OSGeo - User contributions [en]

Election 2025 Candidate Manifestos

2025-12-15T05:35:24Z

Mbernasocchi: /* About me */

A space for the candidates for election to the Board to share some information about themselves, their aspirations for OSGeo, what they would like to change, improve or introduce and what role they would like to play on the board.

You are welcome to follow the template, and add further relevant info as you need:

== ''Name Template'' - ''Country'' ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/''name''/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===

=== My vision ===

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===

=== What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any) ===

== ''Ariel Anthieni'' - ''Argentina'' ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/anthieni/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===

Today is my second time writing this manifesto, to introduce you to the Board, with my two years of learning many, challenges were presented to me, such as language and opportunities to collaborate with the global and regional community.

I started, as a curiosity in 2007 when I started the SDI of the province of Santa Fe in Argentina, where I was born, where everything was new for me, in 2012 with others we founded Geoinquietos, in Buenos Aires, where it became my home, and from then on we said, thanks to the support of the OSGeo community, I organized FOSS4G in Argentina, in 2016 I chaired the FOSS4G Argentina, and participated in the organization of the 2017 and 2019 editions.
I was also part of the organization of SOTM Argentina 2017 and SOTM LATAM 2018. In 2018, I was part of the foundation of the Geolibres Association (https://geolibres.org.ar/), which supports the geospatial communities of Argentina (Geolibres Argentina, Openstreetmap Argentina, QGIS Argentina).
Our first great challenge was to organize the International FOSS4G 2021 Buenos Aires and then supporting the region and so that free software is increasingly used, accompanying the creation of the local OSGeo chapter in Brazil and the organization of the International FOSS4G 2024 Belém, coordinating the LOC along with the chairs, which marked the integration of OsGeo in other regions of the world.
Also over the last few years I had the great opportunity to participate in the International and Regional FOSS4G, as well as Code Sprint and SOTM events.

In Latin America, together with ECLAC, we were able to design, develop and implement Open source solutions for statistical institutes in more than 12 countries, for the construction of SDIs and to generate the technological solution of the SDI Americas for the entire American continent.

Apart from this, I am the CEO of ([https://kan.com.ar/ Kan Territory & IT]), where we specialize in creating open source tools for cities, companies, institutions for the integration of geospatial, statistical and alphanumeric data, enhancing their solutions.

He is also actively involved in UN, UNGGIM and the UN Open GIS Initiative.

**Representation and current positions**
* Chair of the OSGeo UN Committee
* Co-Chair UN Open GIS
* OSGeo representative in the UNGGIM network of Geospatial Societies
* President of Geolibres Argentina
* CEO of Territorio Kan & TI

**Communities in which I participate**
* IDERA – IDE of Argentina
* UN OPEN GIS
* OSM LATAM
* QGISArgentina
* OSM Argentina
* Geolibres Argentina
* UNGGIM
* OSGeo UN Committee

=== My vision ===

My vision is very simple, to be able to achieve the use of open source in every corner of the planet, integrating and growing local communities to be able to achieve greater insertion in people's lives, improving their quality of life. and that it is not a limit on language, technology or knowledge transfer. Also raise awareness for the evolution of a sustainable Foundation over time so that it can continue supporting the projects that are incubated and new projects.

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===

* OSGeo representative in the UNGGIM 2022 Geospatial Societies network - current
* President of the OSGeo 2024 UN Committee - current
* Collaborator in the State of the LATAM Map 2025
* VP LATAM of OSGeo 2024
* Member of the OSGeo Board of Directors 2023-2024
* Coordinator of FOSS4G 2024 Belém (International)
* Collaborator in FOSS4G-AR 2017 and 2019
* Chair of FOSS4G-AR 2016
* Coordinator of FOSS4G Buenos Aires 2021 (International)
* Founding Member of Ge@inquietos Argentina
* Founder and current President of Geolibres Argentina
* Responsible for the Local Chapter OSM Argentina and QGIS Argentina
* Member of the SDI of Argentina since 2012

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

To be able to generate greater insertion of the regions that do not currently participate with the creation of local chapters in the countries that are missing. Achieve the sustainability of the foundation, seeing the possibility of obtaining a sponsor for open source in general, and from different regions. Continue supporting integration with the governments of the UN member countries and that language is not a limitation to integration.

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===

I would like to introduce more options so that open source developers from regions such as Latin America can easily access it, finish finalizing the local chapter of Colombia and strengthen links with the UN and its member countries through agreements and possible sponsorship. Then continue building with everything that has been achieved year after year to make the foundation increasingly more sustainable.

=== What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any) ===

I would like to be Vice President for Latin America, to be able to reach more countries and communities.

== ''Vicky Vergara'' - ''Mexico'' ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/vicky-vergara/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===

I haven't changed much from the last times I wrote a manifesto:
* On [https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2023_Candidate_Manifestos#Vicky_Vergara_-_Mexico_.28OSGeo_profile.29 2023] I wrote about my hobbies and what I like to do during a FOSS4G.
* On [https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2021_Candidate_Manifestos#Vicky_Vergara.2C_Mexico_.28OSGeo_profile.29 2021] I wrote about what the 9 year old me thought about where I live and how it has changed.
* On [https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2019_Candidate_Manifestos#5._Vicky_Vergara.2C_Mexico_.28OSGeo_profile.29 2019] I wrote about that my laziness make me do and redo things until I figure out how to do them efficient and fast, so the next time I do them I can be lazy.
* On [https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2017_Candidate_Manifestos#Vicky_Vergara 2017] I wrote about how I arrived to OSGeo

My conclusion re-reading the ''about me'' in those manifestos: I like to talk and write.

Some day I would like share with you the autographs I have gathered during the FOSS4G, that is I made people talk and write :-), in all languages, for example, this year I have in Nepali, Bengali, Japanese

This time I will leave my autograph in Spanish here:

Deseo que todo en su vida personal y profesional sea de lo mejor para todos.
Vicky

(Translation: I hope that everything in your personal or professional life is the best for you all.)

=== My vision ===

Summary if my Vision of OSGeo:

* OSGeo Foundation is here to serve the Flora of the world.
* OSGeo Foundation is here to serve the Fauna of the world.
* OSGeo Foundation is here to serve the Climate of the world.
* OSGeo Foundation is here to serve the People of the world.
* OSGeo Foundation is here to serve the Countries of the world.
* All OSGeo community members are PSC (Propose, Suggest and Comment)

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===

Normal life in front of the computer:
* Developing any of the pgRouting software:
** pgRouting
** vrpRouting
** osm2pgrouting
** pgRouting workshop
* Work on OSGeoLive:
** Documentation
** Checking the installed software
* Member of committees:
** Code of Conduct Committee
** System Administration Committee
** Board Member
* Other tasks
** Google Summer of Code mentor
** Read and answer mails

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

* The right to be the best one can be.
* Promote the development and use of Open Source Software.

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===

'''Think''' about why things are not happening.

* Why "[abc] is NOT [xyz] OSGeo".
* Why do some projects do not start incubation?
* Why is there no local OSGeo chapter in X country?
* Why do we have mostly sponsors from North America and Europe?
* Why we only hear (and see) those, who raise their voice and shout out loud. But we miss to reach the silent majority?
* What causes the "inactivity"?
* Are we scalable?
* Why ....

=== What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any) ===

Vice president of the Latin America Area

== ''Jeroen Ticheler'' - ''The Netherlands'' ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/jeroen-ticheler/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===

I’m Jeroen Ticheler, director and owner of ([https://www.geocat.net GeoCat]), founder of ([https://www.geonetwork-opensource.org GeoNetwork]) and current member of the board of directors of OSGeo.

I’m obsessed with helping organising and publishing (geospatial) data using free and open source software in a sustainable way. I started my career at the United Nations supporting Early Warning Systems with satellite imagery and quickly moved to also support the management of geospatial data.

Now, 25 years onwards, the GeoNetwork software we develop runs at over 85% of national geoportals in Europe (find thousands of harmonized, authoritative datasets ([https://inspire-geoportal.ec.europa.eu/srv/eng/catalog.search#/datathemes here]) ) and is in use at all levels in governments around the world.

A bit more background on me can be found in ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/jeroen-ticheler/ my OSGeo profile]) and in ([https://wiki.osgeo.org/w/index.php?title=Election_2023_Candidate_Manifestos#About_me the description]) for the 2023 elections.

=== My vision ===

For the coming two years I want to focus on change in OSGeo. For this I have written ([https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KRdCKB8HvI9FctF1Ulg6UfoCImjEYKaQkgg9l1HueZs '''a vision document''']) that is currently up for comments by the community. My goal is to ''Get Things Done''. More specifically those things described in the vision document that have traction within the community.

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===

Besides my involvement as PSC chair in the GeoNetwork opensource project, I have been involved as Charter member from 2006 onwards, served on the OSGeo Marketing and Conference Committees, as well as on the OSGeo Board (2007-2009 and 2023-now).

In the last 10+ years my involvement has also been in the form of a sponsor to OSGeo and FOSS4G (both global, regional and local) and by organising a yearly Code Sprint in Bolsena 2007-2023.

In the run up to the vision document mentioned above, I have taken time to talk face to face with numerous people and the current board membership.

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

As a member of the board I can help to '''make OSGeo future proof'''. This requires several concrete actions and needs our community to step up to the tasks to make that happen. As a community member with a long history, I'm convinced I can bring ideas to the table and move them forward.

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===

Yes, many. But the main ones would be:

# Numbered list item to '''make OSGeo financially solid''' so it can support its mission: To foster global adoption of open geospatial technology by being an inclusive software foundation devoted to an open philosophy and participatory community driven development.
# make sure there are new options for '''paid/supporting membership''' and for '''sponsoring''' that are attractive for both the community, sponsors, OSGeo and FOSS4G conference organisers.
# make sure there is '''a European legal entity of OSGeo''' that can serve its European membership, Local Chapters and the global OSGeo mission.

Furthermore one of the things that absolutely has my attention is responsible entrepreneurship. OSGeo needs to be a well balanced community of people from all parts of society, including volunteers, students and scientists, public servants and businesses.

=== What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any) ===

The role of president or vice president.

== Marco Bernasocchi, Switzerland ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/bernasocchi/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===
I am an open-source advocate, consultant, teacher, and developer. My background is in geography with a specialization in geographic information science. I live in Switzerland in a small Romansh speaking mountain village where I love scrambling around the mountains to enjoy the feeling of freedom it gives me. I’m a very communicative person, I fluently speak Italian, German, French English, and Spanish and love travelling.

I'm the QGIS.org Chair, serve on the OSGeo board as VP Europe and work as CEO of OPENGIS.ch which I founded in 2011. Since 2014 I share the company ownership with Matthias Kuhn. At OPENGIS.ch LLC we develop, train and consult our client on any aspect related to QGIS, QField, PostGIS and WebGIS technologies.

I first came in contact with the OSGEO world during my BSc when the University of Zurich was teaching us proprietary products and I started looking around for Open Source alternatives and started using QuantumGIS “Simon (0.6)”. In 2008, when starting my MSc, I made the definitive switch to Ubuntu and I started working more and more with QuantumGIS Metis (0.11) and ended developing some plugins and part of Globe as my Masters' thesis.

Since then my whole work has pivoted around QGIS and enabling people and companies to embrace opensource for their GIS needs.

=== My vision ===
Serving as a pragmatic community conciliator - collecting thoughts from people with differing opinions and trying to find the high road through difficult issues I want to focus my and the community's energies on being inclusive and forward-thinking.

I see FOSS as a very socially responsible way to develop software, but even more, I see the immense technological advantage that writing open-source code brings. This is why I always strive to allow both pragmatic and ideological views to respectfully coexist and enrich each other.

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===
* OSGeo Board member since 2021 (VP Europe)
* QGIS contributor since 2011
* QGIS.org Chair since 2020
* QGIS.org Vice-Chair 2018-2020
* QField (originally QGIS for android) creator
* FOSS4G Session Leader, various FOSS4G Talks and workshops
* Charter Member since 2018
* Google Summer of Code 2012: Mentor
* Google Summer of Code 2011: Student Developer

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

One of my main motivations to be part of the board is to help OSGeo keep its incredible growth rate by being even more attractive to new community members, sponsors and large/corporate users. To achieve this, to me the key is maintaining the right balance between sustainable processes and helping interesting and motivating grassroots projects.

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===
As still fairly technical driven person, I like to understand the inner workings of things and projects before commenting on changes :)

=== What role you would wish to fulfil on the board (if any) ===
I am open to any role based on how I could best serve the board.

== Matthew Hanson - United States ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/hanson/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===

I’m Matthew Hanson. I first attended FOSS4G in 2011 and have since participated in 10 international FOSS4G and 8 FOSS4G North America conferences. That first FOSS4G changed the course of my career, and made it clear this was the community and work I wanted to be part of.

I work in Earth observation and geospatial software, focusing on cloud‑native architectures, open standards, and open‑source tooling. I’m best known for my work on STAC and related efforts, and for talks and writing aimed at making interoperable geospatial systems more accessible. I currently work at Element 84 at the intersection of open source, commercial Earth observation, and operational systems.

=== My vision ===

I see OSGeo as a truly international foundation that brings together open‑source geospatial communities that have, over time, diverged across projects, regions, and domains. OSGeo has a unique role to play in helping these communities reconnect, share practices, and recognize their common ground.

I also believe OSGeo can help welcome people who are already using and contributing to open‑source geospatial software, but do not yet see themselves as part of the OSGeo community. By acting as a neutral, inclusive convening space, OSGeo can strengthen collaboration, elevate shared standards and values, and help the community adapt to a rapidly evolving geospatial ecosystem.

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===

My work has focused on standards, interoperability, and community education. I am a core contributor and long‑term advocate for STAC and have served on the STAC Steering Committee since its inception. I am also a member of the editorial board of the Cloud‑Native Geospatial Forum.

I regularly speak at FOSS4G (global and North America) and related events, and write about cloud‑native geospatial systems and open standards. Much of my work bridges open‑source projects, public agencies, and commercial satellite data providers to enable practical adoption and interoperability.

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

As a board member, I am interested in strengthening OSGeo’s international presence and supporting collaboration across the community. In particular, I want to help bring together open‑source geospatial communities that have grown apart, and help welcome practitioners who are already part of the ecosystem but may not yet identify with OSGeo.

I am also interested in how OSGeo can continue to evolve alongside emerging developer communities and modern software development practices, including the impact of cloud-native development and AI-assisted coding on how open-source projects are built, discovered, and sustained. I see OSGeo as a natural place to convene thoughtful, inclusive conversations around these changes.

Finally, I am interested in strengthening coordination between global and regional FOSS4G conferences, so that regional events and the global conference reinforce each other and contribute to a healthy, connected international community.

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===

If elected, I would like to help OSGeo strengthen connections across its diverse projects and communities, including those that operate somewhat independently today. I would also like to focus on outreach to practitioners who already rely on open‑source geospatial software but are not yet engaged with OSGeo, and encourage more cross‑project dialogue to reduce fragmentation.

=== What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any) ===

As a first‑time board member, my focus would be on contributing, learning, and supporting the existing board and its leadership. I respect the work of current board members and am open to serving in whatever role best supports the board and the broader OSGeo community.

[[Category:Elections]]
[[Category:Election 2025]]

Election 2025 Candidate Manifestos

2025-12-15T05:34:59Z

Mbernasocchi: /* About me */

A space for the candidates for election to the Board to share some information about themselves, their aspirations for OSGeo, what they would like to change, improve or introduce and what role they would like to play on the board.

You are welcome to follow the template, and add further relevant info as you need:

== ''Name Template'' - ''Country'' ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/''name''/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===

=== My vision ===

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===

=== What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any) ===

== ''Ariel Anthieni'' - ''Argentina'' ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/anthieni/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===

Today is my second time writing this manifesto, to introduce you to the Board, with my two years of learning many, challenges were presented to me, such as language and opportunities to collaborate with the global and regional community.

I started, as a curiosity in 2007 when I started the SDI of the province of Santa Fe in Argentina, where I was born, where everything was new for me, in 2012 with others we founded Geoinquietos, in Buenos Aires, where it became my home, and from then on we said, thanks to the support of the OSGeo community, I organized FOSS4G in Argentina, in 2016 I chaired the FOSS4G Argentina, and participated in the organization of the 2017 and 2019 editions.
I was also part of the organization of SOTM Argentina 2017 and SOTM LATAM 2018. In 2018, I was part of the foundation of the Geolibres Association (https://geolibres.org.ar/), which supports the geospatial communities of Argentina (Geolibres Argentina, Openstreetmap Argentina, QGIS Argentina).
Our first great challenge was to organize the International FOSS4G 2021 Buenos Aires and then supporting the region and so that free software is increasingly used, accompanying the creation of the local OSGeo chapter in Brazil and the organization of the International FOSS4G 2024 Belém, coordinating the LOC along with the chairs, which marked the integration of OsGeo in other regions of the world.
Also over the last few years I had the great opportunity to participate in the International and Regional FOSS4G, as well as Code Sprint and SOTM events.

In Latin America, together with ECLAC, we were able to design, develop and implement Open source solutions for statistical institutes in more than 12 countries, for the construction of SDIs and to generate the technological solution of the SDI Americas for the entire American continent.

Apart from this, I am the CEO of ([https://kan.com.ar/ Kan Territory & IT]), where we specialize in creating open source tools for cities, companies, institutions for the integration of geospatial, statistical and alphanumeric data, enhancing their solutions.

He is also actively involved in UN, UNGGIM and the UN Open GIS Initiative.

**Representation and current positions**
* Chair of the OSGeo UN Committee
* Co-Chair UN Open GIS
* OSGeo representative in the UNGGIM network of Geospatial Societies
* President of Geolibres Argentina
* CEO of Territorio Kan & TI

**Communities in which I participate**
* IDERA – IDE of Argentina
* UN OPEN GIS
* OSM LATAM
* QGISArgentina
* OSM Argentina
* Geolibres Argentina
* UNGGIM
* OSGeo UN Committee

=== My vision ===

My vision is very simple, to be able to achieve the use of open source in every corner of the planet, integrating and growing local communities to be able to achieve greater insertion in people's lives, improving their quality of life. and that it is not a limit on language, technology or knowledge transfer. Also raise awareness for the evolution of a sustainable Foundation over time so that it can continue supporting the projects that are incubated and new projects.

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===

* OSGeo representative in the UNGGIM 2022 Geospatial Societies network - current
* President of the OSGeo 2024 UN Committee - current
* Collaborator in the State of the LATAM Map 2025
* VP LATAM of OSGeo 2024
* Member of the OSGeo Board of Directors 2023-2024
* Coordinator of FOSS4G 2024 Belém (International)
* Collaborator in FOSS4G-AR 2017 and 2019
* Chair of FOSS4G-AR 2016
* Coordinator of FOSS4G Buenos Aires 2021 (International)
* Founding Member of Ge@inquietos Argentina
* Founder and current President of Geolibres Argentina
* Responsible for the Local Chapter OSM Argentina and QGIS Argentina
* Member of the SDI of Argentina since 2012

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

To be able to generate greater insertion of the regions that do not currently participate with the creation of local chapters in the countries that are missing. Achieve the sustainability of the foundation, seeing the possibility of obtaining a sponsor for open source in general, and from different regions. Continue supporting integration with the governments of the UN member countries and that language is not a limitation to integration.

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===

I would like to introduce more options so that open source developers from regions such as Latin America can easily access it, finish finalizing the local chapter of Colombia and strengthen links with the UN and its member countries through agreements and possible sponsorship. Then continue building with everything that has been achieved year after year to make the foundation increasingly more sustainable.

=== What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any) ===

I would like to be Vice President for Latin America, to be able to reach more countries and communities.

== ''Vicky Vergara'' - ''Mexico'' ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/vicky-vergara/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===

I haven't changed much from the last times I wrote a manifesto:
* On [https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2023_Candidate_Manifestos#Vicky_Vergara_-_Mexico_.28OSGeo_profile.29 2023] I wrote about my hobbies and what I like to do during a FOSS4G.
* On [https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2021_Candidate_Manifestos#Vicky_Vergara.2C_Mexico_.28OSGeo_profile.29 2021] I wrote about what the 9 year old me thought about where I live and how it has changed.
* On [https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2019_Candidate_Manifestos#5._Vicky_Vergara.2C_Mexico_.28OSGeo_profile.29 2019] I wrote about that my laziness make me do and redo things until I figure out how to do them efficient and fast, so the next time I do them I can be lazy.
* On [https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2017_Candidate_Manifestos#Vicky_Vergara 2017] I wrote about how I arrived to OSGeo

My conclusion re-reading the ''about me'' in those manifestos: I like to talk and write.

Some day I would like share with you the autographs I have gathered during the FOSS4G, that is I made people talk and write :-), in all languages, for example, this year I have in Nepali, Bengali, Japanese

This time I will leave my autograph in Spanish here:

Deseo que todo en su vida personal y profesional sea de lo mejor para todos.
Vicky

(Translation: I hope that everything in your personal or professional life is the best for you all.)

=== My vision ===

Summary if my Vision of OSGeo:

* OSGeo Foundation is here to serve the Flora of the world.
* OSGeo Foundation is here to serve the Fauna of the world.
* OSGeo Foundation is here to serve the Climate of the world.
* OSGeo Foundation is here to serve the People of the world.
* OSGeo Foundation is here to serve the Countries of the world.
* All OSGeo community members are PSC (Propose, Suggest and Comment)

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===

Normal life in front of the computer:
* Developing any of the pgRouting software:
** pgRouting
** vrpRouting
** osm2pgrouting
** pgRouting workshop
* Work on OSGeoLive:
** Documentation
** Checking the installed software
* Member of committees:
** Code of Conduct Committee
** System Administration Committee
** Board Member
* Other tasks
** Google Summer of Code mentor
** Read and answer mails

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

* The right to be the best one can be.
* Promote the development and use of Open Source Software.

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===

'''Think''' about why things are not happening.

