The Visual Atlas of Innovation in Spain
From Medialab Prado
Resumen del proyecto / Project's summary
The project aims to represent, analyze and understand the agents which make up the innovation infrastructures in Spain. We would like to find answers for the following questions:
-How are they distributed geographically?
-Is there any specific reason which leads to establish an innovative company in a certain geographical area?
-Are there regional/sectorial hubs outside Catalunya & Madrid? Where?
-How they relate each other?
-How does innovation affect the society's development?
We cover three main innovation layers: small and medium size companies, universities and scientific research centers. The final prototype will be an interactive map in a webpage.
Planteamiento inicial (y respuestas al cuestionario inicial) / Initial approach (first day questionnaire)
1. Describe the goal of the project in 3 sentences (which message do you want to carry? to whom?)
The main goal is to represent and analyze the agents which make up the innovation infrastructures in Spain
We work with different families in order to cover as much as possible those innovation agents.
We want to build an online tool and make it available to everyone interested in knowing the current status of the innovation infrastructures in Spain.
2. What are the inspiring projects and theories)? (background, context, references,...)
-Ben Fry portfolio and his book "Visualizing Data"[1]
-New York Times portfolio, specially the project "Mapping America"[2]
-MIT Senseable City Lab, "The World's Eyes"[3]
-Edward Tufte: "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information"[4]
-Jacques Bertin: "Semiology of Graphics"[5]
-John Tukey: "Exploratory Data Analysis"[6]
-Ben Shneiderman: Human Computer Interaction Lab (HCIL) University of Maryland [7]
-Hadley Wickham: "ggplot2"[8]
-Vizzuality crew,[9] Jan Willem Tulp,[10] Enrico Bertini[11]..... and many others....
3. What is the short-term objective (what do you expect to finish in 2 weeks)?
-Finish the application and interact with the results in both website and using a touch table prototype.
-Get a first overview of the innovation infrastructures.
4. What is the long term objective (what posterior development do you think of)?
-Add more innovation layers (i.e. Big companies,Culture, start up incubators...)
-Add relationships between innovation agents (i.e. shared scientific papers)
-Include the possibility of crowdsourcing
-Gain a better understanding of how innovation affects our lives
5. What are the data (status, where do they come from, who specifically owns the data?)
-Data regarding small and medium size companies come from a database owned by the Escuela de Organización Industrial (EOI = Business School under the Spanish Ministry of Industry)
-Data from Universities and Scientific Research Centers come from public databases like the National Statistics Institute (INE) and the Spanish Observatory of Innovation and Knowledge (ICONO)
-Data from economics, education, wealth and inmigration come from the National Statistics Institute (INE)
6. How will you convert data into some perceptual experience?'
-The main visualization technique is an interactive map built in Processing
-There are complementary charts built in R
7. Do you have any assumptions or previous hypothesis?
Our main assumption relates to the regional hubs in Catalunya & Madrid. We think there must be other interesting regional & sectorial hubs.
Equipo (nombres y descripción de roles) / Team (names and roles description)
Rocío Márquez: (@arixha) Graphic Designer - Background in design and digital arts at Escola Massana & Pompeu Fabra University.
Role = Data gathering, aesthetics design, programming with Processing and user interface design.
Alberto González: (@algonpaje) Economist - Data analyst with ten years experience within multinational environments in Madrid, Barcelona and Amsterdam.
Role = Conceptual design, data gathering, refining and analysis. R programming and user interface design.
Jaime de Miguel:(@_417i) Architect - Architecture and Digital Fabrication at ETH Zurich Department Architecture. Projects and internships in London, Jiangsu and Madrid.
Role = Aesthetics design, geographic analysis and programming with Processing.
Special thanks to: Chema Díez del Corral, David Cabo, Amber Frid-Jimenez, Dietmar Offenhuber, Andrew Vande Moere, José Luis de Vicente, EOI and the Medialab Prado crew.
Medialab Tech Collaborators:
-Martín Nadal: Martín Nadal Berliches is an artist and professional programmer. In the past years he has collaborated in a variety of projects related to art and technology. He is interested in illustration and cinematography, and has presented his works in Dorkbot Madrid and Ars Electronica Festival in Linz (Austria). Also, he is involved in Medialab-Prado, where he has led different workshops.[12]
-Massimo Avvisati:Massimo Avvisati has been a code hacker for more than 15 years. He has worked in Italy for small and big companies creating web platforms and writing software in Perl, C++, PHP and Java (J2EE, Cocoon, Struts...). Beside working on projects he also teaches and develops video games for the "big and young ones", in the believe that education is not giving young hackers enough stimuli, well trained teachers and learning material... For 10 years he has been using free software for both applications development and contents. He has collaborated with Medialab-Prado and there he got to know Processing thanks to its creator, Casey Reas, and flipping out with its incredible potential. Currently his main activity in Spain is the re-engeneering of processes within the companies to introduce "agile" metodologies, create "communities 2.0" through Wordpress+Buddypress and the creation of interactive, artistic, playful and educational installations.
Datos / Sources, data structure, etc
There are four main datasets:
1.- Small and Medium Size companies: 7,000 companies under economic sectors which are considered as innovative. Data come from a database owned by the Escuela de Organización Industrial (EOI). Methodology: This category covers all companies that have been identified in the first group of selection criteria for belonging a technology-intensive sectors or in knowledge that have been found in platforms technology, science and technology centers, science parks or have been considered a source of information as technology-Based Firms (EBT).Additionally, the companies included in its annual report the existence of any of the direct indicators of R & D + i: exports and investments in patents, trademarks, licenses, or R + D + i. Therefore, companies that report will "belong to" + companies in the balance sheet items related to R & D + i with exports. Data associated to the 7,000 companies: geographical information, year of foundation, sector, sales + employees + sales/employees (average of 2006,2007 and 2008).[13]
2.- Universities:Data from public databases containing: geographical information, type of university, researchers, PhD's, researchers distribution by sex, fellows, scholarships, thesis and thesis done by foreigners by region.
3.- Scientific Research Centers:Data from public databases published by the National Research Council (CSIC):geographical information,research family and projects in 2009.[14]
4.-Correlations:Several variables coming from the National Statistics Institute (INE) public databases. Data covering: (A):innovation indicators (i.e.R&D expenditure, R&D employees per 1,000 population, patents). (B):sociological indicators (i.e.population,inmigrants) (C):educational (i.e.students/computer,teachers/computer) (D):information technologies (i.e.% of companies using Linux,% of employees working in information technologies) (E):wealth (i.e. personal income). Note: Normalized data.[15][16]
Desarrollo / Development process
-First week: Data gathering, refining and analysis + interface design + programming lenguages assesment + first prototype including zoom feature based on zip codes + visual tests in R, Excel and Processing.
-Second week: Data gathering, refining and analysis + programming in Processing & R + interface design + making off + exhibition poster + documentation.
Tecnologías y herramientas / Tools
-Excel = data gathering and refining
-R = Static charts and data analysis (patterns, stats). Library:ggplot2
-Processing = Interactive map & charts (libraries: P5, PeasyCam)
-OutWit Hub = Firefox add-in for parsing
-Illustrator+Photoshop = Prototype images + exhibition poster design.
-Openstreet maps = Transport infrastructures layer.
-Google API = Batch geocoding
