[OSGeo-Conf] FOSS4G 2014 Letter of Intent from Portland, Oregon

[Darrell Fuhriman]

We look forward to seeing you all in Portland next year. :)

PDF attached

Darrell Fuhriman

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FOSS4G 2014 Letter of Intent for Portland, Oregon, USA.
1. Who is your conference chair?
Darrell Fuhriman -  darrell at garnix.org
Darrell is Director of Engineering at Renewable Funding, and an adjunct instructor in the Department of Geography at Portland State University.
2. Who else is on your LOC?
David Percy, Department of Geology, Portland State University and Geospatial Data Manager, Institute of Portland Metropolitan Studies
Garlynn Woodsong, Calthorpe Associates
Eli Adam, Lincoln County 
Webb Sprague, Forecast Analyst, State of Washington
Justin Miller, MapBox
Jeremy VanGelder, I-10 Associates 
Members of the PDX-OSGeo user group TBD
The PDX-OSGeo group is both a local chapter of OSGeo, and Special Interest Group of Oregon and Southwest Washington URISA. Our members work in a wide-range of Geospatial related fields: academic, commercial, natural resources, non-profits, and local governments.
3. What is the experience of your committee members with similar events?
We bring past conference organizing experience. Members of the PDX-OSGeo group have been on the organizing committees for GIS in Action, WhereCampPDX, State of the Map US, and other events. It has also put on its own Unconference for the past three years. Percy was on the Workshops Committee for FOSS4G 2007, and co-organizer of Google Summer of Code Portland State University,
The LOC intends to engage Stumptown Syndicate as a paid conference organizer. Stumptown Syndicate is a Portland-based 501(c)(3) whose mission is to support technology education and community-building through events, space and resource coordination, and other activities. They have organized numerous open source conferences and events, as well as writing open source conference management software.
4. What is your venue?
The venues below have accommodated similar sized conferences in the past, and are centrally located. Final choice will be based on availability and cost. All facilities have wireless internet access.
	• Oregon Convention Center, 777 NE Martin Luther King Blvd, 97232
- many thousands capacity, rooms in every size
- hosted State of the Map US 2012, RailsConf 2007-8 & 2013, and OSCON for many years

	• Lloyd Center Doubletree, 1000 NE Multnomah St, 97232
- Doubles as primary conference hotel
- 1,000 largest capacity room
- up to 14 smaller meeting rooms, ranging in size from 50-760 depending on configuration
- complete capacity details are available here (PDF).
- hosted NACIS 2012 and OR-URISA’s GIS in Action conference for several years
	• Hilton Executive Tower, 921 SW 6th Ave, 97204
- Doubles as primary conference hotel
- 1,150 largest capacity room
- up to 26 smaller rooms, ranging from 20-600 depending on configuration.
- complete capacity details are available here
- hosted URISA GIS-Pro 2012, ApacheCon NA 2013
5. What is the price range and general location of your proposed accommodations? 
Prices range from the extremely cheap (Hostels ~ $30, Motels ~ $40) to $400, with typical range being $130 - $175. The Portland Convention and Visitors Bureau will help us put a hotel package together and also book the Convention Center, should that be chosen as the venue.
For other expenses, please see this summary by Travel Portland: http://meetings.travelportland.com
6. Are you partnering with other local organizations?
In addition to Stumptown Syndicate as the intended paid conference organizer, some potential partners include Ecotrust, Esri (neé Geoloqi), and TriMet. Portland has a very active tech culture, and we will be reaching out to organizations with similar interests. 
7. What makes FOSS4G in your proposed location compelling?
Portland’s “Silicon Forest” is home to a booming tech community and a hotbed of open source development, as well as a popular conference location in the past. Many conferences that travel have had record attendance in Portland (URISA GIS-Pro, NACIS). We expect to follow that pattern and make this the most successful FOSS4G conference to date.
Portland is regularly listed as one of the top bicycling cities in the US, as go-to destination for foodies, and one of the nation’s greenest cities. The region has a wide variety of cultural and outdoors activities for those attendees who wish to make a longer trip. We are just 80 miles from the Pacific Ocean, and 70 miles from the Cascades. The beautiful Columbia River Gorge is just minutes away.
The proposed conference venues are all located in or near the downtown core, and accommodations are less expensive than in larger cities. A direct light-rail connection to the airport makes out-of-town travel inexpensive – all the proposed locations are within a two minute walk of the airport line.

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