* Why "[abc] is NOT [xyz] OSGeo".
* Why do some projects do not start incubation?
* Why is there no local OSGeo chapter in X country?
* Why do we have mostly sponsors from North America and Europe?
* Why we only hear (and see) those, who raise their voice and shout out loud. But we miss to reach the silent majority?
* What causes the "inactivity"?
* Are we scalable?
* Why ....

=== What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any) ===

Vice president of the Latin America Area

== ''Jeroen Ticheler'' - ''The Netherlands'' ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/jeroen-ticheler/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===

I’m Jeroen Ticheler, director and owner of ([https://www.geocat.net GeoCat]), founder of ([https://www.geonetwork-opensource.org GeoNetwork]) and current member of the board of directors of OSGeo.

I’m obsessed with helping organising and publishing (geospatial) data using free and open source software in a sustainable way. I started my career at the United Nations supporting Early Warning Systems with satellite imagery and quickly moved to also support the management of geospatial data.

Now, 25 years onwards, the GeoNetwork software we develop runs at over 85% of national geoportals in Europe (find thousands of harmonized, authoritative datasets ([https://inspire-geoportal.ec.europa.eu/srv/eng/catalog.search#/datathemes here]) ) and is in use at all levels in governments around the world.

A bit more background on me can be found in ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/jeroen-ticheler/ my OSGeo profile]) and in ([https://wiki.osgeo.org/w/index.php?title=Election_2023_Candidate_Manifestos#About_me the description]) for the 2023 elections.

=== My vision ===

For the coming two years I want to focus on change in OSGeo. For this I have written ([https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KRdCKB8HvI9FctF1Ulg6UfoCImjEYKaQkgg9l1HueZs '''a vision document''']) that is currently up for comments by the community. My goal is to ''Get Things Done''. More specifically those things described in the vision document that have traction within the community.

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===

Besides my involvement as PSC chair in the GeoNetwork opensource project, I have been involved as Charter member from 2006 onwards, served on the OSGeo Marketing and Conference Committees, as well as on the OSGeo Board (2007-2009 and 2023-now).

In the last 10+ years my involvement has also been in the form of a sponsor to OSGeo and FOSS4G (both global, regional and local) and by organising a yearly Code Sprint in Bolsena 2007-2023.

In the run up to the vision document mentioned above, I have taken time to talk face to face with numerous people and the current board membership.

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

As a member of the board I can help to '''make OSGeo future proof'''. This requires several concrete actions and needs our community to step up to the tasks to make that happen. As a community member with a long history, I'm convinced I can bring ideas to the table and move them forward.

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===

Yes, many. But the main ones would be:

# Numbered list item to '''make OSGeo financially solid''' so it can support its mission: To foster global adoption of open geospatial technology by being an inclusive software foundation devoted to an open philosophy and participatory community driven development.
# make sure there are new options for '''paid/supporting membership''' and for '''sponsoring''' that are attractive for both the community, sponsors, OSGeo and FOSS4G conference organisers.
# make sure there is '''a European legal entity of OSGeo''' that can serve its European membership, Local Chapters and the global OSGeo mission.

Furthermore one of the things that absolutely has my attention is responsible entrepreneurship. OSGeo needs to be a well balanced community of people from all parts of society, including volunteers, students and scientists, public servants and businesses.

=== What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any) ===

The role of president or vice president.

== Marco Bernasocchi, Switzerland ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/bernasocchi/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===
I am an open-source advocate, consultant, teacher, and developer. My background is in geography with a specialization in geographic information science. I live in Switzerland in a small Romansh speaking mountain village where I love scrambling around the mountains to enjoy the feeling of freedom it gives me. I’m a very communicative person, I fluently speak Italian, German, French English, and Spanish and love travelling.

I'm the QGIS.org Chair, serve on the OSGeo boeard as VP Europe and work as CEO of OPENGIS.ch which I founded in 2011. Since 2014 I share the company ownership with Matthias Kuhn. At OPENGIS.ch LLC we develop, train and consult our client on any aspect related to QGIS, QField, PostGIS and WebGIS technologies.

I first came in contact with the OSGEO world during my BSc when the University of Zurich was teaching us proprietary products and I started looking around for Open Source alternatives and started using QuantumGIS “Simon (0.6)”. In 2008, when starting my MSc, I made the definitive switch to Ubuntu and I started working more and more with QuantumGIS Metis (0.11) and ended developing some plugins and part of Globe as my Masters' thesis.

Since then my whole work has pivoted around QGIS and enabling people and companies to embrace opensource for their GIS needs.

=== My vision ===
Serving as a pragmatic community conciliator - collecting thoughts from people with differing opinions and trying to find the high road through difficult issues I want to focus my and the community's energies on being inclusive and forward-thinking.

I see FOSS as a very socially responsible way to develop software, but even more, I see the immense technological advantage that writing open-source code brings. This is why I always strive to allow both pragmatic and ideological views to respectfully coexist and enrich each other.

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===
* OSGeo Board member since 2021 (VP Europe)
* QGIS contributor since 2011
* QGIS.org Chair since 2020
* QGIS.org Vice-Chair 2018-2020
* QField (originally QGIS for android) creator
* FOSS4G Session Leader, various FOSS4G Talks and workshops
* Charter Member since 2018
* Google Summer of Code 2012: Mentor
* Google Summer of Code 2011: Student Developer

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

One of my main motivations to be part of the board is to help OSGeo keep its incredible growth rate by being even more attractive to new community members, sponsors and large/corporate users. To achieve this, to me the key is maintaining the right balance between sustainable processes and helping interesting and motivating grassroots projects.

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===
As still fairly technical driven person, I like to understand the inner workings of things and projects before commenting on changes :)

=== What role you would wish to fulfil on the board (if any) ===
I am open to any role based on how I could best serve the board.

== Matthew Hanson - United States ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/hanson/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===

I’m Matthew Hanson. I first attended FOSS4G in 2011 and have since participated in 10 international FOSS4G and 8 FOSS4G North America conferences. That first FOSS4G changed the course of my career, and made it clear this was the community and work I wanted to be part of.

I work in Earth observation and geospatial software, focusing on cloud‑native architectures, open standards, and open‑source tooling. I’m best known for my work on STAC and related efforts, and for talks and writing aimed at making interoperable geospatial systems more accessible. I currently work at Element 84 at the intersection of open source, commercial Earth observation, and operational systems.

=== My vision ===

I see OSGeo as a truly international foundation that brings together open‑source geospatial communities that have, over time, diverged across projects, regions, and domains. OSGeo has a unique role to play in helping these communities reconnect, share practices, and recognize their common ground.

I also believe OSGeo can help welcome people who are already using and contributing to open‑source geospatial software, but do not yet see themselves as part of the OSGeo community. By acting as a neutral, inclusive convening space, OSGeo can strengthen collaboration, elevate shared standards and values, and help the community adapt to a rapidly evolving geospatial ecosystem.

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===

My work has focused on standards, interoperability, and community education. I am a core contributor and long‑term advocate for STAC and have served on the STAC Steering Committee since its inception. I am also a member of the editorial board of the Cloud‑Native Geospatial Forum.

I regularly speak at FOSS4G (global and North America) and related events, and write about cloud‑native geospatial systems and open standards. Much of my work bridges open‑source projects, public agencies, and commercial satellite data providers to enable practical adoption and interoperability.

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

As a board member, I am interested in strengthening OSGeo’s international presence and supporting collaboration across the community. In particular, I want to help bring together open‑source geospatial communities that have grown apart, and help welcome practitioners who are already part of the ecosystem but may not yet identify with OSGeo.

I am also interested in how OSGeo can continue to evolve alongside emerging developer communities and modern software development practices, including the impact of cloud-native development and AI-assisted coding on how open-source projects are built, discovered, and sustained. I see OSGeo as a natural place to convene thoughtful, inclusive conversations around these changes.

Finally, I am interested in strengthening coordination between global and regional FOSS4G conferences, so that regional events and the global conference reinforce each other and contribute to a healthy, connected international community.

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===

If elected, I would like to help OSGeo strengthen connections across its diverse projects and communities, including those that operate somewhat independently today. I would also like to focus on outreach to practitioners who already rely on open‑source geospatial software but are not yet engaged with OSGeo, and encourage more cross‑project dialogue to reduce fragmentation.

=== What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any) ===

As a first‑time board member, my focus would be on contributing, learning, and supporting the existing board and its leadership. I respect the work of current board members and am open to serving in whatever role best supports the board and the broader OSGeo community.

[[Category:Elections]]
[[Category:Election 2025]]

Election 2025 Candidate Manifestos

2025-12-15T05:34:37Z

Mbernasocchi: /* Marco Bernasocchi, Switzerland (OSGeo profile) */

A space for the candidates for election to the Board to share some information about themselves, their aspirations for OSGeo, what they would like to change, improve or introduce and what role they would like to play on the board.

You are welcome to follow the template, and add further relevant info as you need:

== ''Name Template'' - ''Country'' ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/''name''/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===

=== My vision ===

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===

=== What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any) ===

== ''Ariel Anthieni'' - ''Argentina'' ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/anthieni/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===

Today is my second time writing this manifesto, to introduce you to the Board, with my two years of learning many, challenges were presented to me, such as language and opportunities to collaborate with the global and regional community.

I started, as a curiosity in 2007 when I started the SDI of the province of Santa Fe in Argentina, where I was born, where everything was new for me, in 2012 with others we founded Geoinquietos, in Buenos Aires, where it became my home, and from then on we said, thanks to the support of the OSGeo community, I organized FOSS4G in Argentina, in 2016 I chaired the FOSS4G Argentina, and participated in the organization of the 2017 and 2019 editions.
I was also part of the organization of SOTM Argentina 2017 and SOTM LATAM 2018. In 2018, I was part of the foundation of the Geolibres Association (https://geolibres.org.ar/), which supports the geospatial communities of Argentina (Geolibres Argentina, Openstreetmap Argentina, QGIS Argentina).
Our first great challenge was to organize the International FOSS4G 2021 Buenos Aires and then supporting the region and so that free software is increasingly used, accompanying the creation of the local OSGeo chapter in Brazil and the organization of the International FOSS4G 2024 Belém, coordinating the LOC along with the chairs, which marked the integration of OsGeo in other regions of the world.
Also over the last few years I had the great opportunity to participate in the International and Regional FOSS4G, as well as Code Sprint and SOTM events.

In Latin America, together with ECLAC, we were able to design, develop and implement Open source solutions for statistical institutes in more than 12 countries, for the construction of SDIs and to generate the technological solution of the SDI Americas for the entire American continent.

Apart from this, I am the CEO of ([https://kan.com.ar/ Kan Territory & IT]), where we specialize in creating open source tools for cities, companies, institutions for the integration of geospatial, statistical and alphanumeric data, enhancing their solutions.

He is also actively involved in UN, UNGGIM and the UN Open GIS Initiative.

**Representation and current positions**
* Chair of the OSGeo UN Committee
* Co-Chair UN Open GIS
* OSGeo representative in the UNGGIM network of Geospatial Societies
* President of Geolibres Argentina
* CEO of Territorio Kan & TI

**Communities in which I participate**
* IDERA – IDE of Argentina
* UN OPEN GIS
* OSM LATAM
* QGISArgentina
* OSM Argentina
* Geolibres Argentina
* UNGGIM
* OSGeo UN Committee

=== My vision ===

My vision is very simple, to be able to achieve the use of open source in every corner of the planet, integrating and growing local communities to be able to achieve greater insertion in people's lives, improving their quality of life. and that it is not a limit on language, technology or knowledge transfer. Also raise awareness for the evolution of a sustainable Foundation over time so that it can continue supporting the projects that are incubated and new projects.

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===

* OSGeo representative in the UNGGIM 2022 Geospatial Societies network - current
* President of the OSGeo 2024 UN Committee - current
* Collaborator in the State of the LATAM Map 2025
* VP LATAM of OSGeo 2024
* Member of the OSGeo Board of Directors 2023-2024
* Coordinator of FOSS4G 2024 Belém (International)
* Collaborator in FOSS4G-AR 2017 and 2019
* Chair of FOSS4G-AR 2016
* Coordinator of FOSS4G Buenos Aires 2021 (International)
* Founding Member of Ge@inquietos Argentina
* Founder and current President of Geolibres Argentina
* Responsible for the Local Chapter OSM Argentina and QGIS Argentina
* Member of the SDI of Argentina since 2012

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

To be able to generate greater insertion of the regions that do not currently participate with the creation of local chapters in the countries that are missing. Achieve the sustainability of the foundation, seeing the possibility of obtaining a sponsor for open source in general, and from different regions. Continue supporting integration with the governments of the UN member countries and that language is not a limitation to integration.

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===

I would like to introduce more options so that open source developers from regions such as Latin America can easily access it, finish finalizing the local chapter of Colombia and strengthen links with the UN and its member countries through agreements and possible sponsorship. Then continue building with everything that has been achieved year after year to make the foundation increasingly more sustainable.

=== What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any) ===

I would like to be Vice President for Latin America, to be able to reach more countries and communities.

== ''Vicky Vergara'' - ''Mexico'' ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/vicky-vergara/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===

I haven't changed much from the last times I wrote a manifesto:
* On [https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2023_Candidate_Manifestos#Vicky_Vergara_-_Mexico_.28OSGeo_profile.29 2023] I wrote about my hobbies and what I like to do during a FOSS4G.
* On [https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2021_Candidate_Manifestos#Vicky_Vergara.2C_Mexico_.28OSGeo_profile.29 2021] I wrote about what the 9 year old me thought about where I live and how it has changed.
* On [https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2019_Candidate_Manifestos#5._Vicky_Vergara.2C_Mexico_.28OSGeo_profile.29 2019] I wrote about that my laziness make me do and redo things until I figure out how to do them efficient and fast, so the next time I do them I can be lazy.
* On [https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2017_Candidate_Manifestos#Vicky_Vergara 2017] I wrote about how I arrived to OSGeo

My conclusion re-reading the ''about me'' in those manifestos: I like to talk and write.

Some day I would like share with you the autographs I have gathered during the FOSS4G, that is I made people talk and write :-), in all languages, for example, this year I have in Nepali, Bengali, Japanese

This time I will leave my autograph in Spanish here:

Deseo que todo en su vida personal y profesional sea de lo mejor para todos.
Vicky

(Translation: I hope that everything in your personal or professional life is the best for you all.)

=== My vision ===

Summary if my Vision of OSGeo:

* OSGeo Foundation is here to serve the Flora of the world.
* OSGeo Foundation is here to serve the Fauna of the world.
* OSGeo Foundation is here to serve the Climate of the world.
* OSGeo Foundation is here to serve the People of the world.
* OSGeo Foundation is here to serve the Countries of the world.
* All OSGeo community members are PSC (Propose, Suggest and Comment)

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===

Normal life in front of the computer:
* Developing any of the pgRouting software:
** pgRouting
** vrpRouting
** osm2pgrouting
** pgRouting workshop
* Work on OSGeoLive:
** Documentation
** Checking the installed software
* Member of committees:
** Code of Conduct Committee
** System Administration Committee
** Board Member
* Other tasks
** Google Summer of Code mentor
** Read and answer mails

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

* The right to be the best one can be.
* Promote the development and use of Open Source Software.

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===

'''Think''' about why things are not happening.

* Why "[abc] is NOT [xyz] OSGeo".
* Why do some projects do not start incubation?
* Why is there no local OSGeo chapter in X country?
* Why do we have mostly sponsors from North America and Europe?
* Why we only hear (and see) those, who raise their voice and shout out loud. But we miss to reach the silent majority?
* What causes the "inactivity"?
* Are we scalable?
* Why ....

=== What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any) ===

Vice president of the Latin America Area

== ''Jeroen Ticheler'' - ''The Netherlands'' ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/jeroen-ticheler/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===

I’m Jeroen Ticheler, director and owner of ([https://www.geocat.net GeoCat]), founder of ([https://www.geonetwork-opensource.org GeoNetwork]) and current member of the board of directors of OSGeo.

I’m obsessed with helping organising and publishing (geospatial) data using free and open source software in a sustainable way. I started my career at the United Nations supporting Early Warning Systems with satellite imagery and quickly moved to also support the management of geospatial data.

Now, 25 years onwards, the GeoNetwork software we develop runs at over 85% of national geoportals in Europe (find thousands of harmonized, authoritative datasets ([https://inspire-geoportal.ec.europa.eu/srv/eng/catalog.search#/datathemes here]) ) and is in use at all levels in governments around the world.

A bit more background on me can be found in ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/jeroen-ticheler/ my OSGeo profile]) and in ([https://wiki.osgeo.org/w/index.php?title=Election_2023_Candidate_Manifestos#About_me the description]) for the 2023 elections.

=== My vision ===

For the coming two years I want to focus on change in OSGeo. For this I have written ([https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KRdCKB8HvI9FctF1Ulg6UfoCImjEYKaQkgg9l1HueZs '''a vision document''']) that is currently up for comments by the community. My goal is to ''Get Things Done''. More specifically those things described in the vision document that have traction within the community.

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===

Besides my involvement as PSC chair in the GeoNetwork opensource project, I have been involved as Charter member from 2006 onwards, served on the OSGeo Marketing and Conference Committees, as well as on the OSGeo Board (2007-2009 and 2023-now).

In the last 10+ years my involvement has also been in the form of a sponsor to OSGeo and FOSS4G (both global, regional and local) and by organising a yearly Code Sprint in Bolsena 2007-2023.

In the run up to the vision document mentioned above, I have taken time to talk face to face with numerous people and the current board membership.

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

As a member of the board I can help to '''make OSGeo future proof'''. This requires several concrete actions and needs our community to step up to the tasks to make that happen. As a community member with a long history, I'm convinced I can bring ideas to the table and move them forward.

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===

Yes, many. But the main ones would be:

# Numbered list item to '''make OSGeo financially solid''' so it can support its mission: To foster global adoption of open geospatial technology by being an inclusive software foundation devoted to an open philosophy and participatory community driven development.
# make sure there are new options for '''paid/supporting membership''' and for '''sponsoring''' that are attractive for both the community, sponsors, OSGeo and FOSS4G conference organisers.
# make sure there is '''a European legal entity of OSGeo''' that can serve its European membership, Local Chapters and the global OSGeo mission.

Furthermore one of the things that absolutely has my attention is responsible entrepreneurship. OSGeo needs to be a well balanced community of people from all parts of society, including volunteers, students and scientists, public servants and businesses.

=== What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any) ===

The role of president or vice president.

== Marco Bernasocchi, Switzerland ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/bernasocchi/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===
I am an open-source advocate, consultant, teacher, and developer. My background is in geography with a specialization in geographic information science. I live in Switzerland in a small Romansh speaking mountain village where I love scrambling around the mountains to enjoy the feeling of freedom it gives me. I’m a very communicative person, I fluently speak Italian, German, French English, and Spanish and love travelling.
I'm the QGIS.org Chair, serve on the OSGeo boeard as VP Europe and work as CEO of OPENGIS.ch which I founded in 2011. Since 2014 I share the company ownership with Matthias Kuhn. At OPENGIS.ch LLC we develop, train and consult our client on any aspect related to QGIS, QField, PostGIS and WebGIS technologies.

I first came in contact with the OSGEO world during my BSc when the University of Zurich was teaching us proprietary products and I started looking around for Open Source alternatives and started using QuantumGIS “Simon (0.6)”. In 2008, when starting my MSc, I made the definitive switch to Ubuntu and I started working more and more with QuantumGIS Metis (0.11) and ended developing some plugins and part of Globe as my Masters' thesis.

Since then my whole work has pivoted around QGIS and enabling people and companies to embrace opensource for their GIS needs.

=== My vision ===
Serving as a pragmatic community conciliator - collecting thoughts from people with differing opinions and trying to find the high road through difficult issues I want to focus my and the community's energies on being inclusive and forward-thinking.

I see FOSS as a very socially responsible way to develop software, but even more, I see the immense technological advantage that writing open-source code brings. This is why I always strive to allow both pragmatic and ideological views to respectfully coexist and enrich each other.

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===
* OSGeo Board member since 2021 (VP Europe)
* QGIS contributor since 2011
* QGIS.org Chair since 2020
* QGIS.org Vice-Chair 2018-2020
* QField (originally QGIS for android) creator
* FOSS4G Session Leader, various FOSS4G Talks and workshops
* Charter Member since 2018
* Google Summer of Code 2012: Mentor
* Google Summer of Code 2011: Student Developer

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

One of my main motivations to be part of the board is to help OSGeo keep its incredible growth rate by being even more attractive to new community members, sponsors and large/corporate users. To achieve this, to me the key is maintaining the right balance between sustainable processes and helping interesting and motivating grassroots projects.

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===
As still fairly technical driven person, I like to understand the inner workings of things and projects before commenting on changes :)

=== What role you would wish to fulfil on the board (if any) ===
I am open to any role based on how I could best serve the board.

== Matthew Hanson - United States ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/hanson/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===

I’m Matthew Hanson. I first attended FOSS4G in 2011 and have since participated in 10 international FOSS4G and 8 FOSS4G North America conferences. That first FOSS4G changed the course of my career, and made it clear this was the community and work I wanted to be part of.

I work in Earth observation and geospatial software, focusing on cloud‑native architectures, open standards, and open‑source tooling. I’m best known for my work on STAC and related efforts, and for talks and writing aimed at making interoperable geospatial systems more accessible. I currently work at Element 84 at the intersection of open source, commercial Earth observation, and operational systems.

=== My vision ===

I see OSGeo as a truly international foundation that brings together open‑source geospatial communities that have, over time, diverged across projects, regions, and domains. OSGeo has a unique role to play in helping these communities reconnect, share practices, and recognize their common ground.

I also believe OSGeo can help welcome people who are already using and contributing to open‑source geospatial software, but do not yet see themselves as part of the OSGeo community. By acting as a neutral, inclusive convening space, OSGeo can strengthen collaboration, elevate shared standards and values, and help the community adapt to a rapidly evolving geospatial ecosystem.

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===

My work has focused on standards, interoperability, and community education. I am a core contributor and long‑term advocate for STAC and have served on the STAC Steering Committee since its inception. I am also a member of the editorial board of the Cloud‑Native Geospatial Forum.

