engineering, where the best ideas—usually shaped through the contributions of multiple minds—percolate to the top. In this environment, I look at my role as ensuring that Overture’s overarching goals and technical priorities act as the guiding compass.
Are there any specific technical innovations or projects you’re particularly excited to work on at Overture?
What was immediately exciting for me with the launch of Overture was the Global Entity Referencing System (GERS). Like most people working with geospatial data, I’ve spent a substantial amount of time linking datasets, either through spatial or attribute joins or full conflation. Part of the reason linking data is so resource-intensive is having to navigate the different file formats, feature representations, and attribute encodings across datasets. There’s an enormous amount of untapped data resources out there that are unknown or underutilized because of the lack of a straightforward way to link them to other data at hand.
GERS is a reference system that generates and supports globally unique, persistent identifiers, which will provide the ability to stably link all sorts of data to Overture’s open data. For example, for a given feature in the Overture Buildings Theme, GERS can connect information from other data sources about that building, such as architectural drawings or building permits. GERS can also eliminate ambiguity about similar map features from different sources; in this way, third parties can easily associate their data with Overture data as well as other third-party datasets. The logical evolution of this is that ultimately, GERS can promote data discoverability in a way that creates a robust global spatial data infrastructure.
Ensuring data quality is paramount for Overture. Can you discuss the systems and processes you will implement to maintain high data accuracy and reliability?
Quality can mean many things. When we’re talking about an initiative such as Overture, it’s not just building one-and-done data collection but rather an iterative approach where quality and completeness continue to improve. This goes back to the idea of the living map, so quality will always be evolving but must include measures for spatial, temporal, and attribute accuracy as well as consistency checks for the data and the schema. We’re also being deliberate about designing traceability into our plan for GERS to address aspects of lineage and build a strong support framework for associating other datasets with Overture.
Feedback through several mechanisms will be an important part of the full-quality picture. As we move into year two, we’ll be working on establishing formal feedback loops to incorporate a variety of signals about features in the Overture themes. These signals will provide supporting evidence for location accuracy, attribute values, and temporal consistency. We’ll also be finding ways to incorporate user feedback, including local knowledge.
How do you see Overture influencing industry standards in mapping and geospatial data?
Adoption of open source technology in general has been growing, but it’s still primarily associated with code, software, and standards. I think Overture can add an important component to this movement, bringing a broader understanding of open data initiatives to a larger audience. More specifically, Overture can be a motivating influence for open geospatial data and collaborative mapmaking being the norm. Think about how the Internet has changed how we go about our lives because of the information transparency and enhanced visibility it provides; this is fundamentally about data. The same is true for mapping. By creating this shared map, we’re opening the door for higher-level innovations to emerge. Implementing GERS on this shared base map will also be a unique and high-value contribution to how we approach mapping and geospatial data across sectors.
What are the key milestones you aim to achieve in your first year as technical director?
We’re in a period now where data, rather than code, is at the core of algorithmic development, but unfortunately, the ability to tap into high-value data quickly is still low. Part of this is because historically, the design and development of map data occurred in a way where the value was at the end of that process in the form of a static product. There were decisions made well upstream of the final output. That type of prescribed approach works well when there are few inputs or when the data are specific to a single or small set of well-defined use cases. However, those cases are increasingly in the minority. Given that, the most important milestones I want us to achieve focus on how Overture Maps data adds value to the current geospatial data landscape, addressing the big gaps in terms of quality, usability, and interoperability. That means putting robust data and schema validation in place, continuing to build out the Overture schema for standardization, operationalizing GERS with traceability, and demonstrating how GERS can add richness to your data through the association with other data.
Where do you see the future of mapping technology heading in the next five to ten years?
The notion of geospatial data as separate from other types of data is gradually waning, and that’s pretty exciting. It signals an advancement in technology and ways of thinking about the world around us. Thinking about the future of mapping technology isn’t simply about putting features on a map; it embodies the profound influence of location in a data-driven world. In this future, geospatial won’t be a separate concept but instead a powerful integrator, bridging information that may only tangentially correlate with geographic space.
This integration of information is the key, particularly as the complexity of our global landscape is intensifying; that complexity is driving an unprecedented surge in the demand for contextual understanding on a massive scale. Under this trajectory, location, coupled with supporting mapping technology, can be the fundamental link between diverse systems. GERS will play a pivotal role by essentially being the backbone of the (spatial) data infrastructure.
Finally, what personally motivates you about working in the field of open map data and leading the technical direction at Overture?
I remember thinking early in my career that one day we would have all the data available to us, and we could focus on the application of that data for visualization, modeling, and analysis. The reality is that despite the deluge of data since that time, we’re collectively still spending a significant number of resources on building foundational map data. Much of what we do in the information age is data-driven, and while more data has provided us with more potential pathways for discovery and innovation, we still haven’t solved the fundamental challenge of the base map.
It’s been a year since I saw the announcement of the Overture Maps Foundation launch. I was having lunch with colleagues, and we were talking about—ironically—data collaborations. Having dealt with the exact problem that the creation of Overture sought to solve for my entire career, I suspect that my excitement manifested in a series of less-than-flattering facial expressions. Now that I’m sitting here today as the technical director for Overture, I’m incredibly grateful to be part of the team solving what has always been the grand challenge in geospatial.
As we celebrate Women's History Month, Amy's journey with Overture Maps Foundation is a reminder of the incredible impact that comes from bringing diverse perspectives and experiences to the table. Here's to more mapping, discoveries, and stories such as Amy's that inspire us to keep exploring and collaborating.
Join us at Overture Maps by becoming a member today. Stay connected and get the latest on our releases and updates by following Overture on Platform X, and LinkedIn. Join the conversation and provide your feedback in our GitHub repo.