[UN] Budget 2017 UN committee - hackathon in South Africa?

Fri Feb 3 02:27:41 PST 2017

Dear Maria, 

I want to come back to you about this email sent a while ago already… 

As you probably know, there will be a FOSS4G Southern Africa conference this year in the last week of June (https://qgis.org.za/en/events/foss4g-southern-africa-and-qgis-user-group-conference/) and next year the FOSS4G2018 will be in Africa. 

Local organizing committee (LOC) of this year’s conference are interested in attaching a hackathon to the conference (they are CC’d in). Based on the budget that was approved by the OSGeo Board, it will not be enough for the three day hackathon proposed by Jeff (see bottom of the email), but it could be used to arrange a one day hackathon? 

This could be an opportunity to raise awareness of the UN Open GIS initiative in Africa, and also to raise awareness of FOSS4G 2018 in Africa. From what I gathered during our VTC calls, all the other events planned for this year will be on other continents. 

The LOC is meeting later today. Maybe I can bring feedback from the LOC to our next VTC call to discuss the possibility?

Regards
--
Serena Coetzee

Geography Building 3-5
Centre for Geoinformation Science, Department Geography, Geoinformatics and Meteorology, University of Pretoria, Private Bag X20, Hatfield, 0028, South Africa
email: serena.coetzee at up.ac.za · Web: www.up.ac.za/cgis · Mobile: +27 82 464 4294 · Tel: +27 12 420 3823

On 15 Dec 2016, at 17:43, Maria Antonia Brovelli <maria.brovelli at polimi.it> wrote:

Dear All
I agree with the proposal.
Maria 

Inviato dal mio dispositivo Samsung

-------- Messaggio originale --------
Da: Jeff McKenna <jmckenna at gatewaygeomatics.com> 
Data: 15/12/16 16:32 (GMT+01:00) 
A: un at lists.osgeo.org 
Oggetto: Re: [UN] Budget 2017 UN committee 

Please also note that this would not an official request for 20k from 
the OSGeo Board, this is to let the OSGeo Board know that this is the 
amount that we foresee the OSGeo UN committee possibly requesting, in 
2017, for the first of its kind, an "OSGeo-UN Hackathon", attended by 
OSGeo's project leads and UN partners.

-jeff

On 2016-12-15 10:18 AM, Serena Coetzee wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> I support the idea of the hackathon to get things going. It shows commitment.
>
> I would be hesitant about funding travel because it may set a precedent and create expectations, but since this is an important initiative in its early stages, I think there is much value in face-to-face meetings.
>
> Regards,
> Serena
>
> On 15 Dec 2016, at 15:06, Jeff McKenna <jmckenna at gatewaygeomatics.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Maxi,
>
> I support sending an OSGeo representative to 2 meetings of the OpenGIS initiative, for 2017.
>
> I would also suggest that we request funding to host an "OSGeo-UN Hackathon" event in 2017, where we would host a 3 day coding event and invite lead developers from several OSGeo projects, to work specifically with UN partners face-to-face over 3 days.  OSGeo representatives would be funded for their time (yes, this is bold and shocking, but, this is long overdue).  The amount we would request would be approximately 20k (not the usual "3k to slide under the OSGeo Board radar", but an amount that says to the OSGeo Board "we are serious about helping the UN and its member nations leverage Open, and OSGeo is ready to step into that role and invest".
>
> The actual event would be a combination of workshops and hackathons, depending on the needs of the UN partners.  As we found out in the initial meetings with the UN GIS team in Seoul in 2015, various UN partners are already examining OSGeo software, and this event in 2017 would really gets things moving in this "relationship".
>
> If we wait for the UN to make all of this happen (and wait for their funding) well it likely will never happen; so let us, OSGeo, give this UN relationship a big kick into high gear, for 2017.
>
> PS. yes I would volunteer to lead this event, create a wiki page with more details, budget, research venues, set up program, gather OSGeo experts, etc.
>
> -jeff
>
>

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