I regularly speak at FOSS4G (global and North America) and related events, and write about cloud‑native geospatial systems and open standards. Much of my work bridges open‑source projects, public agencies, and commercial satellite data providers to enable practical adoption and interoperability.

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

As a board member, I am interested in strengthening OSGeo’s international presence and supporting collaboration across the community. In particular, I want to help bring together open‑source geospatial communities that have grown apart, and help welcome practitioners who are already part of the ecosystem but may not yet identify with OSGeo.

I am also interested in how OSGeo can continue to evolve alongside emerging developer communities and modern software development practices, including the impact of cloud-native development and AI-assisted coding on how open-source projects are built, discovered, and sustained. I see OSGeo as a natural place to convene thoughtful, inclusive conversations around these changes.

Finally, I am interested in strengthening coordination between global and regional FOSS4G conferences, so that regional events and the global conference reinforce each other and contribute to a healthy, connected international community.

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===

If elected, I would like to help OSGeo strengthen connections across its diverse projects and communities, including those that operate somewhat independently today. I would also like to focus on outreach to practitioners who already rely on open‑source geospatial software but are not yet engaged with OSGeo, and encourage more cross‑project dialogue to reduce fragmentation.

=== What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any) ===

As a first‑time board member, my focus would be on contributing, learning, and supporting the existing board and its leadership. I respect the work of current board members and am open to serving in whatever role best supports the board and the broader OSGeo community.

[[Category:Elections]]
[[Category:Election 2025]]

Election 2025 Candidate Manifestos

2025-12-15T05:31:23Z

Mbernasocchi: /* What you have done within the community in the past */

A space for the candidates for election to the Board to share some information about themselves, their aspirations for OSGeo, what they would like to change, improve or introduce and what role they would like to play on the board.

You are welcome to follow the template, and add further relevant info as you need:

== ''Name Template'' - ''Country'' ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/''name''/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===

=== My vision ===

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===

=== What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any) ===

== ''Ariel Anthieni'' - ''Argentina'' ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/anthieni/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===

Today is my second time writing this manifesto, to introduce you to the Board, with my two years of learning many, challenges were presented to me, such as language and opportunities to collaborate with the global and regional community.

I started, as a curiosity in 2007 when I started the SDI of the province of Santa Fe in Argentina, where I was born, where everything was new for me, in 2012 with others we founded Geoinquietos, in Buenos Aires, where it became my home, and from then on we said, thanks to the support of the OSGeo community, I organized FOSS4G in Argentina, in 2016 I chaired the FOSS4G Argentina, and participated in the organization of the 2017 and 2019 editions.
I was also part of the organization of SOTM Argentina 2017 and SOTM LATAM 2018. In 2018, I was part of the foundation of the Geolibres Association (https://geolibres.org.ar/), which supports the geospatial communities of Argentina (Geolibres Argentina, Openstreetmap Argentina, QGIS Argentina).
Our first great challenge was to organize the International FOSS4G 2021 Buenos Aires and then supporting the region and so that free software is increasingly used, accompanying the creation of the local OSGeo chapter in Brazil and the organization of the International FOSS4G 2024 Belém, coordinating the LOC along with the chairs, which marked the integration of OsGeo in other regions of the world.
Also over the last few years I had the great opportunity to participate in the International and Regional FOSS4G, as well as Code Sprint and SOTM events.

In Latin America, together with ECLAC, we were able to design, develop and implement Open source solutions for statistical institutes in more than 12 countries, for the construction of SDIs and to generate the technological solution of the SDI Americas for the entire American continent.

Apart from this, I am the CEO of ([https://kan.com.ar/ Kan Territory & IT]), where we specialize in creating open source tools for cities, companies, institutions for the integration of geospatial, statistical and alphanumeric data, enhancing their solutions.

He is also actively involved in UN, UNGGIM and the UN Open GIS Initiative.

**Representation and current positions**
* Chair of the OSGeo UN Committee
* Co-Chair UN Open GIS
* OSGeo representative in the UNGGIM network of Geospatial Societies
* President of Geolibres Argentina
* CEO of Territorio Kan & TI

**Communities in which I participate**
* IDERA – IDE of Argentina
* UN OPEN GIS
* OSM LATAM
* QGISArgentina
* OSM Argentina
* Geolibres Argentina
* UNGGIM
* OSGeo UN Committee

=== My vision ===

My vision is very simple, to be able to achieve the use of open source in every corner of the planet, integrating and growing local communities to be able to achieve greater insertion in people's lives, improving their quality of life. and that it is not a limit on language, technology or knowledge transfer. Also raise awareness for the evolution of a sustainable Foundation over time so that it can continue supporting the projects that are incubated and new projects.

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===

* OSGeo representative in the UNGGIM 2022 Geospatial Societies network - current
* President of the OSGeo 2024 UN Committee - current
* Collaborator in the State of the LATAM Map 2025
* VP LATAM of OSGeo 2024
* Member of the OSGeo Board of Directors 2023-2024
* Coordinator of FOSS4G 2024 Belém (International)
* Collaborator in FOSS4G-AR 2017 and 2019
* Chair of FOSS4G-AR 2016
* Coordinator of FOSS4G Buenos Aires 2021 (International)
* Founding Member of Ge@inquietos Argentina
* Founder and current President of Geolibres Argentina
* Responsible for the Local Chapter OSM Argentina and QGIS Argentina
* Member of the SDI of Argentina since 2012

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

To be able to generate greater insertion of the regions that do not currently participate with the creation of local chapters in the countries that are missing. Achieve the sustainability of the foundation, seeing the possibility of obtaining a sponsor for open source in general, and from different regions. Continue supporting integration with the governments of the UN member countries and that language is not a limitation to integration.

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===

I would like to introduce more options so that open source developers from regions such as Latin America can easily access it, finish finalizing the local chapter of Colombia and strengthen links with the UN and its member countries through agreements and possible sponsorship. Then continue building with everything that has been achieved year after year to make the foundation increasingly more sustainable.

=== What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any) ===

I would like to be Vice President for Latin America, to be able to reach more countries and communities.

== ''Vicky Vergara'' - ''Mexico'' ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/vicky-vergara/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===

I haven't changed much from the last times I wrote a manifesto:
* On [https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2023_Candidate_Manifestos#Vicky_Vergara_-_Mexico_.28OSGeo_profile.29 2023] I wrote about my hobbies and what I like to do during a FOSS4G.
* On [https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2021_Candidate_Manifestos#Vicky_Vergara.2C_Mexico_.28OSGeo_profile.29 2021] I wrote about what the 9 year old me thought about where I live and how it has changed.
* On [https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2019_Candidate_Manifestos#5._Vicky_Vergara.2C_Mexico_.28OSGeo_profile.29 2019] I wrote about that my laziness make me do and redo things until I figure out how to do them efficient and fast, so the next time I do them I can be lazy.
* On [https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2017_Candidate_Manifestos#Vicky_Vergara 2017] I wrote about how I arrived to OSGeo

My conclusion re-reading the ''about me'' in those manifestos: I like to talk and write.

Some day I would like share with you the autographs I have gathered during the FOSS4G, that is I made people talk and write :-), in all languages, for example, this year I have in Nepali, Bengali, Japanese

This time I will leave my autograph in Spanish here:

Deseo que todo en su vida personal y profesional sea de lo mejor para todos.
Vicky

(Translation: I hope that everything in your personal or professional life is the best for you all.)

=== My vision ===

Summary if my Vision of OSGeo:

* OSGeo Foundation is here to serve the Flora of the world.
* OSGeo Foundation is here to serve the Fauna of the world.
* OSGeo Foundation is here to serve the Climate of the world.
* OSGeo Foundation is here to serve the People of the world.
* OSGeo Foundation is here to serve the Countries of the world.
* All OSGeo community members are PSC (Propose, Suggest and Comment)

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===

Normal life in front of the computer:
* Developing any of the pgRouting software:
** pgRouting
** vrpRouting
** osm2pgrouting
** pgRouting workshop
* Work on OSGeoLive:
** Documentation
** Checking the installed software
* Member of committees:
** Code of Conduct Committee
** System Administration Committee
** Board Member
* Other tasks
** Google Summer of Code mentor
** Read and answer mails

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

* The right to be the best one can be.
* Promote the development and use of Open Source Software.

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===

'''Think''' about why things are not happening.

* Why "[abc] is NOT [xyz] OSGeo".
* Why do some projects do not start incubation?
* Why is there no local OSGeo chapter in X country?
* Why do we have mostly sponsors from North America and Europe?
* Why we only hear (and see) those, who raise their voice and shout out loud. But we miss to reach the silent majority?
* What causes the "inactivity"?
* Are we scalable?
* Why ....

=== What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any) ===

Vice president of the Latin America Area

== ''Jeroen Ticheler'' - ''The Netherlands'' ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/jeroen-ticheler/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===

I’m Jeroen Ticheler, director and owner of ([https://www.geocat.net GeoCat]), founder of ([https://www.geonetwork-opensource.org GeoNetwork]) and current member of the board of directors of OSGeo.

I’m obsessed with helping organising and publishing (geospatial) data using free and open source software in a sustainable way. I started my career at the United Nations supporting Early Warning Systems with satellite imagery and quickly moved to also support the management of geospatial data.

Now, 25 years onwards, the GeoNetwork software we develop runs at over 85% of national geoportals in Europe (find thousands of harmonized, authoritative datasets ([https://inspire-geoportal.ec.europa.eu/srv/eng/catalog.search#/datathemes here]) ) and is in use at all levels in governments around the world.

A bit more background on me can be found in ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/jeroen-ticheler/ my OSGeo profile]) and in ([https://wiki.osgeo.org/w/index.php?title=Election_2023_Candidate_Manifestos#About_me the description]) for the 2023 elections.

=== My vision ===

For the coming two years I want to focus on change in OSGeo. For this I have written ([https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KRdCKB8HvI9FctF1Ulg6UfoCImjEYKaQkgg9l1HueZs '''a vision document''']) that is currently up for comments by the community. My goal is to ''Get Things Done''. More specifically those things described in the vision document that have traction within the community.

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===

Besides my involvement as PSC chair in the GeoNetwork opensource project, I have been involved as Charter member from 2006 onwards, served on the OSGeo Marketing and Conference Committees, as well as on the OSGeo Board (2007-2009 and 2023-now).

In the last 10+ years my involvement has also been in the form of a sponsor to OSGeo and FOSS4G (both global, regional and local) and by organising a yearly Code Sprint in Bolsena 2007-2023.

In the run up to the vision document mentioned above, I have taken time to talk face to face with numerous people and the current board membership.

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

As a member of the board I can help to '''make OSGeo future proof'''. This requires several concrete actions and needs our community to step up to the tasks to make that happen. As a community member with a long history, I'm convinced I can bring ideas to the table and move them forward.

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===

Yes, many. But the main ones would be:

# Numbered list item to '''make OSGeo financially solid''' so it can support its mission: To foster global adoption of open geospatial technology by being an inclusive software foundation devoted to an open philosophy and participatory community driven development.
# make sure there are new options for '''paid/supporting membership''' and for '''sponsoring''' that are attractive for both the community, sponsors, OSGeo and FOSS4G conference organisers.
# make sure there is '''a European legal entity of OSGeo''' that can serve its European membership, Local Chapters and the global OSGeo mission.

Furthermore one of the things that absolutely has my attention is responsible entrepreneurship. OSGeo needs to be a well balanced community of people from all parts of society, including volunteers, students and scientists, public servants and businesses.

=== What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any) ===

The role of president or vice president.

== Marco Bernasocchi, Switzerland ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/bernasocchi/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===
I am an open-source advocate, consultant, teacher, and developer. My background is in geography with a specialization in geographic information science. I live in Switzerland in a small Romansh speaking mountain village where I love scrambling around the mountains to enjoy the feeling of freedom it gives me. I’m a very communicative person, I fluently speak Italian, German, French English, and Spanish and love travelling. I'm the QGIS.org Chair and work as CEO of OPENGIS.ch which I founded in 2011. Since 2014 I share the company ownership with Matthias Kuhn. At OPENGIS.ch LLC we develop, train and consult our client on any aspect related to QGIS, QField, PostGIS and WebGIS technologies.

I first came in contact with the OSGEO world during my BSc when the University of Zurich was teaching us proprietary products and I started looking around for Open Source alternatives and started using QuantumGIS “Simon (0.6)”. In 2008, when starting my MSc, I made the definitive switch to Ubuntu and I started working more and more with QuantumGIS Metis (0.11) and ended developing some plugins and part of Globe as my Masters' thesis.

Since then my whole work has pivoted around QGIS and enabling people and companies to embrace opensource for their GIS needs.

=== My vision ===
Serving as a pragmatic community conciliator - collecting thoughts from people with differing opinions and trying to find the high road through difficult issues I want to focus my and the community's energies on being inclusive and forward-thinking.

I see FOSS as a very socially responsible way to develop software, but even more, I see the immense technological advantage that writing open-source code brings. This is why I always strive to allow both pragmatic and ideological views to respectfully coexist and enrich each other.

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===
* OSGeo Board member since 2021 (VP Europe)
* QGIS contributor since 2011
* QGIS.org Chair since 2020
* QGIS.org Vice-Chair 2018-2020
* QField (originally QGIS for android) creator
* FOSS4G Session Leader, various FOSS4G Talks and workshops
* Charter Member since 2018
* Google Summer of Code 2012: Mentor
* Google Summer of Code 2011: Student Developer

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

One of my main motivations to be part of the board is to help OSGeo keep its incredible growth rate by being even more attractive to new community members, sponsors and large/corporate users. To achieve this, to me the key is maintaining the right balance between sustainable processes and helping interesting and motivating grassroots projects.

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===
As still fairly technical driven person, I like to understand the inner workings of things and projects before commenting on changes :)

=== What role you would wish to fulfil on the board (if any) ===
I am open to any role based on how I could best serve the board.

== Matthew Hanson - United States ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/hanson/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===

I’m Matthew Hanson. I first attended FOSS4G in 2011 and have since participated in 10 international FOSS4G and 8 FOSS4G North America conferences. That first FOSS4G changed the course of my career, and made it clear this was the community and work I wanted to be part of.

I work in Earth observation and geospatial software, focusing on cloud‑native architectures, open standards, and open‑source tooling. I’m best known for my work on STAC and related efforts, and for talks and writing aimed at making interoperable geospatial systems more accessible. I currently work at Element 84 at the intersection of open source, commercial Earth observation, and operational systems.

=== My vision ===

I see OSGeo as a truly international foundation that brings together open‑source geospatial communities that have, over time, diverged across projects, regions, and domains. OSGeo has a unique role to play in helping these communities reconnect, share practices, and recognize their common ground.

I also believe OSGeo can help welcome people who are already using and contributing to open‑source geospatial software, but do not yet see themselves as part of the OSGeo community. By acting as a neutral, inclusive convening space, OSGeo can strengthen collaboration, elevate shared standards and values, and help the community adapt to a rapidly evolving geospatial ecosystem.

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===

My work has focused on standards, interoperability, and community education. I am a core contributor and long‑term advocate for STAC and have served on the STAC Steering Committee since its inception. I am also a member of the editorial board of the Cloud‑Native Geospatial Forum.

I regularly speak at FOSS4G (global and North America) and related events, and write about cloud‑native geospatial systems and open standards. Much of my work bridges open‑source projects, public agencies, and commercial satellite data providers to enable practical adoption and interoperability.

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

As a board member, I am interested in strengthening OSGeo’s international presence and supporting collaboration across the community. In particular, I want to help bring together open‑source geospatial communities that have grown apart, and help welcome practitioners who are already part of the ecosystem but may not yet identify with OSGeo.

I am also interested in how OSGeo can continue to evolve alongside emerging developer communities and modern software development practices, including the impact of cloud-native development and AI-assisted coding on how open-source projects are built, discovered, and sustained. I see OSGeo as a natural place to convene thoughtful, inclusive conversations around these changes.

Finally, I am interested in strengthening coordination between global and regional FOSS4G conferences, so that regional events and the global conference reinforce each other and contribute to a healthy, connected international community.

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===

If elected, I would like to help OSGeo strengthen connections across its diverse projects and communities, including those that operate somewhat independently today. I would also like to focus on outreach to practitioners who already rely on open‑source geospatial software but are not yet engaged with OSGeo, and encourage more cross‑project dialogue to reduce fragmentation.

=== What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any) ===

As a first‑time board member, my focus would be on contributing, learning, and supporting the existing board and its leadership. I respect the work of current board members and am open to serving in whatever role best supports the board and the broader OSGeo community.

[[Category:Elections]]
[[Category:Election 2025]]

Election 2025 Candidate Manifestos

2025-12-13T10:34:39Z

Mbernasocchi: Add mbernasocchi

FOSS4G 2025/Community sprint

2025-10-09T07:25:32Z

Mbernasocchi: /* Registered Attendees */

== Community Events and Code Sprint ==

Participation is free of charge and anyone involved or interested in getting involved in OSGeo community projects is welcome.

You can choose to contribute to one or more projects. The sky is the limit. There’s always plenty to do – and it’s not all about programming. Translation, documentation, feedback, discussions, and testing are very important for projects! Conference registration is not a prerequisite for participation in the community sprint.

=== When ===

Community Events and Code Sprints will be held on

* '''Saturday 22nd November 2025, 9am - 5pm'''
* '''Sunday 23rd November 2025, 9am - 5pm'''

=== Where ===

The community sprint will be hosted at the Conference Venue at [https://2025.foss4g.org/attend/conference-venue AUT].

== Registered Attendees ==

The community sprint is free of charge but we kindly ask you to write down your name for better planning.

{| border="1" cellpadding="2" class="wikitable sortable"
!width="30"|No
!width="250"|Name
!width="250"|Email
!width="250"|Projects
!width="250"|Registered to FOSS4G conference
!width="250"|Present on Sat 22nd
!width="250"|Present on Sun 23rd
|-
|1 || [[User:SimonNitz|Simon Nitz]] || simon.nitz@whanganui.govt.nz || Helping out with anything || Yes || Yes || Yes
|+
|2 || [[User:Jerstlouis|Jerome St-Louis]] || jerome@ecere.com || Code Sprint: DGGAL and libCartoSym || Yes || Yes || Yes
|+
|3 || Thomas Dowling || thomas.dowling@auckland.ac.nz || Earth Observation Lab Aotearoa Hackathon || Yes || Yes || Yes
|+
|4 || [[User:Mazingaro|Alen Mangafić]] || alen.mangafic AT gis.si || Improving i.hyper (GRASS) || Yes || Yes || Yes
|+
|5 || Dawn Hendrick || dawn_hendrick@hotmail.com || HOTOSM mapping || Yes || Yes || No
|+
|6 || Felix Palmer || felixpalmer@gmail.com || Code Sprint: Deck.gl || Yes || Yes || Yes
|+
|7 || Marco Bernasocchi|| marco@opengis.ch || Code Sprint: qgis/qfield || Yes || Yes || tbd
|+
|N || my name || my email || projects I will work on || x || x || x ||
|}

-----

= Events =

== QGIS User Group ==

Information to come!

== Earth Observation Lab Aotearoa Hackathon ==

A hackathon, using the raw data that is coming down from the TPA-1 satellite(https://www.nanosats.eu/sat/tpa-1) to the UoA Space Institute.

UOA and EOLab are working together to get this data accessible to wider NZ. It is nothing fancy, RGB and fairly low res, needs everything done to it from geo-registration upwards. But could be a cool chance for the community to get a chance to play with raw data that is coming off the first Kiwi built, owned and operated satellite.

Thomas Dowling thomas.dowling@auckland.ac.nz

https://eolabaotearoa.co.nz/

-----

== HOTOSM mapping ==

Saturday Morning, to be confirmed.

-----

= Overall Organization =

The [https://2025.foss4g.org/organisers FOSS4G 2025 Team] is the proud organiser of the community event and code sprint days.

For any question you can contact [[User:SimonNitz|Simon Nitz]], the person in charge of the FOSS4G 2025 Program.

[[Category:FOSS4G2025]] [[Category:FOSS4G]] [[Category:Code_Sprints]]

FOSS4G 2025/Community sprint

2025-10-09T07:25:00Z

Mbernasocchi: Add mbernasocchi

== Community Events and Code Sprint ==

Participation is free of charge and anyone involved or interested in getting involved in OSGeo community projects is welcome.

You can choose to contribute to one or more projects. The sky is the limit. There’s always plenty to do – and it’s not all about programming. Translation, documentation, feedback, discussions, and testing are very important for projects! Conference registration is not a prerequisite for participation in the community sprint.

=== When ===

Community Events and Code Sprints will be held on

* '''Saturday 22nd November 2025, 9am - 5pm'''
* '''Sunday 23rd November 2025, 9am - 5pm'''

=== Where ===

The community sprint will be hosted at the Conference Venue at [https://2025.foss4g.org/attend/conference-venue AUT].

== Registered Attendees ==

The community sprint is free of charge but we kindly ask you to write down your name for better planning.

{| border="1" cellpadding="2" class="wikitable sortable"
!width="30"|No
!width="250"|Name
!width="250"|Email
!width="250"|Projects
!width="250"|Registered to FOSS4G conference
!width="250"|Present on Sat 22nd
!width="250"|Present on Sun 23rd
|-
|1 || [[User:SimonNitz|Simon Nitz]] || simon.nitz@whanganui.govt.nz || Helping out with anything || Yes || Yes || Yes
|+
|2 || [[User:Jerstlouis|Jerome St-Louis]] || jerome@ecere.com || Code Sprint: DGGAL and libCartoSym || Yes || Yes || Yes
|+
|3 || Thomas Dowling || thomas.dowling@auckland.ac.nz || Earth Observation Lab Aotearoa Hackathon || Yes || Yes || Yes
|+
|4 || [[User:Mazingaro|Alen Mangafić]] || alen.mangafic AT gis.si || Improving i.hyper (GRASS) || Yes || Yes || Yes
|+
|5 || Dawn Hendrick || dawn_hendrick@hotmail.com || HOTOSM mapping || Yes || Yes || No
|+
|6 || Felix Palmer || felixpalmer@gmail.com || Code Sprint: Deck.gl || Yes || Yes || Yes
|+
|7 || Marco Bernasocchi|| marco@opengis.ch || Code Sprint: qgis/qfield || Yes || Yes || Yes
|+
|N || my name || my email || projects I will work on || x || x || x ||
|}

-----

= Events =

== QGIS User Group ==

Information to come!

