As part of the ongoing investigation into the concept of a Community Information Utility, Dr. Bob Maher, who heads the Applied Geomatics Research Group at the Nova Scotia Community College, is bringing Dr. Greg Baeker back to Nova Scotia.
Baeker will speak Wednesday, Oct. 5 at COGS, Lawrencetown in the AV Room at 10 am.
Maher previously brought in Paul Beach from SSM and Darko Poletto from Toronto to speak to the issues concerning the Community Information Utility, a concept Maher and his team are pursuing for Southwest Nova.
Baeker is a Cultural Planner who advises municipalities, primarily in Ontario, on their tangible and intangible assets from the perspective of cultural resources. For the last two years he has worked closely with AGRG on the use of web GIS in support of the Creative Rural Economy.
The classic example of the Creative Rural Economy is Prince Edward County in Ontario where a combination of music, food, and other knowledge-based businesses have revived the region’s economy and quality of life.
“This is an opportunity to reflect on similar assets in the Annapolis Valley,” said Maher.
Baeker was in Annapolis Royal at the end of April as keynote speaker at a two-day workshop called Creative Rural Economy and Cultural Mapping: Rediscovering the Wealth of Places.
Response to the event was positive:
"I was very impressed with the diverse cross section of area residents who attended and actively participated,” said one participant. “Most attendees were business owners from the area though many groups and associations were also represented. Attendance was high as was the level of interest."
"Dr. Greg Baeker gave an informative keynote address which laid the foundation for the discussions which took place afterwards,” said another who attended. “His detailed presentation of how cultural mapping was used to advantage in the Durham region of Ontario elicited many questions"
"The day’s session prompted much interest in cultural mapping and how GIS could be leveraged to foster local economic development in many practical applications,” said another. “The AGRG department of the Nova Scotia Community College is an incredible asset to help deploy such an initiative and advance it to the next level."
Baeker and helped pioneered the introduction of municipal cultural planning and cultural mapping concepts and practices in Ontario beginning in 2005.
Baeker is author of Municipal Cultural Planning: A Toolkit for Ontario Municipalities produced in 2011 for the Municipal Cultural Planning Inc. and the Ontario Ministry of Tourism and Culture. In 2010 Municipal World published Rediscovering the Wealth of Places: A Municipal Cultural Planning Handbook for Canadian Communities that is receiving acclaim across Canada and internationally.
He has a Masters in Museum Studies from the University of Toronto and a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Waterloo. He lives in Toronto.
