[OSGeo Africa] [GeoForAll-Africa] FOSS4G Africa

[Tim Sutton]

Hi


> On 28 Jul 2016, at 7:52 PM, Serena Coetzee <serenacoetzee at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Dear Gildas,
> 
> there was a FOSS4G conference in Africa in 2008 http://foss4g2008.org/ <http://foss4g2008.org/>. It’s quite a while back and it would be great to have another one. I have CC’d the OSGeo-Africa list from where you may get more comments and suggestions on a conference.
> 
> After FOSS4G2008, there was talk about starting a FOSS4G Africa chapter, but there were some complications regarding different regions and languages and we ended up with the africa at lists.osgeo.org <mailto:africa at lists.osgeo.org> list instead. Gavin Fleming was involved and may remember the details...


Yes there were a few concerns back then which we should address when thinking about an Africa Chapter:

1) Africa is a big continent and creating one chapter for a whole continent is pretty broad and by its nature will probably not be very inclusive (linguistically, culturally, geographically etc.)
2) There was a perception that we are too 'South Africa' centric - I guess this is true (based on the osgeo-africa list traffic) but I think it is more by virtue of linguistic bias and probably culturally being more used to participating in open source communities (latter may be an invalid perception). Hopefully this will change as folks from other regions realise they are welcome to participate and we figure out ways to communicate in languages other than english whilst still maintaining a sense of cohesion.

It might be more pragmatic to address different regions e.g. SADEC, tropics, northern Africa where some of these discontinuities are less pronounced. Either way a big +1 for any effort to hold more Africa-centric activities in the FOSS4G world!

Regards

Tim

> 
> 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 <mailto:serena.coetzee at up.ac.za> · Web: www.up.ac.za/cgis <http://www.up.ac.za/cgis> · Mobile: +27 82 464 4294 · Tel: +27 12 420 3823
> 
> <PastedGraphic-19.tiff><PastedGraphic-28.tiff>
> 
> On 27 Jul 2016, at 21:07, Gildas Jr. Boko <eddygordo at gmail.com <mailto:eddygordo at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
> Dear  all,
> 
> I've a user or OSGEO products for almost ten years now. And while i notice a growing interest all over the world for these products and the creation of FOSS4G chapters in different countries, in Africa there nothing like that.
> My idea is to organise a FOSS4G conference for OSGEO products users in order to create a network of capacity-building and knowledge and experience-sharing in all the possible fields.
> I've been thinking about this for a while now and i think a centre like RECTAS (www.rectas.org <http://www.rectas.org/>), where i've worked for the past two years can host such event thanks to their experience in the GIS field and also their hosting capacity.
> Well that is an aspect on which everybody can discuss.
> 
> But i believe it is high time for a FOSS4G chapter in Africa.
> 
> Thanks in advance for your opinion on this idea
> 
> --
> Gildas Jr BOKO (PhD)
> 
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—









Tim Sutton

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