== Earth Observation Lab Aotearoa Hackathon ==

A hackathon, using the raw data that is coming down from the TPA-1 satellite(https://www.nanosats.eu/sat/tpa-1) to the UoA Space Institute.

UOA and EOLab are working together to get this data accessible to wider NZ. It is nothing fancy, RGB and fairly low res, needs everything done to it from geo-registration upwards. But could be a cool chance for the community to get a chance to play with raw data that is coming off the first Kiwi built, owned and operated satellite.

Thomas Dowling thomas.dowling@auckland.ac.nz

https://eolabaotearoa.co.nz/

-----

== HOTOSM mapping ==

Saturday Morning, to be confirmed.

-----

= Overall Organization =

The [https://2025.foss4g.org/organisers FOSS4G 2025 Team] is the proud organiser of the community event and code sprint days.

For any question you can contact [[User:SimonNitz|Simon Nitz]], the person in charge of the FOSS4G 2025 Program.

[[Category:FOSS4G2025]] [[Category:FOSS4G]] [[Category:Code_Sprints]]

UnitedNations Committee

2024-12-05T13:25:14Z

Mbernasocchi: update chair

== Background ==
The OSGeo Board of Directors met with the UN GIS team at FOSS4G in Seoul, Korea in September 2015. The UN GIS team is very interested in having OSGeo "at the table". Mr. Kyoung-Soo Eom, chief of the UN Geospatial Information Section, has invited OSGeo to be part of a working group on Geospatial Information and Services for Disasters to support the UN migration to Open Source Geospatial software solutions.

===UN Open GIS initiative===
"... it is to identify and develop an Open Source GIS bundle that meets the requirements of UN operations, taking full advantage of the expertise of mission partners (partner nations, technology contributing countries, international organizations, academia, NGOs, private sector). The strategic approach shall be developed with best and shared principles, standards and ownership, in a prioritized manner that addresses capability gaps and needs without duplicating efforts of other Member States or entities. The UN OpenGIS Initiative strategy shall collaboratively and cooperatively develop, validate, assess, migrate, and implement sound technical capabilities with all the appropriate documentation and training that in the end provides a united effort to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of utilizing Open Source GIS around the world."

===UN Open GIS Initiative Terms of Reference ===

1. Objectives

The Objective of the UN Open GIS Initiative is to identify and develop open source geospatial software and services that meet the requirements of UN operations, taking full advantage of the expertise of mission partners including partner nations, technology developed by contributing countries, international organizations, academia, NGOs, and private sector.

2. Terms of Reference

These Terms of Reference are effective as of (date) and will be ongoing until terminated by agreement of the Strategic Board (SB).

3. Membership

The members of the UN Open GIS Initiative are composed of:

* Contributors: Any organization who agrees with the objectives of the UN Open GIS and actively contributes to the UN Open GIS Initiative in terms of financial, materials, solutions, technologies, or human resources. The Contributor membership shall be decided by the Strategic Board.

* Observers: Any individual person or organization who agrees with the objectives of the UN Open GIS and participate in the UN Open GIS Initiative activity. The Observer membership shall be granted by the Strategic Board.

4. Roles and Responsibilities

The governance structure of the UN Open GIS Initiative comprises of:

* Strategic Board:

* Co-Chairs and Secretariats

* Technical Advisory Group

* Requirement Advisory Group

* Assessment Team

* Spirals

4.1 Strategic Board (SB)

The Strategic Board consists of representatives from each contributor where each contributor nominates one representative to the Strategic Board. The Strategic Board is responsible for deciding goals, strategic planning, creation of new spiral, election of co-chairs, appointment of technical advisory group members, requirement advisory group members, and assessment team members.

4.2 Co-Chairs

There are three Co-Chairs, where one Co-Chair is appointed from UN and two Co-Chairs are elected among the Strategic Board members. They chair the Strategic Board meeting and take the responsibility of all UN Open GIS Initiative activities.

4.3 Secretariat

The secretariat is made of representatives of the contributors in support of the Co-Chairs and the activities of the UN Open GIS.

4.4 Technical Advisory Group (TAG)

The Technical Advisory Group consists of key technical experts from the contributors and specialists, appointed by the SB. This group is responsible for the synchronization of spirals and technical decisions on the UN Open GIS architecture. The TAG will elect one group leader and co-leaders, who organize and moderate the activities of the group.

4.5 Requirement Advisory Group (RAG)

The Requirement Advisory Group consists of key experts from UN and the contributors appointed by the SB. This group is responsible for identifying and providing the requirements of geospatial solutions and services for UN operations. The RAG will elect one group leader and co-leaders, who organize and moderate the activities of the group.

4.5 Assessment Team (AT)

The Assessment Team consists of key experts from UN and the contributors appointed by the SB. This team defines proper assessment methods and procedures, and carries out assessments of the deliverables. The AT elects one leader and co-leaders, who are responsible for maintaining the activities of the team.

4.6 Spirals

Since each goal of the UN Open GIS Initiative is achieved in incremental ways, we operate working group, called Spiral, for each specific goal. New Spirals are created by the SB for specific goals. The SB will designate one leader and co-leaders. The leader and co-leaders will develop a work plan to achieve the goals.

Annex

A. Definition of Open Source

Open Source encompasses two related concepts regarding the way software is developed and licensed. They are codified in the "Free Software" and the "Open Source" definitions. "Free and Open Source Software" refers to software which has been made available under a free software license with the rights to run the program for any purpose, to study how the program works, to adapt it, and to redistribute copies, including modifications. These freedoms enable Open Source software development, a public, collaborative model that promotes early publishing and frequent releases. The Open Source Initiative has developed a set of 10 requirements of any software license that is to be considered an Open Source license under the Open Source Definition.

B. (March 11, 2016) The Founding Contributors comprises of

* UN (Headquarter, GSC, Field Mission Teams)

* GeoSHAPE Project (USA)

* OpenGeo Suite Project (USA)

* OpenGDS (Republic of Korea)

* OSGeo (NGO)

* GeoForAll (Educational Outreach of OSGeo Foundation)

* GeoSDI (Italy)

C. The list of Spirals is as follows;

- Spiral 1 – UN Open Geo-Portal (March 11, 2016) led by Anthony Calamito

- Spiral 2 – Capacity Building (May, 2016) led by Maria Brovelli

- Spiral 3 – Geo-Analysis (March 11, 2016) led by Hae Kyong Kang

- Spiral 4 – Data Acquisition (March 11, 2016) led by Ki-Joune Li

D. (October 30, 2016) The initial Strategic Board Members comprises of

- GeoSHAPE: Juan Hurtado

- OpenGeo Suite: Anthony Calamito

- OpenGDS: Ki-Joune Li

- OSGeo: Massimilliano Cannata

- Geo4All: Maria Brovelli

- GeoSDI: Dimitri Dello Bruono

- UN HQ: Kyoung-Soo Eom

- UN GSC: Mohamed A. Mohamed

- UN Missions: Jasenko Udovicic, Kais Zouabi

E. The Co-Chairs are

- Juan Hurtado (March 11, 2016)

- Ki-Joune Li (March 11, 2016)

- Kyoung-Soo Eom (August 30, 2016)

F. (August 30, 2016) The Secretariat comprises of

- Danica Baptist

- Hae-Kyong Kang

(Modification History)

* Initially Drafted by Ki-Joune Li, Aug. 26, 2016

* Corrected by Danica Baptist, Aug. 26, 2016

* Corrected at SB meeting, Aug. 30, 2016

* Corrected by Ki-Joune Li, Oct. 10, 2016 to finalize SB and Secretariats and to reflect the modification of the initiative name

* Corrected by Ki-Joune Li, Oct. 21, 2016 to reflect the comments from OSGeo members.

== Goals ==

* Support the UN's member states and committees through:
** OSGeo's service providers
** the GeoForAll network
* Emphasize to the UN and its members the benefits of the stable OSGeo stack of projects
* Establish communication between the UN-GIS team and the OSGeo community.
* Foster the outreach activities of OSGeo

== Communication ==

* a new "UN" mailing list has been created, please subscribe at https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/un and add your name to the list of the committee members at the end of this page.

== Activities ==

===October 2015===
* OSGeo has formally expressed interest in joining the [[UN-GGIM-Working-Group]] on Geospatial Information and Services for Disasters
** this was discussed at OSGeo's [[Board_Meeting_2015-10-15]]
** the UN is looking for feedback on the working group's [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/UN-GGIM-Working-Group#Draft_terms_of_reference_.28TOR.29 TOR draft]

===March 2016===
* OSGeo participated to a UNopenGIS initiative (Brindisi, Italy, 5-10th March 2016) meeting and where formally incorporated in the UN Open GIS initiative as member of the initiative technical committee.
* Call for "UN Training Material". The Material available here: https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/UNTraining

===April 2016===
* Birth of "Spiral 2: Capacity Building" Working Group under the direction of Maria Antonia Brovelli (OSGeo), Diego Gonzales Ferreiro (UN) and Juan Curtado (US South Command).
* Decision (taking into account UN exigencies) to start the training with QGIS, PostGIS, Geonode, Geoserver, OpenLayers
* Call for volunteers within GeoForAll for revising available tutorials related to QGIS, PostGIS, GeoNode, Geoserver, OpenLayers

===May - June - July 2016 ===
* Revision and discussions about QGIS, PostGIS and GeoNode tutorials. People contributing: Alberta Albertella, Gregory Giuliani, Scott Hatcher, Ivana Ivanova, Thomas Mueller, Rick Smith, Mike Pumphrey, Vivien Deparday, Ariel Núñez, Paolo Corti, Francesco Stompanato, Dimitris Karakostis, Dilek Emanetoglu, Arun Kumar Muthusamy, Andres Felipe Poveda Sanchez, Stanly Shaji

===August 2016===
* UNopenGIS governance has been defined and OSGeo and GeoForAll have been incorporated in it:

Massimiliano Cannata and Maria Brovelli are member of the Strategic Board, Serena Coetzee and Jeffrey Johnson are member of the User Requirement Committee, Jeroen Ticheler and Sanghee Shin are members of the Technical Committee, and Gregory Giuliani member of the Assessment Committee.

* A logo contest has been set up and run by OSGeo to brand the initiative (see [[UN_OpenGIS_logo_contest]])

===September 2016===
* The 19th September 2016 the first UN virtual class of Spiral 2 start its activity with GeoAcademy QGIS.The virtual class will work using the Beep Platform of Politecnico di Milano, as teaching platform. Tutors of this first course were:
Thomas Mueller, Rick Smith and Youngok Kang. Alberta Albertella will help in accessing and using the platform (for sharing material, upload files, homework, webconference, blog, etc)

Four editions of this course was issued for a total of 72 GIS experts of Operational Field (Peacekeeping Actions) of UN.
The courses were scheduled:
19 September - 18 October 2016
19 October - 18 November 2016
19 November - 19 December 2016
9 January - 8 February 2017

Volunteers who were involved are:
Thomas Mueller, Rick Smith, Youngok Kang, Lene Fischer and Kurt Menke.

===November 2016===
* Second UN openGIS initiative workshops held in Seoul 7-11 November

For details see

the webinar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Te5THhj51-g
and the slides https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxwcvLoMZAurNWN2dmNzQnd1OW8/view

===January 2017===
* The 16th January 2017 the second UN virtual class of Spiral 2 started its activity with Boundless PostGIS.The virtual class will work using the Beep Platform of Politecnico di Milano, as teaching platform. Tutors of this course are:
Mike Pumphrey Ivana Ivanova Gregory Giuliani Paolo Corti Victoria Rautenbach. Alberta Albertella is helping in accessing and using the platform (for sharing material, upload files, homework, webconference, blog, etc)

=== April 2017 ===
* '''Meeting at United Nations Global Service Centre - Brindisi, Italy, 27-28 April 2017'''

The meeting was organized in two days and included
* the combined demonstration and field test of the Modular Command Centre and mini Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) based Rapid Geospatial Solution

*the presentation (and discussion) of the UN Open GIS project to UN, Member States, other international organisations and academia [1]

=== July 2017 ===
* '''Presentation of the UN Open GIS Initiative at FOSS4G Europe'''

Main elements of interest by OSGeo UN Committee and GeoForAll:

*Spiral 1 (WG1): the UN Open GIS Initiative GeoPortal. The Platform is based on Geoshape-Exchange, developed by Boundless and supported by US DoD.

*Spiral 2 (WG2): capacity building for UN staff members on open source geospatial technologies. The initiative is supported by volunteer activity of OSGeo and GeoForAll members. QGIS (concluded) and PostGIS (in progress) have been taught by using as educational platform that of Politecnico di Milano.

*Spiral 3 (WG3): geospatial analysis. More than 140 new geospatial functions for Web and Desktop available at [2]. Those pieces of software were made avaialable by OpenGDS (South Korea). Educational material will be provided soon. The original material is available in Korean. It will be translated in English but some help in cleaning it by English native speakers is more than welcome.

*Spiral 4 (WG4): tools for data collection. The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) based Rapid Geospatial Solution is part of the WG activities and the software will be available soon. The development is part of the activity of OpenGDS (South Korea). Some South Korean companies are contributing to the development; among them Gaia3D, Inc.

* I discussed with Kyoung-Soo Eom and Ki-Joune Li (the two chairs of UN Open GIS Initiative) the document “Resourcing Open Source Geospatial Training for the United Nations” [3]. The theme of sustainability is very relevant to UN Open GIS initiative (and more in general to UN). We agreed to organize a first exploratory Skype or hangout meeting, together with Cameron Shorter (who promoted this initiative) to discuss the document before presenting it to the next UN Open GIS Initiative VTC.

I recall you that the UN Open GIS Initiative VTC meeting is scheduled the second Wednesday of every month at 1 pm UTC. People interested can attend. Just let me know in such a way that I communicate your interest to the chairs.

[1] https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3dBcNKACjRlcDZTa0JsNUlab0U/view?usp=sharing

[2] https://github.com/MapPlus/spatial_statistics_for_geotools_udig

[3] https://docs.google.com/document/d/19Di-WxImfPq5oF2jeBblxNjY0JYJoXegLc5jaTPjufM/edit#heading=h.g1mf7fn4rfea

=== August 2017 ===
* '''Presentation of the UN Open GIS Initiative at FOSS4G in Boston'''

=== March 2018 ===

The Initiative "UN Open GIS" is going ahead regularly.

1) Jeff has started his activity as Chair of the Technical Advisory Group (thanks to Sanghee for beinng the Chair before and for having done a wonderful work).

2) For those interested, there is a a regular VTC of UN Open GIS Initiative every month (the second Wednesday of the month at 3 pm Italy time).

3) Serena and Maria have been working hard for preparing the Open Call "Capacity Building for UN". Unfortunately we didn't get from the OSGeo Board the whole budget for the three Calls we had in mind, but Maria and Serena were able to find a solution: Boundless will sponsor the first Call. The Calls are meant for (young) researchers and educators and the proposal, as said, is to produce training material similar to what is already available for other projects (like QGIS GeoAcademy or Boundless GIS, just to mention the two that we already used for the UN Open GIS Capacity Building).

The Open Call will be for producing Training Material for:

a) UN Open GIS Spiral 1 (The web geo platform of the project and the mobile app: GeoSHAPE Exchange and GeoSHAPE Anywhere)
[[Training Material for UN Open GIS Spiral 1]]

b) UN Open GIS Spiral 2 (specific functionalities developed following the requests of the UN staff and not yet available in OS products. They are now available as WPSs)

c) global open data (high resolution included) and open source GIS.

The three calls will be hopefully launched by the end of this month.

4) There are two important appointments for the UN Open GIS Initiative:
. Operational Demonstration of Spiral 1 in Entebbe (April 2018)
. 3rd UN Open GIS Workshop in Berlin (May 2018)

Due to economic restrictions (the small budget we have as Committee), only Maria will be able only to participate only to the former. Maria will report after the event about the progress in Spiral 1.

=== April 2018 ===

1 April 2018
Announcement of the OSGeo UN Committee Educational Challenge. Details are available here:
https://www.osgeo.org/foundation-news/osgeo-un-committee-educational-challenge/

9-13 April 2018
Operational Demonstration of UN Open GIS Initiative (Spiral One): GeoSHAPE-Exchange │ GeoSHAPE-Anywhere at the UN Regional Support Centre – Entebbe (UNRSC-E) Entebbe, Uganda. Attending for OSGeo: Maria A Brovelli. Presentation available here:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1eu2I8cddZThC4hU688ZjNNs_miGsstvBrpgqCiPG_kE/edit?usp=sharing

=== 19 - 21 November 2018 ===

United Nations World Geospatial Information Congress (UNWGIC) held in Deqing, Zhejiang Province, China.
Presentation "Open Science and Education" by Maria Brovelli and Ivana Ivanova: https://global.mofyi.com/201811/unwgic/05-Ivana%20Iva%CC%81nova%CC%81-Maria.pdf. In the speech the activities of OSGeo and GeoForAll were presented.

=== December 2018 ===

Ready the training material for UN Challenges
https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Training_Material_for_UN_Open_GIS_Spiral_1
https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Training_Material_for_UN_Open_GIS_Spiral_3
https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Training_Material_for_UN_Open_GIS_OpenData

Congratulations to Ketty Adoch (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ketty-adoch/?originalSubdomain=ug), Silvia Franceschi (https://www.linkedin.com/in/silvia-franceschi-93909314/?trk=public-profile-join-page) and Maria Ilie Codrina (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Codrina_Ilie) for their work and thanks to Christina Hupy, HaeKyong Kang, Minpa Li, Serena Coetzee and Maria Brovelli for mentoring the projects.

=== October 2018 - January 2019 ===

Three sessions of QGIS (Chair of the course: Victoria Rautenbach; mentors: Thomas Mueller and Cameron Green)

Session 1 - October

Session 2 - November

Session 3 - December - mid January

Two sessions of PostGIS (Chair of the course: Ivana Ivanova; mentors: Paolo Corti, Oliva Martin Sanchez, and Gregory Giuliani)

Session 1 - October-November

Session 2 - December - January

=== January 2019 - May 2019 ===

Preparation of the New OSGeo UN Challenges.

The two Challenges are published on 18th May 2019 and are available here:
https://www.osgeo.org/foundation-news/2019-osgeo-un-committee-educational-challenge/

Challenge 1: PostGIS training material update

Challenge 2: Open geospatial data and software for UN SDG 16, Peace justice and open institutions

=== 28-31 May 2019 ====

Participation at the 5th International Partnership for Technology in Peacekeeping Symposium, Chairing a Panel on "Open Technologies for UN" https://operationalsupport.un.org/en/5th-international-symposium#c3

The slides of the introduction to the Panel are available here: https://www.slideshare.net/mariabrovelli/open-technologies-for-united-nations

=== 14 June 2019 ===

Participation at the ISPRS GEOSPATIAL WEEK 2019 Enschede, The Netherlands | June 10-14, 2019 and presentation of the outcome of the OSGEo UN Challenge 3 "Monitoring SDG 9 with Global Open Data and Open Software - A Case Study from Rural Tanzania"

Paper: https://www.int-arch-photogramm-remote-sens-spatial-inf-sci.net/XLII-2-W13/1551/2019/isprs-archives-XLII-2-W13-1551-2019.pdf

=== 31 July 2019 ===

Announcement of the OSGeo UN Challenge:

Challenge 1: PostGIS training material update. The winner is Mayra Alejandra Zurbaran Nucci from Columbia
Challenge 2: Open geospatial data and software for UN SDG 16, Peace justice and open institutions. The winner is Berg Ambarouglu from Turkey

The winners start work under the mentorship of Ivana Ivánová ivaiva3@gmail.com, Oliva Martin Sanchez martinsanchez@un.org and Paolo Corti pcorti@gmail.com (challenge 1) and Maria Brovelli maria.brovelli@polimi.it, Serena Coetzee serena.coetzee@up.ac.za and Timur Obukhov obukhov@un.org (challenge 2).
Results of their work will be available by the end of the year

=== 2 August 2019 ===

Presentation of the OSGeo UN Challenge 3 (Open geospatial data and software for UN sustainable development goals) of 2018 at the UN‐GGIM: Academic Network Side Event “Resilience and Sustainability” - New York.
The outcome of the challenge is presented in a chapter of the book "Sustainable Development Goals Connectivity Dilemma"(available here: http://oapen.org/search?identifier=1005177). Title of the chapter: Openness and Community Geospatial Science for Monitoring SDGs – An Example From Tanzania by Maria Antonia Brovelli, Maria Ilie Codrina, and Serena Coetzee.

=== 26-30 August 2019 ===
Participation at the FOSS4G 2019 in Bucharest: UN staff (17 people) + UN Open GIS (None-UN: 19 people) = Total 38

Keynote by Kyoung-Soo Eom "Open Source GIS Technology for United Nations".

Meetings with FOSS4G Communities: GeoNode (Alessio Fabiani)

Presentations of the outcome of the OSGeo UN Challenge 2018.

Paper:
OSGEO UN COMMITTEE EDUCATIONAL CHALLENGE: A USE CASE OF SHARING SOFTWARE AND EXPERIENCE FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD
https://www.int-arch-photogramm-remote-sens-spatial-inf-sci.net/XLII-4-W14/49/2019/isprs-archives-XLII-4-W14-49-2019.pdf

=== 2 December 2019 ===

Meeting between UN Open GIS Initiative representatives (Kyoung-Soo Eom, and the International Association QGIS.ORG, represented by the chair Paolo Cavallini.

