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Steven,<br>
<br>
Thank you for inquiring about affordability, and sorry about the
late reply.<br>
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.<br>
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.<br>
We believe Ottawa is best suited to realize this goal for a number
of reasons:<br>
<ul>
<li>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.</li>
<li> This should make a considerable difference for everything
from the cost of the venue, accommodations, meals and
transportation.</li>
<li>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.<br>
</li>
<li>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.</li>
<li>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.<br>
</li>
<li>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.<br>
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.<br>
</li>
<li>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.<br>
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.<br>
</li>
<li>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.<br>
</li>
</ul>
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:<br>
- 60 CAD/day for a youth hostel or AirBnB <br>
- 40 CAD/day for meals<br>
<br>
Taxi from the airport and back with Uber would cost around 35 CAD.<span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"
lang="EN-US"><o:p><br>
</o:p></span><br>
For the sake of comparison, the USD / CAD conversion rate today is
around 1 CAD = 0.76 USD.<br>
<br>
Regarding co-chairs, as Javed mentioned, we will decide on a single
chair and vice-chairs to share the responsibilities.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
Best regards,<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
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<td style="border: none; padding-top: 0.19cm;
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0cm"> <font face="Arial"><font style="font-size: 9pt"
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Jacovella-St-Louis</span></b></font></font><br>
<font face="Arial"><font style="font-size: 9pt" size="2"><span
style="background: transparent"><i>Co-Chair, OSGeo
Ottawa Local Chapter</i><br>
</span><i><span style="background: transparent">Founder,
Chief Technology Officer</span></i></font></font><br>
<font face="Arial"><font style="font-size: 9pt" size="2"><span
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<a href="mailto:jerome@ecere.com" target="_blank"><font
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href="tel:%28819%29%20663-8539" target="_blank"><font
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style="background: transparent">(819) 663-8539</span></font></font></font></a>
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<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2015-08-14 7:11 PM, Steven Feldman
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:2122984A-3C91-4E09-882F-4F7FD6F01F95@gmail.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">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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