[OSGeo-Announce] Even Rouault receives the 2019 Sol Katz Award

[Astrid Emde (OSGeo)]

Even Rouault was honoured with the 2019 Sol Katz Award, presented on 29 
August 2019, during the closing session of the FOSS4G event in 
Bucharest. This was the 15th year of the award.

Even took over the title of "Mister GDAL" after Frank Warmerdam passed 
him the torch. GDAL is a cornerstone of many GIS software both open 
source and proprietary.

He is an active contributor to GDAL, MapServer, PROJ, libgeotiff, GEOS, 
QGIS and many other projects.

Even is a highly productive OSGeo contributor. Sol Katz is not about 
numbers, but Evens stats are quite impressive: over the last 5 years, he 
has over 10,000 commits to multiple OSGeo projects.
(Ref: From 2014 to 2019: 10,900 commits to GDAL, 300 in MapServer, 400 
in QGIS, not counting his recent refactoring of PROJ6, and his 
contributions to other OSGeo projects)

Even is a brilliant developer and also a really nice person. He cares 
about OSGeo as an organization, about the goals and the way OSGeo runs 
its activities.

On behalf of the OSGeo communities we congratulate and thank Even for 
all of his contributions.

See Video from FOSS4G 2019
https://media.ccc.de/v/bucharest-481-awards-ceremony#t=1190

Thank you Even, you deserve this.

About the award

The Sol Katz Award for Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial 
(FOSS4G) is awarded annually by OSGeo to individuals who have 
demonstrated leadership in the FOSS4G community. Recipients of the award 
have contributed significantly through their activities to advance open 
source ideals in the geospatial realm. The award acknowledges both the 
work of community members, and pay tribute to one of its founders, for 
years to come.