The EASIER Data Initiative
The EASIER Data Initiative is a partnership between the University of Maryland and the Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web developing decentralized cyberinfrastructure for storing, managing, and utilizing geospatial data.
Website: https://easierdata.org/
HQ: United States
Active Markets: Global
Problem Addressed
Geospatial professionals create and manage large data sets of content like vast amounts of satellite imagery. Additionally, scientific publishing necessitates the sharing, collaboration, and verification of findings. However, publications of data are often not reproducible or accessible due to broken links, differences in code versions, or lack of data detail included. The market for location data is noted as being a $12 billion opportunity, with potential benefits for local and federal governments, universities, and NGOs.
Project Description
EASIER stands for Efficient, Accessible, and Sustainable Infrastructure for Extracting Reliable data. The EASIER Data Initiative supports the development of digital tools such as on- and off-ramps and dashboard software for managing geospatial data, intending to address challenges around difficult to manage, large, siloed, and inaccessible data sets. EASIER partnered with Filecoin and IPFS to increase accessibility and composability of these data sets through decentralized blockchain storage. The EASIER Data Initiative and Filecoin are making these data sets available to broader networks of research organizations and to the general public.
Business Data
Status: Active
Constituency Served: Researchers, universities, research organizations
Networks: Filecoin
Known Investors: N/a
Additional References: N/a
Progress to date
EASIER held a Workshop on Open Geospatial Science and the Decentralized Geospatial Web in April 2024. The event attracted over 30 domain experts and leaders from industry, government, and academia. In January of 2024, EASIER announced the deployment of a Web3 geospatial data dashboard.
Business Model
Revenue model not disclosed.