Participants:
1) International Association QGIS.ORG (hereinafter, QGIS.org) : Paolo Cavallini (Chair)
2) UN Open GIS Initiative (hereinafter, UN Open GIS): Maria Antonia Brovelli (Co-Chair, Prof. Politecnico Di Milano/OSGeo), Hae-Kyong Kang (Secretary & Chair WG-3, Research Fellow of the Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements), Kyoung-Soo Eom (Co-Chair, Chief UNGIS) and Gakumin Kato (GIS Officer of UNGIS)

Summary of the meeting:

1. QGIS.org and UN Open GIS expressed mutual interests for establishing a partnership in order to create synergy through cooperation/collaboration towards the achievement of the common goal for a better world. (Action) QGIS.org and UN Open GIS will jointly prepare 1) scope of cooperation/ collaboration and 2) Letter of Intent

2. QGIS.org expressed its interest to participate in the UN Open GIS Initiative as a member. (Action) UN Open GIS will discuss with its Strategic Board on the partnership with QGIS.org and QGIS.org joining the membership of UN Open GIS.

== Committee Meetings ==

; Next meeting:
* [https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meetingdetails.html?year=2017&month=4&day=10&hour=7&min=30&sec=0&p1=179&p2=189&p3=224&p4=22&p5=240&p6=215 APRIL 10th, 7:30 am GMT]

Please write here if you are able to attend in such a way that Maria can call you:

* Maria Brovelli / Rome / maria.brovelli@gmail.com/
* Patrick Hogan / Silicon Valley / patrick.hogan@nasa.gov
* Dimitris Kotzinos / Paris / kotzino at gmail.com
* Cameron Shorter / Sydney, Australia / cameron.shorter at gmail X com .

; Previous meetings:

* 27 March 2017, 10 am GMT
Attended by: Maria Brovelli, Max Cannata, Arnulf Christl, Sanghee Shin and Cameron Shorter

* Discussion on UN OpenGIS Initiative and Social Tenure Domain Model (STDM) initiative and code sprint.
* Discussion about possible sinergies between UN and OSGeo Live DVD.
* Action: Cameron to create draft proposal for Resourcing Open Source Geospatial Training for the United Nations. Later created here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/19Di-WxImfPq5oF2jeBblxNjY0JYJoXegLc5jaTPjufM/edit

* [[UN Meeting 2015-11-17]] 16.00 UTC

; UN Open GIS Initiative:

;Meeting January 2019 (please put your preference and your gmail address. Serena and I are potentially available for both time slots. We will call you via google hangout)

Proposal 1: 28 January 2 pm UTC
Attendees: Maria, Serena, Pekka, [[User:simboss|Simone]], Nils

Proposal 2: 29 January 9 am UTC
Attendees: Maria, Serena, Pekka, [[User:simboss|Simone]], Bruce, Nils

- The meeting is 29 January 9 am UTC.

=== We have a monthly VTC meeting of the UN Open GIS Initiative every third Wednesday at 3 pm UTC. Interested people, please, contact the chairs (Maria and/or Serena) for details ===

== Chairs ==

* [[User:Aanthieni|Ariel Anthieni]]

== Members ==
* [[Jeff McKenna]]
* [[Jochen Albrecht]]
* [[Bob Basques]]
* [[Massimiliano_Cannata]]
* [[User:Ticheler|Jeroen Ticheler]]
* [[Micha Silver]]
* [[User:GodwinYeboah|Godwin Yeboah]]
* [[User:Assefa|Yewondwossen Assefa]]
* [[User:Nikos|Nikos Alexandris]]
* [[User:AndrewTurner|Andrew Turner]]
* [[Venkatesh Raghavan]]
* [[User:Djay|Gérald Fenoy]]
* [[User:Pmooney|Peter MOONEY]]
* [[User:13scoter|Scott Hatcher]]
* [[User:kotzino|Dimitris Kotzinos]]
* [[User:ElaWoloszynska|Ela Wołoszyńska-Wiśniewska]]
* [[User:Jachym|Jachym Cepicky]]
* [[User:endofcap|Sanghee Shin]]
* [[User:Giulianoramat|Giuliano Ramat]]
* [[User:Gregory.giuliani|Gregory Giuliani]]
* [[User:Till Adams|Till Adams]]
* [[Tanya Haddad]]
* [[User:Maria gridw|Maria Andrzejewska]]
* [[User:rburhum|Ragi Y. Burhum (OSGeo - California / OSGeo Perú)]]
* [[User:darkblue_b|Brian M Hamlin]]
* [[User:Danielkastl|Daniel Kastl]]
* [[User:WernerLeyh|Werner Leyh]]
* [[User:Bruce.bannerman|Bruce Bannerman]]
* [[User:Ortelius|Jeffrey Johnson]]
* [[User:pnaciona|Pericles Nacionales]]
* [[User:Novacite|Junyoung Choi]]
* [[User:dirkf|Dirk Frigne]]
* [[User:pierzen|Pierre Béland]]
* [[User:maria|Maria Antonia Brovelli]]
* [[User:Mikel|Mikel Maron]]
* [[User:Rickasmith|Rick Smith]]
* [[User:Serenacoetzee|Serena Coetzee]]
* [[User:LeneFischer|Lene Fischer]]
* [[User:Darshana Rawal|Darshana Rawal]]
* [[User:Kurt Menke|Kurt Menke]]
* [[User:Tom Mueller|Tom Mueller]]
* [[User:Jbelo|Javier Belo]]
* [[User:Fjbehr|Franz-Josef Behr]]
* [[User:Sanand|Suchith Anand]]
* [[User:simboss|Simone Giannecchini]]
* [[Arnulf Christl]]
* [[User:camerons|Cameron Shorter]]
* [[User:Simod|Simone Dalmasso]]
* [[User:MapPlus|Minpa Lee]]
* [[User:Posiki|Pekka Sarkola]]
* [[User:Mbernasocchi|Marco Bernasocchi]]
* [[User:maria|Maria Antonia Brovelli]] (Previous Chair)
* [[User:serena|Serena Coetzee]] (Previous Chair)

[[Category:UnitedNations]]
[[Category:Committees]]

UnitedNations Committee

2024-12-05T13:24:59Z

Mbernasocchi: move Maria and Serena to members

== Background ==
The OSGeo Board of Directors met with the UN GIS team at FOSS4G in Seoul, Korea in September 2015. The UN GIS team is very interested in having OSGeo "at the table". Mr. Kyoung-Soo Eom, chief of the UN Geospatial Information Section, has invited OSGeo to be part of a working group on Geospatial Information and Services for Disasters to support the UN migration to Open Source Geospatial software solutions.

===UN Open GIS initiative===
"... it is to identify and develop an Open Source GIS bundle that meets the requirements of UN operations, taking full advantage of the expertise of mission partners (partner nations, technology contributing countries, international organizations, academia, NGOs, private sector). The strategic approach shall be developed with best and shared principles, standards and ownership, in a prioritized manner that addresses capability gaps and needs without duplicating efforts of other Member States or entities. The UN OpenGIS Initiative strategy shall collaboratively and cooperatively develop, validate, assess, migrate, and implement sound technical capabilities with all the appropriate documentation and training that in the end provides a united effort to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of utilizing Open Source GIS around the world."

===UN Open GIS Initiative Terms of Reference ===

1. Objectives

The Objective of the UN Open GIS Initiative is to identify and develop open source geospatial software and services that meet the requirements of UN operations, taking full advantage of the expertise of mission partners including partner nations, technology developed by contributing countries, international organizations, academia, NGOs, and private sector.

2. Terms of Reference

These Terms of Reference are effective as of (date) and will be ongoing until terminated by agreement of the Strategic Board (SB).

3. Membership

The members of the UN Open GIS Initiative are composed of:

* Contributors: Any organization who agrees with the objectives of the UN Open GIS and actively contributes to the UN Open GIS Initiative in terms of financial, materials, solutions, technologies, or human resources. The Contributor membership shall be decided by the Strategic Board.

* Observers: Any individual person or organization who agrees with the objectives of the UN Open GIS and participate in the UN Open GIS Initiative activity. The Observer membership shall be granted by the Strategic Board.

4. Roles and Responsibilities

The governance structure of the UN Open GIS Initiative comprises of:

* Strategic Board:

* Co-Chairs and Secretariats

* Technical Advisory Group

* Requirement Advisory Group

* Assessment Team

* Spirals

4.1 Strategic Board (SB)

The Strategic Board consists of representatives from each contributor where each contributor nominates one representative to the Strategic Board. The Strategic Board is responsible for deciding goals, strategic planning, creation of new spiral, election of co-chairs, appointment of technical advisory group members, requirement advisory group members, and assessment team members.

4.2 Co-Chairs

There are three Co-Chairs, where one Co-Chair is appointed from UN and two Co-Chairs are elected among the Strategic Board members. They chair the Strategic Board meeting and take the responsibility of all UN Open GIS Initiative activities.

4.3 Secretariat

The secretariat is made of representatives of the contributors in support of the Co-Chairs and the activities of the UN Open GIS.

4.4 Technical Advisory Group (TAG)

The Technical Advisory Group consists of key technical experts from the contributors and specialists, appointed by the SB. This group is responsible for the synchronization of spirals and technical decisions on the UN Open GIS architecture. The TAG will elect one group leader and co-leaders, who organize and moderate the activities of the group.

4.5 Requirement Advisory Group (RAG)

The Requirement Advisory Group consists of key experts from UN and the contributors appointed by the SB. This group is responsible for identifying and providing the requirements of geospatial solutions and services for UN operations. The RAG will elect one group leader and co-leaders, who organize and moderate the activities of the group.

4.5 Assessment Team (AT)

The Assessment Team consists of key experts from UN and the contributors appointed by the SB. This team defines proper assessment methods and procedures, and carries out assessments of the deliverables. The AT elects one leader and co-leaders, who are responsible for maintaining the activities of the team.

4.6 Spirals

Since each goal of the UN Open GIS Initiative is achieved in incremental ways, we operate working group, called Spiral, for each specific goal. New Spirals are created by the SB for specific goals. The SB will designate one leader and co-leaders. The leader and co-leaders will develop a work plan to achieve the goals.

Annex

A. Definition of Open Source

Open Source encompasses two related concepts regarding the way software is developed and licensed. They are codified in the "Free Software" and the "Open Source" definitions. "Free and Open Source Software" refers to software which has been made available under a free software license with the rights to run the program for any purpose, to study how the program works, to adapt it, and to redistribute copies, including modifications. These freedoms enable Open Source software development, a public, collaborative model that promotes early publishing and frequent releases. The Open Source Initiative has developed a set of 10 requirements of any software license that is to be considered an Open Source license under the Open Source Definition.

B. (March 11, 2016) The Founding Contributors comprises of

* UN (Headquarter, GSC, Field Mission Teams)

* GeoSHAPE Project (USA)

* OpenGeo Suite Project (USA)

* OpenGDS (Republic of Korea)

* OSGeo (NGO)

* GeoForAll (Educational Outreach of OSGeo Foundation)

* GeoSDI (Italy)

C. The list of Spirals is as follows;

- Spiral 1 – UN Open Geo-Portal (March 11, 2016) led by Anthony Calamito

- Spiral 2 – Capacity Building (May, 2016) led by Maria Brovelli

- Spiral 3 – Geo-Analysis (March 11, 2016) led by Hae Kyong Kang

- Spiral 4 – Data Acquisition (March 11, 2016) led by Ki-Joune Li

D. (October 30, 2016) The initial Strategic Board Members comprises of

- GeoSHAPE: Juan Hurtado

- OpenGeo Suite: Anthony Calamito

- OpenGDS: Ki-Joune Li

- OSGeo: Massimilliano Cannata

- Geo4All: Maria Brovelli

- GeoSDI: Dimitri Dello Bruono

- UN HQ: Kyoung-Soo Eom

- UN GSC: Mohamed A. Mohamed

- UN Missions: Jasenko Udovicic, Kais Zouabi

E. The Co-Chairs are

- Juan Hurtado (March 11, 2016)

- Ki-Joune Li (March 11, 2016)

- Kyoung-Soo Eom (August 30, 2016)

F. (August 30, 2016) The Secretariat comprises of

- Danica Baptist

- Hae-Kyong Kang

(Modification History)

* Initially Drafted by Ki-Joune Li, Aug. 26, 2016

* Corrected by Danica Baptist, Aug. 26, 2016

* Corrected at SB meeting, Aug. 30, 2016

* Corrected by Ki-Joune Li, Oct. 10, 2016 to finalize SB and Secretariats and to reflect the modification of the initiative name

* Corrected by Ki-Joune Li, Oct. 21, 2016 to reflect the comments from OSGeo members.

== Goals ==

* Support the UN's member states and committees through:
** OSGeo's service providers
** the GeoForAll network
* Emphasize to the UN and its members the benefits of the stable OSGeo stack of projects
* Establish communication between the UN-GIS team and the OSGeo community.
* Foster the outreach activities of OSGeo

== Communication ==

* a new "UN" mailing list has been created, please subscribe at https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/un and add your name to the list of the committee members at the end of this page.

== Activities ==

===October 2015===
* OSGeo has formally expressed interest in joining the [[UN-GGIM-Working-Group]] on Geospatial Information and Services for Disasters
** this was discussed at OSGeo's [[Board_Meeting_2015-10-15]]
** the UN is looking for feedback on the working group's [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/UN-GGIM-Working-Group#Draft_terms_of_reference_.28TOR.29 TOR draft]

===March 2016===
* OSGeo participated to a UNopenGIS initiative (Brindisi, Italy, 5-10th March 2016) meeting and where formally incorporated in the UN Open GIS initiative as member of the initiative technical committee.
* Call for "UN Training Material". The Material available here: https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/UNTraining

===April 2016===
* Birth of "Spiral 2: Capacity Building" Working Group under the direction of Maria Antonia Brovelli (OSGeo), Diego Gonzales Ferreiro (UN) and Juan Curtado (US South Command).
* Decision (taking into account UN exigencies) to start the training with QGIS, PostGIS, Geonode, Geoserver, OpenLayers
* Call for volunteers within GeoForAll for revising available tutorials related to QGIS, PostGIS, GeoNode, Geoserver, OpenLayers

===May - June - July 2016 ===
* Revision and discussions about QGIS, PostGIS and GeoNode tutorials. People contributing: Alberta Albertella, Gregory Giuliani, Scott Hatcher, Ivana Ivanova, Thomas Mueller, Rick Smith, Mike Pumphrey, Vivien Deparday, Ariel Núñez, Paolo Corti, Francesco Stompanato, Dimitris Karakostis, Dilek Emanetoglu, Arun Kumar Muthusamy, Andres Felipe Poveda Sanchez, Stanly Shaji

===August 2016===
* UNopenGIS governance has been defined and OSGeo and GeoForAll have been incorporated in it:

Massimiliano Cannata and Maria Brovelli are member of the Strategic Board, Serena Coetzee and Jeffrey Johnson are member of the User Requirement Committee, Jeroen Ticheler and Sanghee Shin are members of the Technical Committee, and Gregory Giuliani member of the Assessment Committee.

* A logo contest has been set up and run by OSGeo to brand the initiative (see [[UN_OpenGIS_logo_contest]])

===September 2016===
* The 19th September 2016 the first UN virtual class of Spiral 2 start its activity with GeoAcademy QGIS.The virtual class will work using the Beep Platform of Politecnico di Milano, as teaching platform. Tutors of this first course were:
Thomas Mueller, Rick Smith and Youngok Kang. Alberta Albertella will help in accessing and using the platform (for sharing material, upload files, homework, webconference, blog, etc)

Four editions of this course was issued for a total of 72 GIS experts of Operational Field (Peacekeeping Actions) of UN.
The courses were scheduled:
19 September - 18 October 2016
19 October - 18 November 2016
19 November - 19 December 2016
9 January - 8 February 2017

Volunteers who were involved are:
Thomas Mueller, Rick Smith, Youngok Kang, Lene Fischer and Kurt Menke.

===November 2016===
* Second UN openGIS initiative workshops held in Seoul 7-11 November

For details see

the webinar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Te5THhj51-g
and the slides https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxwcvLoMZAurNWN2dmNzQnd1OW8/view

===January 2017===
* The 16th January 2017 the second UN virtual class of Spiral 2 started its activity with Boundless PostGIS.The virtual class will work using the Beep Platform of Politecnico di Milano, as teaching platform. Tutors of this course are:
Mike Pumphrey Ivana Ivanova Gregory Giuliani Paolo Corti Victoria Rautenbach. Alberta Albertella is helping in accessing and using the platform (for sharing material, upload files, homework, webconference, blog, etc)

=== April 2017 ===
* '''Meeting at United Nations Global Service Centre - Brindisi, Italy, 27-28 April 2017'''

The meeting was organized in two days and included
* the combined demonstration and field test of the Modular Command Centre and mini Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) based Rapid Geospatial Solution

*the presentation (and discussion) of the UN Open GIS project to UN, Member States, other international organisations and academia [1]

=== July 2017 ===
* '''Presentation of the UN Open GIS Initiative at FOSS4G Europe'''

Main elements of interest by OSGeo UN Committee and GeoForAll:

*Spiral 1 (WG1): the UN Open GIS Initiative GeoPortal. The Platform is based on Geoshape-Exchange, developed by Boundless and supported by US DoD.

*Spiral 2 (WG2): capacity building for UN staff members on open source geospatial technologies. The initiative is supported by volunteer activity of OSGeo and GeoForAll members. QGIS (concluded) and PostGIS (in progress) have been taught by using as educational platform that of Politecnico di Milano.

*Spiral 3 (WG3): geospatial analysis. More than 140 new geospatial functions for Web and Desktop available at [2]. Those pieces of software were made avaialable by OpenGDS (South Korea). Educational material will be provided soon. The original material is available in Korean. It will be translated in English but some help in cleaning it by English native speakers is more than welcome.

*Spiral 4 (WG4): tools for data collection. The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) based Rapid Geospatial Solution is part of the WG activities and the software will be available soon. The development is part of the activity of OpenGDS (South Korea). Some South Korean companies are contributing to the development; among them Gaia3D, Inc.

* I discussed with Kyoung-Soo Eom and Ki-Joune Li (the two chairs of UN Open GIS Initiative) the document “Resourcing Open Source Geospatial Training for the United Nations” [3]. The theme of sustainability is very relevant to UN Open GIS initiative (and more in general to UN). We agreed to organize a first exploratory Skype or hangout meeting, together with Cameron Shorter (who promoted this initiative) to discuss the document before presenting it to the next UN Open GIS Initiative VTC.

I recall you that the UN Open GIS Initiative VTC meeting is scheduled the second Wednesday of every month at 1 pm UTC. People interested can attend. Just let me know in such a way that I communicate your interest to the chairs.

[1] https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3dBcNKACjRlcDZTa0JsNUlab0U/view?usp=sharing

[2] https://github.com/MapPlus/spatial_statistics_for_geotools_udig

[3] https://docs.google.com/document/d/19Di-WxImfPq5oF2jeBblxNjY0JYJoXegLc5jaTPjufM/edit#heading=h.g1mf7fn4rfea

=== August 2017 ===
* '''Presentation of the UN Open GIS Initiative at FOSS4G in Boston'''

=== March 2018 ===

The Initiative "UN Open GIS" is going ahead regularly.

1) Jeff has started his activity as Chair of the Technical Advisory Group (thanks to Sanghee for beinng the Chair before and for having done a wonderful work).

2) For those interested, there is a a regular VTC of UN Open GIS Initiative every month (the second Wednesday of the month at 3 pm Italy time).

3) Serena and Maria have been working hard for preparing the Open Call "Capacity Building for UN". Unfortunately we didn't get from the OSGeo Board the whole budget for the three Calls we had in mind, but Maria and Serena were able to find a solution: Boundless will sponsor the first Call. The Calls are meant for (young) researchers and educators and the proposal, as said, is to produce training material similar to what is already available for other projects (like QGIS GeoAcademy or Boundless GIS, just to mention the two that we already used for the UN Open GIS Capacity Building).

The Open Call will be for producing Training Material for:

a) UN Open GIS Spiral 1 (The web geo platform of the project and the mobile app: GeoSHAPE Exchange and GeoSHAPE Anywhere)
[[Training Material for UN Open GIS Spiral 1]]

b) UN Open GIS Spiral 2 (specific functionalities developed following the requests of the UN staff and not yet available in OS products. They are now available as WPSs)

c) global open data (high resolution included) and open source GIS.

The three calls will be hopefully launched by the end of this month.

4) There are two important appointments for the UN Open GIS Initiative:
. Operational Demonstration of Spiral 1 in Entebbe (April 2018)
. 3rd UN Open GIS Workshop in Berlin (May 2018)

Due to economic restrictions (the small budget we have as Committee), only Maria will be able only to participate only to the former. Maria will report after the event about the progress in Spiral 1.

=== April 2018 ===

1 April 2018
Announcement of the OSGeo UN Committee Educational Challenge. Details are available here:
https://www.osgeo.org/foundation-news/osgeo-un-committee-educational-challenge/

9-13 April 2018
Operational Demonstration of UN Open GIS Initiative (Spiral One): GeoSHAPE-Exchange │ GeoSHAPE-Anywhere at the UN Regional Support Centre – Entebbe (UNRSC-E) Entebbe, Uganda. Attending for OSGeo: Maria A Brovelli. Presentation available here:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1eu2I8cddZThC4hU688ZjNNs_miGsstvBrpgqCiPG_kE/edit?usp=sharing

=== 19 - 21 November 2018 ===

United Nations World Geospatial Information Congress (UNWGIC) held in Deqing, Zhejiang Province, China.
Presentation "Open Science and Education" by Maria Brovelli and Ivana Ivanova: https://global.mofyi.com/201811/unwgic/05-Ivana%20Iva%CC%81nova%CC%81-Maria.pdf. In the speech the activities of OSGeo and GeoForAll were presented.

=== December 2018 ===

Ready the training material for UN Challenges
https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Training_Material_for_UN_Open_GIS_Spiral_1
https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Training_Material_for_UN_Open_GIS_Spiral_3
https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Training_Material_for_UN_Open_GIS_OpenData

Congratulations to Ketty Adoch (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ketty-adoch/?originalSubdomain=ug), Silvia Franceschi (https://www.linkedin.com/in/silvia-franceschi-93909314/?trk=public-profile-join-page) and Maria Ilie Codrina (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Codrina_Ilie) for their work and thanks to Christina Hupy, HaeKyong Kang, Minpa Li, Serena Coetzee and Maria Brovelli for mentoring the projects.

