[OSGeo-Conf] FOSS4G 2017 - Questions for LoI cities

[Jérôme St-Louis]

Steven,

Thank you for inquiring about affordability, and sorry about the late reply.
At this point, it would be difficult for us to give a complete picture 
of costs for an attendee, without going through the comprehensive 
budgeting exercise associated with the proposal stage.
 From the beginning of our OSGeo Ottawa Local Chapter discussions about 
hosting FOSS4G 2017, removing the cost barrier to attendance has been 
one of our key goals.
We believe Ottawa is best suited to realize this goal for a number of 
reasons:

  * The cost of living in Canada is generally lower than in the United
    States, and particularly low in Ottawa compared to more populous
    Canadian cities.
  * This should make a considerable difference for everything from the
    cost of the venue, accommodations, meals and transportation.
  * Ottawa Tourism will be assisting us in obtaining the best possible
    price for the venue, and they may be in a position to help us secure
    funds to offset that cost as a result of booking blocks of hotel
    rooms in the cities.
  * The important number of geospatial and software companies in the
    region as well as our collaboration with local organizations should
    allow us to successfully attract a good amount of corporate sponsorship.
  * As highlighted in our LOI, while hotel rates are not particularly
    high in Ottawa (~150 CAD/night), there are a number of alternative
    accommodations options such as youth hostels, AirBnB and less
    expensive hotels a short distance away from downtown.
  * Transportation fees should be minimal for attendees, as a taxi from
    the airport to downtown is around 30$ and many attractions, museums,
    restaurants are all within walking distance.
    There are direct International flights between many US and worldwide
    cities and the Ottawa airport; flights should be quite affordable
    for people on the US East Coast.
  * With the support of the University of Ottawa to host workshops, we
    should save costs by requiring the main venue only for the 3 days of
    the main conference.
    We hope this will contribute to either including the workshop fees
    within an affordable complete conference fee, or keep the workshop
    costs separate, but low, while still bringing in considerable income
    to offer a lower main conference fee.
  * In order to make the conference accessible to the widest audience
    possible we are planning to provide early bird pricing, discounts
    for students, non-corporate rates, discounts (or free passes if
    possible) for speakers, and possibly other options such as travel
    grants to encourage a diverse participation.

In terms of fees in addition to the conference fee yet to be determined 
(which we aim to keep below the price points of the last few 
international FOSS4G conferences), an attendee on a budget could get by 
with around 100 CAD / day:
- 60 CAD/day for a youth hostel or AirBnB
- 40 CAD/day for meals

Taxi from the airport and back with Uber would cost around 35 CAD.

For the sake of comparison, the USD / CAD conversion rate today is 
around  1 CAD = 0.76 USD.

Regarding co-chairs, as Javed mentioned, we will decide on a single 
chair and vice-chairs to share the responsibilities.

Thank you Jeff for your recommendations, we will definitely keep them in 
mind when putting together the proposal if we get the chance to proceed 
to the next stage.

Best regards,

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Jérôme Jacovella-St-Louis*
/Co-Chair, OSGeo Ottawa Local Chapter/
/Founder, Chief Technology Officer/
Ecere Corporation __ <http://ecere.ca/>_http://ecere.ca_
jerome at ecere.com <mailto:jerome at ecere.com>(819) 663-8539 
<tel:%28819%29%20663-8539> 	



On 2015-08-14 7:11 PM, Steven Feldman wrote:
> A question for all 3 cities:
>
> I am worried about the cost for a delegate to attend including hotels, food, workshops and conference fee. We know from past experiences that this can be an issue for people who are not sponsored by large organisations. We want to make FOSS4G accessible to as many people as possible and a few bursaries aren’t sufficient.
>
> Can you provide some estimates of all in cost for a delegate on a budget.
>
> OSGeo Board needs to give a clear steer on ‘surplus objectives’ to the bidding teams before they finalise their budgets in the next round
>
> To Ottawa:
>
> I agree with Jeff re co-chairs, for 2013 we had a single chair and 2 very strong vice-chairs who took on large portfolios of responsibility.
>
>
> ______
> Steven
>
>
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