We are all geographers | Mingshu Wang | TEDxUGA
[Music] I am a geographer is anyone else a geographer please raise your hand come on okay let me refr my question like this who has ever used Yap supervisor or Google Maps app over your phone please raise your hand okay see today I'm going to tell you you are all geographers geography is beyond rocks rivers and mountains it is evolving all the time essentially it deals with relations between humans and the environment especially Regional and behaviorally Neo geography has emerged as a descriptive and analytical tool for a large number of people outside Academia it is a process catalyzed by digital mapping technology and practices of social networks in this information age the rise of NE geography during the past five years has contribute to tremendous growth of geot user generated contents and stimulate a new mode of knowledge generation process through cord sourcing probably you all know where cantino is and been there for tons of times but imagine I'm a newcomer to Athens Georgia I don't know where to eat on my first day here what I do I open up app my favorite app and look for place to eat then I come across this restaurant despite the $1 sign indicating it is Affordable to me I see there are 222 reviews along with more than four stars they are decent numbers because you tell me so so I decide to eat here I also rely on you to tell me what I'm going to order I read through your reviews of course sometimes I check the photos taken by you because this way I will have a vivid sense about what food really looks like okay I make my decision and order a Cen sandwich wow it tastes delicious and of course I write down my own reveal along with the sandwich in the photo think about this the other day I am about to drive to the Atlanta airport to pick up my friend my GPS tells me you drive directly to Route 316 and then go across downtown Atlanta why because it is the shortest distance between s Georgia to the airport see some of you left I know what you mean so I double check it with my Google Maps app see it direct me a slightly complicated however much faster route why why Google Maps app can give us a better traffic prediction Because of You beginning 2009 Google turned to you to help improve its traffic prediction accuracy when a driver is using Google Maps app with GPS enabled it anonymously send data back to the centralized server in Google and let Google know how fast that car is moving as more and more users using this app the traffic prediction become more and more reliable because in this way Google can take the average of speed of all the cars driving along the same rout without misinterpreting some as morning coffee stop as a traffic G see in both cases have you ever produced any Geotech information or knowledge yes definitely you have but have you ever been trained to do so no probably you haven't you act as a new geographer in both cases in the Y case you receive benefits from what others provide in the Google Map capes even though you probably even realize it yourself by using such app you and I we are mutually contributing to a fast routing recommendation system to anyone who is driving in the same area is this all about being a new geographer Beyond benefiting yourself your community your neighborhood actually you have a golden opportunity to advance and contribute to the whole scientific community recently I published a short article in environment and planning a um I used the idea of geog geography and user generated contents with geo location enabled and cross saing to map the price of Marijuana across the United States uh I come from China where marijuana is absolutely illegal I see it's very interesting in this country the legalization of marijuana is changing right now so why not do some research related to this topic imagine the price information about marijuana is not something you can directly pull from the Census Bureau correct so perhaps to get this information from Crossing to GA this from the consumer the end user who actually purchase them and use them is the only way to GA this information reliably look at these two figures I created the upper panel is just a typical semantic map where the darker the color is the higher the average price of Marijuana it is in that state the lower panel is a funing looking map called catogram in this catogram the area of States is proportional to the total number of cannabis users in that states what we can get from these figures first of all we see on average the price of marijuana in the eastern coast is much more expensive than that in the western coast we know Georgia just legalized the medical usage of marijuana last year let's see where Georgia is we can see it's roughly about $270 per ounce just right in the middle of this range in this case a large number of marijuana users they share the location price information about marijuana it actually advanc Geographic research and expand information available related to marijuana in the future such information can be incorporated with other houses statistics such as tobacco usage to promote and optimize population Health outcomes in addition to that because the price of Marijuana varies significantly across place to place within the United States it may also be helpful to use this information to inform strategies about plantation transportation and Logistics of marijuana so being a new geographer you keep adding Geotech data through using these apps therefore people like you and me will know the best foods at cantino the fastest way to get to Atlanta airport at the reasonable price of Marijuana among all other logistic issues in our everyday life moreover you and I we have the golden opportunity to make our own contribution to the whole scientific community in this age of information and social networks You are not alone let me ask the question again who is the geographer please raise your hand let us Embrace this new social identity together for a better future thank you