=== October 2018 - January 2019 ===

Three sessions of QGIS (Chair of the course: Victoria Rautenbach; mentors: Thomas Mueller and Cameron Green)

Session 1 - October

Session 2 - November

Session 3 - December - mid January

Two sessions of PostGIS (Chair of the course: Ivana Ivanova; mentors: Paolo Corti, Oliva Martin Sanchez, and Gregory Giuliani)

Session 1 - October-November

Session 2 - December - January

=== January 2019 - May 2019 ===

Preparation of the New OSGeo UN Challenges.

The two Challenges are published on 18th May 2019 and are available here:
https://www.osgeo.org/foundation-news/2019-osgeo-un-committee-educational-challenge/

Challenge 1: PostGIS training material update

Challenge 2: Open geospatial data and software for UN SDG 16, Peace justice and open institutions

=== 28-31 May 2019 ====

Participation at the 5th International Partnership for Technology in Peacekeeping Symposium, Chairing a Panel on "Open Technologies for UN" https://operationalsupport.un.org/en/5th-international-symposium#c3

The slides of the introduction to the Panel are available here: https://www.slideshare.net/mariabrovelli/open-technologies-for-united-nations

=== 14 June 2019 ===

Participation at the ISPRS GEOSPATIAL WEEK 2019 Enschede, The Netherlands | June 10-14, 2019 and presentation of the outcome of the OSGEo UN Challenge 3 "Monitoring SDG 9 with Global Open Data and Open Software - A Case Study from Rural Tanzania"

Paper: https://www.int-arch-photogramm-remote-sens-spatial-inf-sci.net/XLII-2-W13/1551/2019/isprs-archives-XLII-2-W13-1551-2019.pdf

=== 31 July 2019 ===

Announcement of the OSGeo UN Challenge:

Challenge 1: PostGIS training material update. The winner is Mayra Alejandra Zurbaran Nucci from Columbia
Challenge 2: Open geospatial data and software for UN SDG 16, Peace justice and open institutions. The winner is Berg Ambarouglu from Turkey

The winners start work under the mentorship of Ivana Ivánová ivaiva3@gmail.com, Oliva Martin Sanchez martinsanchez@un.org and Paolo Corti pcorti@gmail.com (challenge 1) and Maria Brovelli maria.brovelli@polimi.it, Serena Coetzee serena.coetzee@up.ac.za and Timur Obukhov obukhov@un.org (challenge 2).
Results of their work will be available by the end of the year

=== 2 August 2019 ===

Presentation of the OSGeo UN Challenge 3 (Open geospatial data and software for UN sustainable development goals) of 2018 at the UN‐GGIM: Academic Network Side Event “Resilience and Sustainability” - New York.
The outcome of the challenge is presented in a chapter of the book "Sustainable Development Goals Connectivity Dilemma"(available here: http://oapen.org/search?identifier=1005177). Title of the chapter: Openness and Community Geospatial Science for Monitoring SDGs – An Example From Tanzania by Maria Antonia Brovelli, Maria Ilie Codrina, and Serena Coetzee.

=== 26-30 August 2019 ===
Participation at the FOSS4G 2019 in Bucharest: UN staff (17 people) + UN Open GIS (None-UN: 19 people) = Total 38

Keynote by Kyoung-Soo Eom "Open Source GIS Technology for United Nations".

Meetings with FOSS4G Communities: GeoNode (Alessio Fabiani)

Presentations of the outcome of the OSGeo UN Challenge 2018.

Paper:
OSGEO UN COMMITTEE EDUCATIONAL CHALLENGE: A USE CASE OF SHARING SOFTWARE AND EXPERIENCE FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD
https://www.int-arch-photogramm-remote-sens-spatial-inf-sci.net/XLII-4-W14/49/2019/isprs-archives-XLII-4-W14-49-2019.pdf

=== 2 December 2019 ===

Meeting between UN Open GIS Initiative representatives (Kyoung-Soo Eom, and the International Association QGIS.ORG, represented by the chair Paolo Cavallini.

Participants:
1) International Association QGIS.ORG (hereinafter, QGIS.org) : Paolo Cavallini (Chair)
2) UN Open GIS Initiative (hereinafter, UN Open GIS): Maria Antonia Brovelli (Co-Chair, Prof. Politecnico Di Milano/OSGeo), Hae-Kyong Kang (Secretary & Chair WG-3, Research Fellow of the Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements), Kyoung-Soo Eom (Co-Chair, Chief UNGIS) and Gakumin Kato (GIS Officer of UNGIS)

Summary of the meeting:

1. QGIS.org and UN Open GIS expressed mutual interests for establishing a partnership in order to create synergy through cooperation/collaboration towards the achievement of the common goal for a better world. (Action) QGIS.org and UN Open GIS will jointly prepare 1) scope of cooperation/ collaboration and 2) Letter of Intent

2. QGIS.org expressed its interest to participate in the UN Open GIS Initiative as a member. (Action) UN Open GIS will discuss with its Strategic Board on the partnership with QGIS.org and QGIS.org joining the membership of UN Open GIS.

== Committee Meetings ==

; Next meeting:
* [https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meetingdetails.html?year=2017&month=4&day=10&hour=7&min=30&sec=0&p1=179&p2=189&p3=224&p4=22&p5=240&p6=215 APRIL 10th, 7:30 am GMT]

Please write here if you are able to attend in such a way that Maria can call you:

* Maria Brovelli / Rome / maria.brovelli@gmail.com/
* Patrick Hogan / Silicon Valley / patrick.hogan@nasa.gov
* Dimitris Kotzinos / Paris / kotzino at gmail.com
* Cameron Shorter / Sydney, Australia / cameron.shorter at gmail X com .

; Previous meetings:

* 27 March 2017, 10 am GMT
Attended by: Maria Brovelli, Max Cannata, Arnulf Christl, Sanghee Shin and Cameron Shorter

* Discussion on UN OpenGIS Initiative and Social Tenure Domain Model (STDM) initiative and code sprint.
* Discussion about possible sinergies between UN and OSGeo Live DVD.
* Action: Cameron to create draft proposal for Resourcing Open Source Geospatial Training for the United Nations. Later created here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/19Di-WxImfPq5oF2jeBblxNjY0JYJoXegLc5jaTPjufM/edit

* [[UN Meeting 2015-11-17]] 16.00 UTC

; UN Open GIS Initiative:

;Meeting January 2019 (please put your preference and your gmail address. Serena and I are potentially available for both time slots. We will call you via google hangout)

Proposal 1: 28 January 2 pm UTC
Attendees: Maria, Serena, Pekka, [[User:simboss|Simone]], Nils

Proposal 2: 29 January 9 am UTC
Attendees: Maria, Serena, Pekka, [[User:simboss|Simone]], Bruce, Nils

- The meeting is 29 January 9 am UTC.

=== We have a monthly VTC meeting of the UN Open GIS Initiative every third Wednesday at 3 pm UTC. Interested people, please, contact the chairs (Maria and/or Serena) for details ===

== Chairs ==

* [[User:maria|Maria Antonia Brovelli]]
* [[User:serena|Serena Coetzee]]

== Members ==
* [[Jeff McKenna]]
* [[Jochen Albrecht]]
* [[Bob Basques]]
* [[Massimiliano_Cannata]]
* [[User:Ticheler|Jeroen Ticheler]]
* [[Micha Silver]]
* [[User:GodwinYeboah|Godwin Yeboah]]
* [[User:Assefa|Yewondwossen Assefa]]
* [[User:Nikos|Nikos Alexandris]]
* [[User:AndrewTurner|Andrew Turner]]
* [[Venkatesh Raghavan]]
* [[User:Djay|Gérald Fenoy]]
* [[User:Pmooney|Peter MOONEY]]
* [[User:13scoter|Scott Hatcher]]
* [[User:kotzino|Dimitris Kotzinos]]
* [[User:ElaWoloszynska|Ela Wołoszyńska-Wiśniewska]]
* [[User:Jachym|Jachym Cepicky]]
* [[User:endofcap|Sanghee Shin]]
* [[User:Giulianoramat|Giuliano Ramat]]
* [[User:Gregory.giuliani|Gregory Giuliani]]
* [[User:Till Adams|Till Adams]]
* [[Tanya Haddad]]
* [[User:Maria gridw|Maria Andrzejewska]]
* [[User:rburhum|Ragi Y. Burhum (OSGeo - California / OSGeo Perú)]]
* [[User:darkblue_b|Brian M Hamlin]]
* [[User:Danielkastl|Daniel Kastl]]
* [[User:WernerLeyh|Werner Leyh]]
* [[User:Bruce.bannerman|Bruce Bannerman]]
* [[User:Ortelius|Jeffrey Johnson]]
* [[User:pnaciona|Pericles Nacionales]]
* [[User:Novacite|Junyoung Choi]]
* [[User:dirkf|Dirk Frigne]]
* [[User:pierzen|Pierre Béland]]
* [[User:maria|Maria Antonia Brovelli]]
* [[User:Mikel|Mikel Maron]]
* [[User:Rickasmith|Rick Smith]]
* [[User:Serenacoetzee|Serena Coetzee]]
* [[User:LeneFischer|Lene Fischer]]
* [[User:Darshana Rawal|Darshana Rawal]]
* [[User:Kurt Menke|Kurt Menke]]
* [[User:Tom Mueller|Tom Mueller]]
* [[User:Jbelo|Javier Belo]]
* [[User:Fjbehr|Franz-Josef Behr]]
* [[User:Sanand|Suchith Anand]]
* [[User:simboss|Simone Giannecchini]]
* [[Arnulf Christl]]
* [[User:camerons|Cameron Shorter]]
* [[User:Simod|Simone Dalmasso]]
* [[User:MapPlus|Minpa Lee]]
* [[User:Posiki|Pekka Sarkola]]
* [[User:Mbernasocchi|Marco Bernasocchi]]
* [[User:maria|Maria Antonia Brovelli]] (Previous Chair)
* [[User:serena|Serena Coetzee]] (Previous Chair)

[[Category:UnitedNations]]
[[Category:Committees]]

Board Meeting 2024-12-01

2024-12-01T03:44:49Z

Mbernasocchi:

This board meeting is '''scheduled Sunday 01 December 2024''' at [https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meetingdetails.html?year=2024&month=12&day=01&hour=12&min=0&sec=0&p1=250&p2=26&p3=49&p4=155&p5=51&p6=312 '''12:00''' UTC] through [https://meet.jit.si/OsgeoBoard Jitsi], a record of motions is preserved on [https://www.loomio.org/g/kdSmIwxu/osgeo-board Loomio] and actions on the [https://git.osgeo.org/gitea/osgeo/todo/issues OSGeo todo] issue tracker.

This is a F2F meeting during the FOSS4G 2024 event.

Board members that will be present in Belém:
# Jeroen Ticheler
# Tom Kralidis
# Codrina Ilie
# Ariel Anthieni
# Michael Smith
# Marco Bernasocchi
# ''Add your name here''

== Agenda ==

=== Current items ===

# ''roll call''
# ''appoint meeting chair, meeting scribe/secretary''
# OSGeo and UN/WMO collaboration
# OGC-ASF-OSGeo Joint Code Sprint 2025
# SAC Budget increase request
# FOSS4G Global and Regional events in the future
# OSGeo finances
## Status of OSGeo as a 501(c)(3) organization
## Relation to local and regional chapters
## OSGeo sponsor plan
# [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZLW7x22kwku1_FwotJ3VsF1cnCXYmXT1U_5tSqWAST8/edit?usp=sharing OSGeo Website Workplan]
# Status of UN Committee (UNGGIM - proposal: SDG Open Source Alliance )
# Board nomination procedure
# ''Add your topic here''

== Minutes ==

* Presiding:
* Scribing:
* Attending:
* Guests:

=== Actions ===

* See https://git.osgeo.org/gitea/osgeo/todo/issues

== IRC Log ==
* no log, Jitsi meeting

== Next meeting ==
*[[Board Meeting 2024-12-31]]

[[Category:Board]]
[[Category:Board Meetings 2024]]

Q&A Stage 1 Riyadh

2024-02-27T19:18:50Z

Mbernasocchi:

Questions to LoI of the Riyadh Team:

=== Air quality in the venue ===

Related to COVID safety: What are the air quality facilities in the venue?

Specifically:

- Are there CO2 monitors?

- What kind of air purifying is in the indoor areas of the venue? Filtering, UV?

[[User:Ivansanchez|Ivansanchez]] ([[User talk:Ivansanchez|talk]]) 01:54, 26 February 2024 (PST)

=== Diversity and Inclusion ===

We kindly ask for a statement about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in your country.

What is the legal status of same-gender relationships and/or marriage in your country? Can our members travel safely with their same sex partner? What about transgender members, are they safe?

How safe is for a woman to travel alone in your country?

Is your venue accessible for wheelchairs and other disabilities?

=== Income generation ===

In the LOI, you mention that "the LOC is happy to offer that the attendees will not be charged for attendance to the event. Charges could be levied on exhibitors and that will be decided in due course".

More a remark than a question, the gains from FOSS4G are one of OSGeo's main income sources. Please consider this when going further with your proposal.

[[User:mbernasocchi|Marco Bernasocchi]] (on behalf of the OSGeo board) 20:17, 27 February 2024 (CET)

Q&A Stage 1 Riyadh

2024-02-27T19:17:08Z

Mbernasocchi:

UnitedNations Committee

2024-02-02T08:43:47Z

Mbernasocchi: Add mbernasocchi

== Background ==
The OSGeo Board of Directors met with the UN GIS team at FOSS4G in Seoul, Korea in September 2015. The UN GIS team is very interested in having OSGeo "at the table". Mr. Kyoung-Soo Eom, chief of the UN Geospatial Information Section, has invited OSGeo to be part of a working group on Geospatial Information and Services for Disasters to support the UN migration to Open Source Geospatial software solutions.

===UN Open GIS initiative===
"... it is to identify and develop an Open Source GIS bundle that meets the requirements of UN operations, taking full advantage of the expertise of mission partners (partner nations, technology contributing countries, international organizations, academia, NGOs, private sector). The strategic approach shall be developed with best and shared principles, standards and ownership, in a prioritized manner that addresses capability gaps and needs without duplicating efforts of other Member States or entities. The UN OpenGIS Initiative strategy shall collaboratively and cooperatively develop, validate, assess, migrate, and implement sound technical capabilities with all the appropriate documentation and training that in the end provides a united effort to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of utilizing Open Source GIS around the world."

===UN Open GIS Initiative Terms of Reference ===

1. Objectives

The Objective of the UN Open GIS Initiative is to identify and develop open source geospatial software and services that meet the requirements of UN operations, taking full advantage of the expertise of mission partners including partner nations, technology developed by contributing countries, international organizations, academia, NGOs, and private sector.

2. Terms of Reference

These Terms of Reference are effective as of (date) and will be ongoing until terminated by agreement of the Strategic Board (SB).

3. Membership

The members of the UN Open GIS Initiative are composed of:

* Contributors: Any organization who agrees with the objectives of the UN Open GIS and actively contributes to the UN Open GIS Initiative in terms of financial, materials, solutions, technologies, or human resources. The Contributor membership shall be decided by the Strategic Board.

* Observers: Any individual person or organization who agrees with the objectives of the UN Open GIS and participate in the UN Open GIS Initiative activity. The Observer membership shall be granted by the Strategic Board.

4. Roles and Responsibilities

The governance structure of the UN Open GIS Initiative comprises of:

* Strategic Board:

* Co-Chairs and Secretariats

* Technical Advisory Group

* Requirement Advisory Group

* Assessment Team

* Spirals

4.1 Strategic Board (SB)

The Strategic Board consists of representatives from each contributor where each contributor nominates one representative to the Strategic Board. The Strategic Board is responsible for deciding goals, strategic planning, creation of new spiral, election of co-chairs, appointment of technical advisory group members, requirement advisory group members, and assessment team members.

4.2 Co-Chairs

There are three Co-Chairs, where one Co-Chair is appointed from UN and two Co-Chairs are elected among the Strategic Board members. They chair the Strategic Board meeting and take the responsibility of all UN Open GIS Initiative activities.

4.3 Secretariat

The secretariat is made of representatives of the contributors in support of the Co-Chairs and the activities of the UN Open GIS.

4.4 Technical Advisory Group (TAG)

The Technical Advisory Group consists of key technical experts from the contributors and specialists, appointed by the SB. This group is responsible for the synchronization of spirals and technical decisions on the UN Open GIS architecture. The TAG will elect one group leader and co-leaders, who organize and moderate the activities of the group.

4.5 Requirement Advisory Group (RAG)

The Requirement Advisory Group consists of key experts from UN and the contributors appointed by the SB. This group is responsible for identifying and providing the requirements of geospatial solutions and services for UN operations. The RAG will elect one group leader and co-leaders, who organize and moderate the activities of the group.

4.5 Assessment Team (AT)

The Assessment Team consists of key experts from UN and the contributors appointed by the SB. This team defines proper assessment methods and procedures, and carries out assessments of the deliverables. The AT elects one leader and co-leaders, who are responsible for maintaining the activities of the team.

4.6 Spirals

Since each goal of the UN Open GIS Initiative is achieved in incremental ways, we operate working group, called Spiral, for each specific goal. New Spirals are created by the SB for specific goals. The SB will designate one leader and co-leaders. The leader and co-leaders will develop a work plan to achieve the goals.

Annex

A. Definition of Open Source

Open Source encompasses two related concepts regarding the way software is developed and licensed. They are codified in the "Free Software" and the "Open Source" definitions. "Free and Open Source Software" refers to software which has been made available under a free software license with the rights to run the program for any purpose, to study how the program works, to adapt it, and to redistribute copies, including modifications. These freedoms enable Open Source software development, a public, collaborative model that promotes early publishing and frequent releases. The Open Source Initiative has developed a set of 10 requirements of any software license that is to be considered an Open Source license under the Open Source Definition.

B. (March 11, 2016) The Founding Contributors comprises of

* UN (Headquarter, GSC, Field Mission Teams)

* GeoSHAPE Project (USA)

* OpenGeo Suite Project (USA)

* OpenGDS (Republic of Korea)

* OSGeo (NGO)

* GeoForAll (Educational Outreach of OSGeo Foundation)

* GeoSDI (Italy)

C. The list of Spirals is as follows;

- Spiral 1 – UN Open Geo-Portal (March 11, 2016) led by Anthony Calamito

- Spiral 2 – Capacity Building (May, 2016) led by Maria Brovelli

- Spiral 3 – Geo-Analysis (March 11, 2016) led by Hae Kyong Kang

- Spiral 4 – Data Acquisition (March 11, 2016) led by Ki-Joune Li

D. (October 30, 2016) The initial Strategic Board Members comprises of

- GeoSHAPE: Juan Hurtado

- OpenGeo Suite: Anthony Calamito

- OpenGDS: Ki-Joune Li

- OSGeo: Massimilliano Cannata

- Geo4All: Maria Brovelli

- GeoSDI: Dimitri Dello Bruono

- UN HQ: Kyoung-Soo Eom

- UN GSC: Mohamed A. Mohamed

- UN Missions: Jasenko Udovicic, Kais Zouabi

E. The Co-Chairs are

- Juan Hurtado (March 11, 2016)

- Ki-Joune Li (March 11, 2016)

- Kyoung-Soo Eom (August 30, 2016)

F. (August 30, 2016) The Secretariat comprises of

- Danica Baptist

- Hae-Kyong Kang

(Modification History)

* Initially Drafted by Ki-Joune Li, Aug. 26, 2016

* Corrected by Danica Baptist, Aug. 26, 2016

* Corrected at SB meeting, Aug. 30, 2016

* Corrected by Ki-Joune Li, Oct. 10, 2016 to finalize SB and Secretariats and to reflect the modification of the initiative name

* Corrected by Ki-Joune Li, Oct. 21, 2016 to reflect the comments from OSGeo members.

== Goals ==

* Support the UN's member states and committees through:
** OSGeo's service providers
** the GeoForAll network
* Emphasize to the UN and its members the benefits of the stable OSGeo stack of projects
* Establish communication between the UN-GIS team and the OSGeo community.
* Foster the outreach activities of OSGeo

== Communication ==

* a new "UN" mailing list has been created, please subscribe at https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/un and add your name to the list of the committee members at the end of this page.

== Activities ==

===October 2015===
* OSGeo has formally expressed interest in joining the [[UN-GGIM-Working-Group]] on Geospatial Information and Services for Disasters
** this was discussed at OSGeo's [[Board_Meeting_2015-10-15]]
** the UN is looking for feedback on the working group's [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/UN-GGIM-Working-Group#Draft_terms_of_reference_.28TOR.29 TOR draft]

===March 2016===
* OSGeo participated to a UNopenGIS initiative (Brindisi, Italy, 5-10th March 2016) meeting and where formally incorporated in the UN Open GIS initiative as member of the initiative technical committee.
* Call for "UN Training Material". The Material available here: https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/UNTraining

===April 2016===
* Birth of "Spiral 2: Capacity Building" Working Group under the direction of Maria Antonia Brovelli (OSGeo), Diego Gonzales Ferreiro (UN) and Juan Curtado (US South Command).
* Decision (taking into account UN exigencies) to start the training with QGIS, PostGIS, Geonode, Geoserver, OpenLayers
* Call for volunteers within GeoForAll for revising available tutorials related to QGIS, PostGIS, GeoNode, Geoserver, OpenLayers

===May - June - July 2016 ===
* Revision and discussions about QGIS, PostGIS and GeoNode tutorials. People contributing: Alberta Albertella, Gregory Giuliani, Scott Hatcher, Ivana Ivanova, Thomas Mueller, Rick Smith, Mike Pumphrey, Vivien Deparday, Ariel Núñez, Paolo Corti, Francesco Stompanato, Dimitris Karakostis, Dilek Emanetoglu, Arun Kumar Muthusamy, Andres Felipe Poveda Sanchez, Stanly Shaji

===August 2016===
* UNopenGIS governance has been defined and OSGeo and GeoForAll have been incorporated in it:

Massimiliano Cannata and Maria Brovelli are member of the Strategic Board, Serena Coetzee and Jeffrey Johnson are member of the User Requirement Committee, Jeroen Ticheler and Sanghee Shin are members of the Technical Committee, and Gregory Giuliani member of the Assessment Committee.

