FOSS4G'13

I agree with you that legacy is an important part of FOSS4G, however, I'd like it if you could unpack a few things about your statement. Steven has already written the Geo4All statement, how does this interplay with the theme of Education, where is the evidence for the 'rapid' expansion and how does this all relate back to Nottingham's FOSS4G and those prior. I'm just curious and would like to avoid going off on a tangent under a legacy banner. 

How much use do the labs get?  Who hosts them and what sectors do the lab users come from?  We should see how the education sector can support the legacy of the event, but the larger legacy would perhaps be better integration of open in commercial sectors.  Dont want other sectors to perhaps see the labs as a resource just for those in education (i know that the nottingham one is open to anyone, but i am not clear on who uses it)

It is all about building synergies for accelerating future developments in Open Source Geo Spatial and education is a key component. The biggest reason we started this initiative is to provide opportunities for more educational institutions to start GIS education using Open Source GIS. 

If you need proof of our rapid education expansion . Please find details below:

Europe

1.University of Nottingham, UK 
2.University of Girona, Spain
3.University of Southampton, UK
4.Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic
5.Newcastle University, UK
6.Laboratorio di Geomatica , Politecnico di Milano, Italy,
7.University of Warwick, UK
8.UNEP/GRID-Warsaw Centre, Poland

South America

1.Federal University of Paraná, Brazil
2.São Paulo State University (UNESP), Brazil  [process of being established]
3.National Amazonian University of Madre de Dios (UNAMAD), Peru [process of being established]
4.Universidad de la República, Uruguay

North America

1.North Carolina State University, USA
2.University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA
3.Information Center for the Environment, University of California, Davis, USA [process of being established]
4.Laboratorio Nacional de Software Libre, Mexico [in process of being established]


Asia

1.UNMC, Malaysia
2.Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Malaysia  [process of being established]
3.National College of Public Administration and Governance (NCPAG), University of the Philippines [process of being established]
4.Environmental Science for Social Change (ESSC), Philippines [process of being established]

Africa

1.University of Pretoria ,South Africa
2.Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD), Kenya  [process of being established]
3.University of Ghana, Ghana [process of being established]

Australia

1.University of Melbourne, Australia [process of being established]

Our aim is to have over 100 ICA- OSGeo labs established in the next 3 years worldwide.

Suchith

If we have time available I am happy, if others wish, to have  a discussion about legacy. Perhaps it could a be a dinner topic?

I think it is a little to broad brush to say 

I believe "Geo for All" is our FOSS4G 2013 biggest legacy and the key theme of implementation for this has been through the Education initiative of ICA-OSGeo Labs worldwide 

OSGeo Labs are not the legacy of FOSS4G 2013, they already exist and they are an important (although not necessarily the most important) contribution to making geo within education (secondary and tertiary) universal. 

If the OSGeo Labs want to consider releasing a Declaration following discussion at their BoF then of course they can but I am not sure that this should be a FOSS4G 2013 initiative.

Can you clarify Suchith, I'm still unsure what the open lab at Nottingham does, let alone the others. 

Hi Mark,

All the work that i am doing at Nottingham including ELOGeo initiative,  http://elogeo.nottingham.ac.uk/xmlui are part of Nottingham's inputs to the OSGeo Labs initiative.

If you want to know what other OSGeo labs are doing you can visit thier individual websites at http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Edu_current_initiatives  or join our maillist at http://lists.osgeo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ica-osgeo-labs 

I think it might be better that we have a seperate ICA-OSGeo Labs Declaration at FOSS4G 2013 after our BOF.

Suchith

 

I'm also very interested in having a legacy discussion over diner - in
relation to how OSGeo:UK can capitalise on the interest generated by the
conference. Particularly:
- Converting UK FOSS4G sponsors to OSGeo:UK 2014 sponsors
- Getting OSGeo Live DVD into more hands
- Active involvement from new people into OSGeo:UK committee seats
- Formalise our attendance and stalls at key events

It was excellent and productive F2F day and thanks to all of you for your contributions.

Some quick thoughts on FOSS4G 2013 Legacy ...

Archiving and making available FOSS4G 2013 materials is also key part of legacy of  the conference. That will bring benefits to a wider audience who might not be able to attend the conference . We are happy to make ELOGeo available for this.

I agree with Ian's suggestions on we need to think of ideas for making use OSGeo:UK builds up the momentum generated by FOSS4G 2013. Having an annual event is a good way to bring together the community and keep up momentum.

I am very happy that OSGIS has achieved its key purpose for which it was created i.e to help  bring together and build up strong OSGeo in the UK from scratch (it was very difficult period in the beginning but thanks to strong support and work from Jo and others)  all of us can be proud of the fact that we have achieved  this and now we have very strong OSGeo community in the UK and though our experience organising   
FOSS4G 2013 we also now have an excellent team and the expertise needed to run successful events  to keep building up the momentum . 

I am extremely grateful for University of Nottingham and all my collegues at NGI and former CGS for providing immense support and funding for helping start OSGIS and helping to keep it running for last 4 years. But i think now the OSGeo:UK chapter have reached enough maturity to  take responsibility of running the annual conferences. 

Hence i ask you all to start thinking ideas for planning running annual OSGeo: UK conference (which ever name we want to call it FOSS4G UK 2014, FOSS4G Europe 2014 or OSGIS 2014 ) and i will be happy to support in whatever way i can.

Suchith

Hmm, well I'd love to host OSGIS at least one last time... Might give us some time to work out a hosting rota, etc.