[OSGeo-Announce] New OSGeo President and Updated Board of Directors

[Jorge Sanz]

== New President ==

The OSGeo Board of Directors selected *Venkatesh Raghavan* as its new
President. The previous president, Jeff McKenna, has stepped down, and the
OSGeo community is extremely thankful for his years of service.

Venkatesh Raghavan (Venka) is a celebrated representative of the OSGeo community
who coined the FOSS4G acronym in 2004. He is also one of the founders of OSGeo,
is active in OSGeo communities in Asia and with the currently
incubating ZOO-Project. Venka is on Advisory Board Geoforall, the
OSGeo educational outreach. In
recognition of his deep passion and commitment to Open Source Geospatial, Venka
has earned our highest honor, the Sol Katz award.

The OSGeo Board of Directors recognizes that being President is a heavy
responsibility, time and travel commitment. To promote closer and easier
interaction with regional communities and share duties, the Board took
the decision to appoint two Vice-Presidents.

The first Vice-President, from North America, is *Helena Mitasova*.
She was awarded the Sol Katz Award in 2010 for her long standing
contribution to the OSGeo Foundation and pioneering role in the GRASS
community. She is a champion of OSGeo's Geoforall education outreach.

The second Vice-President, from Europe, is *Dirk Frigne*. Dirk is an
entrepreneur serving OSGeo as Charter Member and member of geomajas PSC.
He is involved in the  INSPIRE Committee and received the Award for excellence
in geo-information technologies.

== Updated Board of Directors ==

Dirk Frigne received widespread support of Charter Members during the last
elections. Dirk has accepted our invitation to the board to complete the
remainder of Jeff McKenna's term.

Your updated board consists of:

   - Massimiliano Cannata
   - Vasile Craciunescu
   - Dirk Frigne
   - Jody Garnett
   - Anita Graser
   - Helena Mitasova
   - Venkatesh Raghavan
   - Sanghee Shin
   - Michael Smith

== About the Open Source Geospatial Foundation ==

The Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) is a not-for-profit
organization whose mission is to foster global adoption of open geospatial
technology by being an inclusive software foundation devoted to an open
philosophy and participatory community driven development. The foundation
provides financial, organizational and legal support to the broader open
source geospatial community. It provides an independent legal entity to
which community members can contribute code, funding and other resources,
secure in the knowledge that their contributions will be maintained for
public benefit.

OSGeo also serves as an outreach and advocacy organization for the open
source geospatial community, and provides a common forum and shared
infrastructure for improving cross-project collaboration. The Foundation's
projects are all freely available and useable under an OSI-certified open
source license.