* A logo contest has been set up and run by OSGeo to brand the initiative (see [[UN_OpenGIS_logo_contest]])

===September 2016===
* The 19th September 2016 the first UN virtual class of Spiral 2 start its activity with GeoAcademy QGIS.The virtual class will work using the Beep Platform of Politecnico di Milano, as teaching platform. Tutors of this first course were:
Thomas Mueller, Rick Smith and Youngok Kang. Alberta Albertella will help in accessing and using the platform (for sharing material, upload files, homework, webconference, blog, etc)

Four editions of this course was issued for a total of 72 GIS experts of Operational Field (Peacekeeping Actions) of UN.
The courses were scheduled:
19 September - 18 October 2016
19 October - 18 November 2016
19 November - 19 December 2016
9 January - 8 February 2017

Volunteers who were involved are:
Thomas Mueller, Rick Smith, Youngok Kang, Lene Fischer and Kurt Menke.

===November 2016===
* Second UN openGIS initiative workshops held in Seoul 7-11 November

For details see

the webinar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Te5THhj51-g
and the slides https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxwcvLoMZAurNWN2dmNzQnd1OW8/view

===January 2017===
* The 16th January 2017 the second UN virtual class of Spiral 2 started its activity with Boundless PostGIS.The virtual class will work using the Beep Platform of Politecnico di Milano, as teaching platform. Tutors of this course are:
Mike Pumphrey Ivana Ivanova Gregory Giuliani Paolo Corti Victoria Rautenbach. Alberta Albertella is helping in accessing and using the platform (for sharing material, upload files, homework, webconference, blog, etc)

=== April 2017 ===
* '''Meeting at United Nations Global Service Centre - Brindisi, Italy, 27-28 April 2017'''

The meeting was organized in two days and included
* the combined demonstration and field test of the Modular Command Centre and mini Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) based Rapid Geospatial Solution

*the presentation (and discussion) of the UN Open GIS project to UN, Member States, other international organisations and academia [1]

=== July 2017 ===
* '''Presentation of the UN Open GIS Initiative at FOSS4G Europe'''

Main elements of interest by OSGeo UN Committee and GeoForAll:

*Spiral 1 (WG1): the UN Open GIS Initiative GeoPortal. The Platform is based on Geoshape-Exchange, developed by Boundless and supported by US DoD.

*Spiral 2 (WG2): capacity building for UN staff members on open source geospatial technologies. The initiative is supported by volunteer activity of OSGeo and GeoForAll members. QGIS (concluded) and PostGIS (in progress) have been taught by using as educational platform that of Politecnico di Milano.

*Spiral 3 (WG3): geospatial analysis. More than 140 new geospatial functions for Web and Desktop available at [2]. Those pieces of software were made avaialable by OpenGDS (South Korea). Educational material will be provided soon. The original material is available in Korean. It will be translated in English but some help in cleaning it by English native speakers is more than welcome.

*Spiral 4 (WG4): tools for data collection. The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) based Rapid Geospatial Solution is part of the WG activities and the software will be available soon. The development is part of the activity of OpenGDS (South Korea). Some South Korean companies are contributing to the development; among them Gaia3D, Inc.

* I discussed with Kyoung-Soo Eom and Ki-Joune Li (the two chairs of UN Open GIS Initiative) the document “Resourcing Open Source Geospatial Training for the United Nations” [3]. The theme of sustainability is very relevant to UN Open GIS initiative (and more in general to UN). We agreed to organize a first exploratory Skype or hangout meeting, together with Cameron Shorter (who promoted this initiative) to discuss the document before presenting it to the next UN Open GIS Initiative VTC.

I recall you that the UN Open GIS Initiative VTC meeting is scheduled the second Wednesday of every month at 1 pm UTC. People interested can attend. Just let me know in such a way that I communicate your interest to the chairs.

[1] https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3dBcNKACjRlcDZTa0JsNUlab0U/view?usp=sharing

[2] https://github.com/MapPlus/spatial_statistics_for_geotools_udig

[3] https://docs.google.com/document/d/19Di-WxImfPq5oF2jeBblxNjY0JYJoXegLc5jaTPjufM/edit#heading=h.g1mf7fn4rfea

=== August 2017 ===
* '''Presentation of the UN Open GIS Initiative at FOSS4G in Boston'''

=== March 2018 ===

The Initiative "UN Open GIS" is going ahead regularly.

1) Jeff has started his activity as Chair of the Technical Advisory Group (thanks to Sanghee for beinng the Chair before and for having done a wonderful work).

2) For those interested, there is a a regular VTC of UN Open GIS Initiative every month (the second Wednesday of the month at 3 pm Italy time).

3) Serena and Maria have been working hard for preparing the Open Call "Capacity Building for UN". Unfortunately we didn't get from the OSGeo Board the whole budget for the three Calls we had in mind, but Maria and Serena were able to find a solution: Boundless will sponsor the first Call. The Calls are meant for (young) researchers and educators and the proposal, as said, is to produce training material similar to what is already available for other projects (like QGIS GeoAcademy or Boundless GIS, just to mention the two that we already used for the UN Open GIS Capacity Building).

The Open Call will be for producing Training Material for:

a) UN Open GIS Spiral 1 (The web geo platform of the project and the mobile app: GeoSHAPE Exchange and GeoSHAPE Anywhere)
[[Training Material for UN Open GIS Spiral 1]]

b) UN Open GIS Spiral 2 (specific functionalities developed following the requests of the UN staff and not yet available in OS products. They are now available as WPSs)

c) global open data (high resolution included) and open source GIS.

The three calls will be hopefully launched by the end of this month.

4) There are two important appointments for the UN Open GIS Initiative:
. Operational Demonstration of Spiral 1 in Entebbe (April 2018)
. 3rd UN Open GIS Workshop in Berlin (May 2018)

Due to economic restrictions (the small budget we have as Committee), only Maria will be able only to participate only to the former. Maria will report after the event about the progress in Spiral 1.

=== April 2018 ===

1 April 2018
Announcement of the OSGeo UN Committee Educational Challenge. Details are available here:
https://www.osgeo.org/foundation-news/osgeo-un-committee-educational-challenge/

9-13 April 2018
Operational Demonstration of UN Open GIS Initiative (Spiral One): GeoSHAPE-Exchange │ GeoSHAPE-Anywhere at the UN Regional Support Centre – Entebbe (UNRSC-E) Entebbe, Uganda. Attending for OSGeo: Maria A Brovelli. Presentation available here:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1eu2I8cddZThC4hU688ZjNNs_miGsstvBrpgqCiPG_kE/edit?usp=sharing

=== 19 - 21 November 2018 ===

United Nations World Geospatial Information Congress (UNWGIC) held in Deqing, Zhejiang Province, China.
Presentation "Open Science and Education" by Maria Brovelli and Ivana Ivanova: https://global.mofyi.com/201811/unwgic/05-Ivana%20Iva%CC%81nova%CC%81-Maria.pdf. In the speech the activities of OSGeo and GeoForAll were presented.

=== December 2018 ===

Ready the training material for UN Challenges
https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Training_Material_for_UN_Open_GIS_Spiral_1
https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Training_Material_for_UN_Open_GIS_Spiral_3
https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Training_Material_for_UN_Open_GIS_OpenData

Congratulations to Ketty Adoch (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ketty-adoch/?originalSubdomain=ug), Silvia Franceschi (https://www.linkedin.com/in/silvia-franceschi-93909314/?trk=public-profile-join-page) and Maria Ilie Codrina (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Codrina_Ilie) for their work and thanks to Christina Hupy, HaeKyong Kang, Minpa Li, Serena Coetzee and Maria Brovelli for mentoring the projects.

=== October 2018 - January 2019 ===

Three sessions of QGIS (Chair of the course: Victoria Rautenbach; mentors: Thomas Mueller and Cameron Green)

Session 1 - October

Session 2 - November

Session 3 - December - mid January

Two sessions of PostGIS (Chair of the course: Ivana Ivanova; mentors: Paolo Corti, Oliva Martin Sanchez, and Gregory Giuliani)

Session 1 - October-November

Session 2 - December - January

=== January 2019 - May 2019 ===

Preparation of the New OSGeo UN Challenges.

The two Challenges are published on 18th May 2019 and are available here:
https://www.osgeo.org/foundation-news/2019-osgeo-un-committee-educational-challenge/

Challenge 1: PostGIS training material update

Challenge 2: Open geospatial data and software for UN SDG 16, Peace justice and open institutions

=== 28-31 May 2019 ====

Participation at the 5th International Partnership for Technology in Peacekeeping Symposium, Chairing a Panel on "Open Technologies for UN" https://operationalsupport.un.org/en/5th-international-symposium#c3

The slides of the introduction to the Panel are available here: https://www.slideshare.net/mariabrovelli/open-technologies-for-united-nations

=== 14 June 2019 ===

Participation at the ISPRS GEOSPATIAL WEEK 2019 Enschede, The Netherlands | June 10-14, 2019 and presentation of the outcome of the OSGEo UN Challenge 3 "Monitoring SDG 9 with Global Open Data and Open Software - A Case Study from Rural Tanzania"

Paper: https://www.int-arch-photogramm-remote-sens-spatial-inf-sci.net/XLII-2-W13/1551/2019/isprs-archives-XLII-2-W13-1551-2019.pdf

=== 31 July 2019 ===

Announcement of the OSGeo UN Challenge:

Challenge 1: PostGIS training material update. The winner is Mayra Alejandra Zurbaran Nucci from Columbia
Challenge 2: Open geospatial data and software for UN SDG 16, Peace justice and open institutions. The winner is Berg Ambarouglu from Turkey

The winners start work under the mentorship of Ivana Ivánová ivaiva3@gmail.com, Oliva Martin Sanchez martinsanchez@un.org and Paolo Corti pcorti@gmail.com (challenge 1) and Maria Brovelli maria.brovelli@polimi.it, Serena Coetzee serena.coetzee@up.ac.za and Timur Obukhov obukhov@un.org (challenge 2).
Results of their work will be available by the end of the year

=== 2 August 2019 ===

Presentation of the OSGeo UN Challenge 3 (Open geospatial data and software for UN sustainable development goals) of 2018 at the UN‐GGIM: Academic Network Side Event “Resilience and Sustainability” - New York.
The outcome of the challenge is presented in a chapter of the book "Sustainable Development Goals Connectivity Dilemma"(available here: http://oapen.org/search?identifier=1005177). Title of the chapter: Openness and Community Geospatial Science for Monitoring SDGs – An Example From Tanzania by Maria Antonia Brovelli, Maria Ilie Codrina, and Serena Coetzee.

=== 26-30 August 2019 ===
Participation at the FOSS4G 2019 in Bucharest: UN staff (17 people) + UN Open GIS (None-UN: 19 people) = Total 38

Keynote by Kyoung-Soo Eom "Open Source GIS Technology for United Nations".

Meetings with FOSS4G Communities: GeoNode (Alessio Fabiani)

Presentations of the outcome of the OSGeo UN Challenge 2018.

Paper:
OSGEO UN COMMITTEE EDUCATIONAL CHALLENGE: A USE CASE OF SHARING SOFTWARE AND EXPERIENCE FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD
https://www.int-arch-photogramm-remote-sens-spatial-inf-sci.net/XLII-4-W14/49/2019/isprs-archives-XLII-4-W14-49-2019.pdf

=== 2 December 2019 ===

Meeting between UN Open GIS Initiative representatives (Kyoung-Soo Eom, and the International Association QGIS.ORG, represented by the chair Paolo Cavallini.

Participants:
1) International Association QGIS.ORG (hereinafter, QGIS.org) : Paolo Cavallini (Chair)
2) UN Open GIS Initiative (hereinafter, UN Open GIS): Maria Antonia Brovelli (Co-Chair, Prof. Politecnico Di Milano/OSGeo), Hae-Kyong Kang (Secretary & Chair WG-3, Research Fellow of the Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements), Kyoung-Soo Eom (Co-Chair, Chief UNGIS) and Gakumin Kato (GIS Officer of UNGIS)

Summary of the meeting:

1. QGIS.org and UN Open GIS expressed mutual interests for establishing a partnership in order to create synergy through cooperation/collaboration towards the achievement of the common goal for a better world. (Action) QGIS.org and UN Open GIS will jointly prepare 1) scope of cooperation/ collaboration and 2) Letter of Intent

2. QGIS.org expressed its interest to participate in the UN Open GIS Initiative as a member. (Action) UN Open GIS will discuss with its Strategic Board on the partnership with QGIS.org and QGIS.org joining the membership of UN Open GIS.

== Committee Meetings ==

; Next meeting:
* [https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meetingdetails.html?year=2017&month=4&day=10&hour=7&min=30&sec=0&p1=179&p2=189&p3=224&p4=22&p5=240&p6=215 APRIL 10th, 7:30 am GMT]

Please write here if you are able to attend in such a way that Maria can call you:

* Maria Brovelli / Rome / maria.brovelli@gmail.com/
* Patrick Hogan / Silicon Valley / patrick.hogan@nasa.gov
* Dimitris Kotzinos / Paris / kotzino at gmail.com
* Cameron Shorter / Sydney, Australia / cameron.shorter at gmail X com .

; Previous meetings:

* 27 March 2017, 10 am GMT
Attended by: Maria Brovelli, Max Cannata, Arnulf Christl, Sanghee Shin and Cameron Shorter

* Discussion on UN OpenGIS Initiative and Social Tenure Domain Model (STDM) initiative and code sprint.
* Discussion about possible sinergies between UN and OSGeo Live DVD.
* Action: Cameron to create draft proposal for Resourcing Open Source Geospatial Training for the United Nations. Later created here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/19Di-WxImfPq5oF2jeBblxNjY0JYJoXegLc5jaTPjufM/edit

* [[UN Meeting 2015-11-17]] 16.00 UTC

; UN Open GIS Initiative:

;Meeting January 2019 (please put your preference and your gmail address. Serena and I are potentially available for both time slots. We will call you via google hangout)

Proposal 1: 28 January 2 pm UTC
Attendees: Maria, Serena, Pekka, [[User:simboss|Simone]], Nils

Proposal 2: 29 January 9 am UTC
Attendees: Maria, Serena, Pekka, [[User:simboss|Simone]], Bruce, Nils

- The meeting is 29 January 9 am UTC.

=== We have a monthly VTC meeting of the UN Open GIS Initiative every third Wednesday at 3 pm UTC. Interested people, please, contact the chairs (Maria and/or Serena) for details ===

== Chairs ==

* [[User:maria|Maria Antonia Brovelli]]
* [[User:serena|Serena Coetzee]]

== Members ==
* [[Jeff McKenna]]
* [[Jochen Albrecht]]
* [[Bob Basques]]
* [[Massimiliano_Cannata]]
* [[User:Ticheler|Jeroen Ticheler]]
* [[Micha Silver]]
* [[User:GodwinYeboah|Godwin Yeboah]]
* [[User:Assefa|Yewondwossen Assefa]]
* [[User:Nikos|Nikos Alexandris]]
* [[User:AndrewTurner|Andrew Turner]]
* [[Venkatesh Raghavan]]
* [[User:Djay|Gérald Fenoy]]
* [[User:Pmooney|Peter MOONEY]]
* [[User:13scoter|Scott Hatcher]]
* [[User:kotzino|Dimitris Kotzinos]]
* [[User:ElaWoloszynska|Ela Wołoszyńska-Wiśniewska]]
* [[User:Jachym|Jachym Cepicky]]
* [[User:endofcap|Sanghee Shin]]
* [[User:Giulianoramat|Giuliano Ramat]]
* [[User:Gregory.giuliani|Gregory Giuliani]]
* [[User:Till Adams|Till Adams]]
* [[Tanya Haddad]]
* [[User:Maria gridw|Maria Andrzejewska]]
* [[User:rburhum|Ragi Y. Burhum (OSGeo - California / OSGeo Perú)]]
* [[User:darkblue_b|Brian M Hamlin]]
* [[User:Danielkastl|Daniel Kastl]]
* [[User:WernerLeyh|Werner Leyh]]
* [[User:Bruce.bannerman|Bruce Bannerman]]
* [[User:Ortelius|Jeffrey Johnson]]
* [[User:pnaciona|Pericles Nacionales]]
* [[User:Novacite|Junyoung Choi]]
* [[User:dirkf|Dirk Frigne]]
* [[User:pierzen|Pierre Béland]]
* [[User:maria|Maria Antonia Brovelli]]
* [[User:Mikel|Mikel Maron]]
* [[User:Rickasmith|Rick Smith]]
* [[User:Serenacoetzee|Serena Coetzee]]
* [[User:LeneFischer|Lene Fischer]]
* [[User:Darshana Rawal|Darshana Rawal]]
* [[User:Kurt Menke|Kurt Menke]]
* [[User:Tom Mueller|Tom Mueller]]
* [[User:Jbelo|Javier Belo]]
* [[User:Fjbehr|Franz-Josef Behr]]
* [[User:Sanand|Suchith Anand]]
* [[User:simboss|Simone Giannecchini]]
* [[Arnulf Christl]]
* [[User:camerons|Cameron Shorter]]
* [[User:Simod|Simone Dalmasso]]
* [[User:MapPlus|Minpa Lee]]
* [[User:Posiki|Pekka Sarkola]]
* [[User:Aanthieni|Ariel Anthieni]]
* [[User:Mbernasocchi|Marco Bernasocchi]]

[[Category:UnitedNations]]
[[Category:Committees]]

2021-12-16T18:59:23Z

Mbernasocchi: more mbernasocchi vision

A space for the candidates for [[Election 2021|election]] to the Board to share some information about themselves, their aspirations for OSGeo, what they would like to change, improve or introduce and what role they would like to play on the board.

You are welcome to follow the template, and add further relevant info as you need:

== N. Name, Country ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/osgeo-profile/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===

=== My vision ===

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===

=== What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any) ===

== Adam Steer - Australian in Norway ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/steer/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===

At work I am a polar researcher based in Tromsø, northern Norway - the latest iteration of a 'mosaic career' spanning research, research support, independent consulting, guiding, fixing bicycles and more! My geospatial training was in surveying and geomatics, applied to the frozen ocean at both ends of our planet using airborne and on-ground measurements. I also have a BSc in psychology and a multidisciplinary bachelor of Antarctic Studies. I've used open geospatial tools across research, business, and just making maps for fun. As part of my open geospatial software life I have worked hard to generate a culture of giving back, for example if we build a business tool based on open software, improvments are shared with the community (rather than branched into 'business specific' tools).

At home I am an adventurer at heart and parent to two boys. In general I would like to spend a lot more time getting lost in the mountains!

=== My vision ===

I want to help maintain a community which goes out of its way to let people in, and try to help members of the community become and stay engaged. More or less ask 'how can we help?' - and more importantly, 'how can we help without becoming just another overhead in your life?'. We live in interesting times and face a lot of challenges which we can't really predict well or prepare for. So my vision is to help this community in uncertain times, maybe think more about sustainability than growth.

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===

* FOSS4G international attendee / speaker / workshop presenter in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019
* part of the team which restarted FOSS4G conferences in 2018 with FOSS4G SotM Oceania
* part of the team founding OSGeo Oceania, founding director and member
* elected director of OSGeo Oceania
* small contributions to PDAL, OpenDroneMap
* advocate for open source tools and open mindsets in research, business and government
* charter member of OSGeo since 2018

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

In line with my vision - work to maintain a community which goes out of their way to let people in, and work on ways to help the community stay sustainable in terms of volunteer effort, financial support, and its environmental and ethical viewpoints.

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===

I want to get a better sense of OSGeo overall before suggesting changes. I would like to keep guiding OSGeo along paths toward inclusivity and environmental responsibility, but that isn't really new - there is plenty of precedent there.

=== What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any) ===

I feel at this point being an ordinary board member is the best fit. I have a lot to learn!

== Vicky Vergara, Mexico ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/osgeo-profile/vicky-vergara/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===

I haven't changed much from the last times I wrote a manifesto ([https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2019_Candidate_Manifestos#About_me_5 2019]) ([https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2017_Candidate_Manifestos#About_me 2017])

I remember the time in 5th grade that I was in Cleveland, Ohio.
But around a month after me arriving we were asked to make an essay of were we lived, And here is what is what I remember of it.

I live at a house. 
A house is on a road. I live in that road. 
A house is on a road on a city, I live on that city. 
A house is on a road on a city on a municipality, I live on that municipality. 
A house is on a road on a city on a municipality on a state, I live on that state. 
A house is on a road on a city on a municipality on a state on a country, I live on that country. 
A house is on a road on a city on a municipality on a state on a country on a continent, I live on that continent. 
A house is on a road on a city on a municipality on a state on a country on a continent on a world, I live on that world. 
A house is on a road on a city on a municipality on a state on a country on a continent on a world on a solar system, I live on that solar system. 
A house is on a road on a city on a municipality on a state on a country on a continent on a world on a solar system on a galaxy, I live on that galaxy. 
A house is on a road on a city on a municipality on a state on a country on a continent on a world on a solar system on a galaxy on the universe, I live on that universe. 

The only change from the 9 year old me and the now me is, I would only add at the end of each sentence "and I like to take care of it"

=== My vision ===

So this time I decided to transcribe a poem from Fernando Pessoa, "A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe: Selected Poems". I think it shows my vision.

"'''VII''' 
From my village I see as much of the universe as can be seen 
from the earth, 
And so my village is as large as any town, 
For I am the size of what I see 
And not the size of my height . . . 

In the cities life is smaller 
Than here in my house on top of this hill. 
The big buildings of cities lock up the view, 
They hide the horizon, pulling our gaze far away from the 
open sky. 
They make us small, for they take away all the vastness our 
eyes can see, 
And they make us poor, for our only wealth is seeing."

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===

I am still on pgRouting and OSGeoLive, but now I am also on MobilityDB.
I am still at the System administration committee (SAC) mainly taking care of mails and the website.
I haven't stopped been a mentor on OSGeo-GSoc program but recently I also participated on the UN-challenge as a mentor.
I started to attend the monthly UN-GIS meetings.

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

# In general: promote the use and development of Free and Open Source Software
# In particular: promote the use and development of the OSGeo projects, OSGeo incubation and OSGeo community Free Open Source Software.
# In detail: Give people (GIS) tools for making a living.

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===

As a member of the board, the first thing is not what I want to change or introduce, is what the community wants.
I feel that our task is to listen to ideas, objectives, reasons and make things happen.

=== What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any) ===

I would like to remain as the vice-president in the Latin America Area.

== Tina Cormier, United States ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/cormier/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===

I am a remote sensing data scientist with over 15 years in the industry. I have dedicated my career to using EO and AI to advance our collective understanding of and facilitate decision-making on impactful environmental and societal issues. Open source software is central to the work that I do, and as a small token of my gratitude, I take every opportunity I can to evangelize open source software, data, standards, and science. Sharing my open source experience has always been a part of my work; I have taught workshops in countries all over the world, from Peru to Nepal, as well as in my home country, the USA. Workshop topics have ranged from programming in R and using QGIS, to processing lidar with open source tools.

I was first introduced to open source while working at the Woods Hole Research Center (now the Woodwell Climate Research Center) and shortly after that, I attended my first FOSS4GNA conference - the rest is history! My favorite FOSS4G was Boston, where I gave 4 talks and taught a workshop - tiring, but so worth it!

If elected, I look forward to giving back to the community upon whose shoulders I have built my career. I would continue to promote open source, but through more official channels, and I would support the foundation however else I could. I am also excited to reach out to my networks in both the private and non-profit sectors to garner support (financial and code contributions) for OSGeo and the important work it does.

Open Source favorites (OSGeo projects and beyond): QGIS, Postgres/PostGIS, R (my first language!), Python

On the personal side: I am originally from Massachusetts and now live in Midcoast Maine where my husband and I are building a small farm. We have bees, horses, dogs, and cats, and each spring we tap our maple trees for syrup - these critters and activities provide a nice contrast to our busy work lives in tech.

=== My vision ===

My vision is that OSGeo remains a strong, important, inclusive, and reliable player in the tech space, providing FOSS4G users and developers with information, support, opportunity, and community.

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===

* FOSS4G 2021 Argentina Local Organizing Committee Volunteer - general call for papers team
* OSGeo Charter Member since 2017
* Speaker and Workshop Instructor at multiple FOSS4G conferences
* Active in OSGeo US - most recently, was a member of the US Chapter leadership conference steering committee
* Active FOSS evangelist and communicator even outside of FOSS4G conferences - frequent talks at other conferences and to various groups (e.g., Harvard Center for Geographic Analysis, University of Maryland Geographical Sciences Seminar, Maptime Cape Cod, Maptime Maine, RStudio etc.)

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

My interest in joining the OSGeo board is mainly to serve as a voice for the free and open source community. As a user of open source software and tools, I don’t typically contribute code, but what I can do is foster awareness, adoption, and participation within the geospatial community. I would also serve as a voice of the user within the board, bringing the perspective of the typical user successes and challenges.

I can be most impactful within the private and non-profit sectors, where I have years of experience and professional networks. There are a few other areas where I’d be excited to contribute as well: educational initiatives, partnerships with other open source software projects, and bringing FOSS to under-served communities.

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===

If elected, I’d like to spend my first few months getting acquainted with the board and understanding the Foundation on a deeper level before proposing any changes. One area where I’d like to help, though, is in continuing to expand upon the good work happening between OSGeo and other open source projects - we are all on the same team and are stronger together.

=== What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any) ===

I would be open to discussing how my skills might be best put to use to help the board.

== Rajat Shinde, India ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/shinde/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===

My name is Rajat (meaning ''shining like Silver'' in Hindi). I hail from India and Currently, I am a Ph.D. Candidate in Geo-informatics and a recipient of the Prime Minister's Research Fellowship conferred by the Government of India to selected doctoral students in India. Before diving into the spatial dimension, I used to be an Electronics and Communication Engineer.

My journey with open-source (and OSGeo) started in 2017 when I got to attend and present at the FOSS4G Asia 2017. In the same year, I got an amazing experience in contributing to the MapMint project as a Google Summer of Code Student. From 2018 and onwards, I am trying my best to be a GSoC co-mentor and work alongside new developers for the MapMint project. Additionally, I am fortunate to be a part of the OSGeo GSoC Administration team and recently, I got elected as a Project Steering Committee (PSC) Member for the ZOO-Project (read: star_eyes). Also, I was one of the mentors for the United Nations OSGeo Education Challenge 2021 for the pgRouting project. I am also actively involved in the development of the pgRouting workshop with the pgRouting community and it is always a great learning experience.

From where I started in 2017 when I look back, I feel proud of myself to be able to contribute something back. But more than that, I feel proud of being a part of this OSGeo community; of knowing great personalities, and working with them.

When I am not in front of my laptop, I love to play the flute and read books. (I am also exploring my cooking skills these days. :P)

[http://home.iitb.ac.in/~rajatshinde More details]

=== My vision ===

My vision is to spread the knowledge of open geospatial research and software to the next level. We all are aware of the significance of location intelligence in the current world. Personally, I feel that immense opportunities lie in using spatial data in the real world. With the power to use existing open geospatial software and tools, a lot of problems can be addressed at a granular level. Additionally, it would be my great pleasure to see new members contributing back to the society (open-source community), learning and rising step-by-step to achieve their dreams.

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===

I have a short experience participating in diverse positions while being a part of the OSGeo community. A brief description is as follows:

* FOSS4G 2021 Session Leader, FOSS4G Asia Workshop Contributor and Speaker
* OSGeo-OGC-ASF Joint Code Sprint Participant
* Project Steering Committee (PSC) Member for the ZOO-Project
* Mentor for the United Nations OSGeo Education Challenge 2021 - pgRouting Track (Attending the UN OpenGIS and UN GeoAI WG Meetings)
* Charter Member since 2017
* Google Summer of Code 2020-onwards: Organization Administrator
* Google Summer of Code 2018-onwards: Mentor
* Google Summer of Code 2017: Student Developer
* Google Code-in 2019: Mentor

I am also an academic manuscript reviewer for the Journal of Open Source Software (JOSS) and I review manuscripts in the domain of geospatial and geoscience research and software.

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

My primary interest is in learning and propagating the experiences to the best of my capability to the new members. Also, to encourage new members to join the community and make their contributions to the OSGeo community projects with OSGeo’s initiatives like Google Summer of Code with OSGeo.

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===

I would always strive to support new members of the community just as the way I was supported, and I feel being capable of doing that is more important for me than proposing any change.

=== What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any) ===

I am open to any role based on the requirements of the board. I have a lot to learn! :)

== Marco Bernasocchi, Switzerland ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/bernasocchi/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===
I am an open-source advocate, consultant, teacher, and developer. My background is in geography with a specialization in geographic information science. I live in Switzerland in a small Romansh speaking mountain village where I love scrambling around the mountains to enjoy the feeling of freedom it gives me. I’m a very communicative person, I fluently speak Italian, German, French English, and Spanish and love travelling. I'm the QGIS.org Chair and work as CEO of OPENGIS.ch which I founded in 2011. Since 2014 I share the company ownership with Matthias Kuhn. At OPENGIS.ch LLC we develop, train and consult our client on any aspect related to QGIS, QField, PostGIS and WebGIS technologies.
I first came in contact with the OSGEO world during my BSc when the University of Zurich was teaching us proprietary products and I started looking around for Open Source alternatives and started using QuantumGIS “Simon (0.6)”. In 2008, when starting my MSc, I made the definitive switch to Ubuntu and I started working more and more with QuantumGIS Metis (0.11) and ended developing some plugins and part of Globe as my Masters' thesis.

Since then my whole work has pivoted around QGIS and enabling people and companies to embrace opensource for their GIS needs.
=== My vision ===
Serving as a pragmatic community conciliator - collecting thoughts from people with differing opinions and trying to find the high road through difficult issues I want to focus my and the community's energies on being inclusive and forward-thinking.

I see FOSS as a very socially responsible way to develop software, but even more, I see the immense technological advantage that writing open-source code brings. This is why I always strive to allow both pragmatic and ideological views to respectfully coexist and enrich each other.

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===
* QGIS contributor since 2011
* QGIS.org Chair since 2020
* QGIS.org Vice-Chair 2018-2020
* QField (originally QGIS for android) creator
* FOSS4G Session Leader, various FOSS4G Talks and workshops
* Charter Member since 2018
* Google Summer of Code 2012: Mentor
* Google Summer of Code 2011: Student Developer

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

One of my main motivations to be part of the board is to help QOSGeo keep its incredible growth rate by being even more attractive to new community members, sponsors and large/corporate users. To achieve this, to me the key is maintaining the right balance between sustainable processes and helping interesting and motivating grassroots projects.

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===

=== What role you would wish to fulfil on the board (if any) ===
I am open to any role based on how I could best serve the board.

[[Category:Elections]]
[[Category:Election_2021]]

Election 2021 Candidate Manifestos

2021-12-16T13:17:50Z

Mbernasocchi: initial mbernasocchi profile

A space for the candidates for [[Election 2021|election]] to the Board to share some information about themselves, their aspirations for OSGeo, what they would like to change, improve or introduce and what role they would like to play on the board.

You are welcome to follow the template, and add further relevant info as you need:

== N. Name, Country ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/osgeo-profile/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===

=== My vision ===

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===

=== What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any) ===

== Adam Steer - Australian in Norway ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/steer/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===

At work I am a polar researcher based in Tromsø, northern Norway - the latest iteration of a 'mosaic career' spanning research, research support, independent consulting, guiding, fixing bicycles and more! My geospatial training was in surveying and geomatics, applied to the frozen ocean at both ends of our planet using airborne and on-ground measurements. I also have a BSc in psychology and a multidisciplinary bachelor of Antarctic Studies. I've used open geospatial tools across research, business, and just making maps for fun. As part of my open geospatial software life I have worked hard to generate a culture of giving back, for example if we build a business tool based on open software, improvments are shared with the community (rather than branched into 'business specific' tools).

At home I am an adventurer at heart and parent to two boys. In general I would like to spend a lot more time getting lost in the mountains!

=== My vision ===

I want to help maintain a community which goes out of its way to let people in, and try to help members of the community become and stay engaged. More or less ask 'how can we help?' - and more importantly, 'how can we help without becoming just another overhead in your life?'. We live in interesting times and face a lot of challenges which we can't really predict well or prepare for. So my vision is to help this community in uncertain times, maybe think more about sustainability than growth.

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===

* FOSS4G international attendee / speaker / workshop presenter in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019
* part of the team which restarted FOSS4G conferences in 2018 with FOSS4G SotM Oceania
* part of the team founding OSGeo Oceania, founding director and member
* elected director of OSGeo Oceania
* small contributions to PDAL, OpenDroneMap
* advocate for open source tools and open mindsets in research, business and government
* charter member of OSGeo since 2018

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

In line with my vision - work to maintain a community which goes out of their way to let people in, and work on ways to help the community stay sustainable in terms of volunteer effort, financial support, and its environmental and ethical viewpoints.

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===

I want to get a better sense of OSGeo overall before suggesting changes. I would like to keep guiding OSGeo along paths toward inclusivity and environmental responsibility, but that isn't really new - there is plenty of precedent there.

=== What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any) ===

I feel at this point being an ordinary board member is the best fit. I have a lot to learn!

== Vicky Vergara, Mexico ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/osgeo-profile/vicky-vergara/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===

I haven't changed much from the last times I wrote a manifesto ([https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2019_Candidate_Manifestos#About_me_5 2019]) ([https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2017_Candidate_Manifestos#About_me 2017])

I remember the time in 5th grade that I was in Cleveland, Ohio.
But around a month after me arriving we were asked to make an essay of were we lived, And here is what is what I remember of it.

I live at a house. 
A house is on a road. I live in that road. 
A house is on a road on a city, I live on that city. 
A house is on a road on a city on a municipality, I live on that municipality. 
A house is on a road on a city on a municipality on a state, I live on that state. 
A house is on a road on a city on a municipality on a state on a country, I live on that country. 
A house is on a road on a city on a municipality on a state on a country on a continent, I live on that continent. 
A house is on a road on a city on a municipality on a state on a country on a continent on a world, I live on that world. 
A house is on a road on a city on a municipality on a state on a country on a continent on a world on a solar system, I live on that solar system. 
A house is on a road on a city on a municipality on a state on a country on a continent on a world on a solar system on a galaxy, I live on that galaxy. 
A house is on a road on a city on a municipality on a state on a country on a continent on a world on a solar system on a galaxy on the universe, I live on that universe. 

The only change from the 9 year old me and the now me is, I would only add at the end of each sentence "and I like to take care of it"

=== My vision ===

So this time I decided to transcribe a poem from Fernando Pessoa, "A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe: Selected Poems". I think it shows my vision.

"'''VII''' 
From my village I see as much of the universe as can be seen 
from the earth, 
And so my village is as large as any town, 
For I am the size of what I see 
And not the size of my height . . . 

In the cities life is smaller 
Than here in my house on top of this hill. 
The big buildings of cities lock up the view, 
They hide the horizon, pulling our gaze far away from the 
open sky. 
They make us small, for they take away all the vastness our 
eyes can see, 
And they make us poor, for our only wealth is seeing."

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===

I am still on pgRouting and OSGeoLive, but now I am also on MobilityDB.
I am still at the System administration committee (SAC) mainly taking care of mails and the website.
I haven't stopped been a mentor on OSGeo-GSoc program but recently I also participated on the UN-challenge as a mentor.
I started to attend the monthly UN-GIS meetings.

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

# In general: promote the use and development of Free and Open Source Software
# In particular: promote the use and development of the OSGeo projects, OSGeo incubation and OSGeo community Free Open Source Software.
# In detail: Give people (GIS) tools for making a living.

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===

As a member of the board, the first thing is not what I want to change or introduce, is what the community wants.
I feel that our task is to listen to ideas, objectives, reasons and make things happen.

=== What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any) ===

I would like to remain as the vice-president in the Latin America Area.

== Tina Cormier, United States ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/cormier/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===

I am a remote sensing data scientist with over 15 years in the industry. I have dedicated my career to using EO and AI to advance our collective understanding of and facilitate decision-making on impactful environmental and societal issues. Open source software is central to the work that I do, and as a small token of my gratitude, I take every opportunity I can to evangelize open source software, data, standards, and science. Sharing my open source experience has always been a part of my work; I have taught workshops in countries all over the world, from Peru to Nepal, as well as in my home country, the USA. Workshop topics have ranged from programming in R and using QGIS, to processing lidar with open source tools.

I was first introduced to open source while working at the Woods Hole Research Center (now the Woodwell Climate Research Center) and shortly after that, I attended my first FOSS4GNA conference - the rest is history! My favorite FOSS4G was Boston, where I gave 4 talks and taught a workshop - tiring, but so worth it!

If elected, I look forward to giving back to the community upon whose shoulders I have built my career. I would continue to promote open source, but through more official channels, and I would support the foundation however else I could. I am also excited to reach out to my networks in both the private and non-profit sectors to garner support (financial and code contributions) for OSGeo and the important work it does.

Open Source favorites (OSGeo projects and beyond): QGIS, Postgres/PostGIS, R (my first language!), Python

On the personal side: I am originally from Massachusetts and now live in Midcoast Maine where my husband and I are building a small farm. We have bees, horses, dogs, and cats, and each spring we tap our maple trees for syrup - these critters and activities provide a nice contrast to our busy work lives in tech.

=== My vision ===

My vision is that OSGeo remains a strong, important, inclusive, and reliable player in the tech space, providing FOSS4G users and developers with information, support, opportunity, and community.

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===

* FOSS4G 2021 Argentina Local Organizing Committee Volunteer - general call for papers team
* OSGeo Charter Member since 2017
* Speaker and Workshop Instructor at multiple FOSS4G conferences
* Active in OSGeo US - most recently, was a member of the US Chapter leadership conference steering committee
* Active FOSS evangelist and communicator even outside of FOSS4G conferences - frequent talks at other conferences and to various groups (e.g., Harvard Center for Geographic Analysis, University of Maryland Geographical Sciences Seminar, Maptime Cape Cod, Maptime Maine, RStudio etc.)

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

My interest in joining the OSGeo board is mainly to serve as a voice for the free and open source community. As a user of open source software and tools, I don’t typically contribute code, but what I can do is foster awareness, adoption, and participation within the geospatial community. I would also serve as a voice of the user within the board, bringing the perspective of the typical user successes and challenges.

I can be most impactful within the private and non-profit sectors, where I have years of experience and professional networks. There are a few other areas where I’d be excited to contribute as well: educational initiatives, partnerships with other open source software projects, and bringing FOSS to under-served communities.

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===

If elected, I’d like to spend my first few months getting acquainted with the board and understanding the Foundation on a deeper level before proposing any changes. One area where I’d like to help, though, is in continuing to expand upon the good work happening between OSGeo and other open source projects - we are all on the same team and are stronger together.

=== What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any) ===

I would be open to discussing how my skills might be best put to use to help the board.

== Rajat Shinde, India ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/shinde/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===

My name is Rajat (meaning ''shining like Silver'' in Hindi). I hail from India and Currently, I am a Ph.D. Candidate in Geo-informatics and a recipient of the Prime Minister's Research Fellowship conferred by the Government of India to selected doctoral students in India. Before diving into the spatial dimension, I used to be an Electronics and Communication Engineer.

My journey with open-source (and OSGeo) started in 2017 when I got to attend and present at the FOSS4G Asia 2017. In the same year, I got an amazing experience in contributing to the MapMint project as a Google Summer of Code Student. From 2018 and onwards, I am trying my best to be a GSoC co-mentor and work alongside new developers for the MapMint project. Additionally, I am fortunate to be a part of the OSGeo GSoC Administration team and recently, I got elected as a Project Steering Committee (PSC) Member for the ZOO-Project (read: star_eyes). Also, I was one of the mentors for the United Nations OSGeo Education Challenge 2021 for the pgRouting project. I am also actively involved in the development of the pgRouting workshop with the pgRouting community and it is always a great learning experience.

From where I started in 2017 when I look back, I feel proud of myself to be able to contribute something back. But more than that, I feel proud of being a part of this OSGeo community; of knowing great personalities, and working with them.

When I am not in front of my laptop, I love to play the flute and read books. (I am also exploring my cooking skills these days. :P)

[http://home.iitb.ac.in/~rajatshinde More details]

=== My vision ===

My vision is to spread the knowledge of open geospatial research and software to the next level. We all are aware of the significance of location intelligence in the current world. Personally, I feel that immense opportunities lie in using spatial data in the real world. With the power to use existing open geospatial software and tools, a lot of problems can be addressed at a granular level. Additionally, it would be my great pleasure to see new members contributing back to the society (open-source community), learning and rising step-by-step to achieve their dreams.

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===

I have a short experience participating in diverse positions while being a part of the OSGeo community. A brief description is as follows:

* FOSS4G 2021 Session Leader, FOSS4G Asia Workshop Contributor and Speaker
* OSGeo-OGC-ASF Joint Code Sprint Participant
* Project Steering Committee (PSC) Member for the ZOO-Project
* Mentor for the United Nations OSGeo Education Challenge 2021 - pgRouting Track (Attending the UN OpenGIS and UN GeoAI WG Meetings)
* Charter Member since 2017
* Google Summer of Code 2020-onwards: Organization Administrator
* Google Summer of Code 2018-onwards: Mentor
* Google Summer of Code 2017: Student Developer
* Google Code-in 2019: Mentor

I am also an academic manuscript reviewer for the Journal of Open Source Software (JOSS) and I review manuscripts in the domain of geospatial and geoscience research and software.

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

My primary interest is in learning and propagating the experiences to the best of my capability to the new members. Also, to encourage new members to join the community and make their contributions to the OSGeo community projects with OSGeo’s initiatives like Google Summer of Code with OSGeo.

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===

I would always strive to support new members of the community just as the way I was supported, and I feel being capable of doing that is more important for me than proposing any change.

=== What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any) ===

I am open to any role based on the requirements of the board. I have a lot to learn! :)

== Marco Bernasocchi, Switzerland ([https://www.osgeo.org/member/osgeo-profile/ OSGeo profile]) ==

=== About me ===
I am an open-source advocate, consultant, teacher, and developer. My background is in geography with a specialization in geographic information science. I live in Switzerland in a small Romansh speaking mountain village where I love scrambling around the mountains to enjoy the feeling of freedom it gives me. I’m a very communicative person, I fluently speak Italian, German, French English, and Spanish and love travelling. I'm the QGIS.org Chair and work as CEO of OPENGIS.ch which I founded in 2011. Since 2014 I share the company ownership with Matthias Kuhn. At OPENGIS.ch LLC we develop, train and consult our client on any aspect related to QGIS, QField, PostGIS and webGIS technologies.
I first came in contact with the OSGEO world during my BSc when the University of Zurich was teaching us proprietary products and I started looking around for Open Source alternatives and started using QuantumGIS “Simon (0.6)”. In 2008, when starting my MSc, I made the definitive switch to Ubuntu and I started working more and more with QuantumGIS Metis (0.11) and ended developing some plugins and part of Globe as my Masters' thesis.

Since then my whole work has pivoted around QGIS and enabling people and companies to embrace opensource for their GIS needs.
=== My vision ===

=== What you have done within the community in the past ===
* QGIS.org Chair since 2020<
* QGIS.org Vice-Chair 2018-2020
* QField creator (QGIS for android)
* FOSS4G Session Leader, various FOSS4G Talks and workshops
* Charter Member since 2018
* Google Summer of Code 2012: Mentor
* Google Summer of Code 2011: Student Developer

=== What your interests are in terms of the board ===

=== Any things that you would like to change or introduce ===

=== What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any) ===

[[Category:Elections]]
[[Category:Election_2021]]