From astrid_emde at osgeo.org Mon May 8 12:56:08 2023 From: astrid_emde at osgeo.org (Astrid Emde (OSGeo)) Date: Mon, 08 May 2023 19:56:08 +0000 Subject: [OSGeo-Announce] Sol Katz Award for Geospatial Free and Open Source Software - Call for Nominations 2023 Message-ID: see news Item: https://www.osgeo.org/foundation-news/sol-katz-award-for-geospatial-free-and-open-source-software-call-for-nominations-2023/ 8 May 2023 The Open Source Geospatial Foundation would like to open nominations for the 2023 Sol Katz Award for Geospatial Free and Open Source Software. The Sol Katz Award for Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) will be given to individuals who have demonstrated leadership in the FOSS4G community. Recipients of the award will have contributed significantly through their activities to advance open source ideals in the geospatial realm. Sol Katz was an early pioneer of FOSS4G and left behind a large body of work in the form of applications, format specifications, and utilities while at the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. This early FOSS4G archive provided both source code and applications freely available to the community. Sol was also a frequent contributor to many geospatial list servers, providing much guidance to the geospatial community at large. Sol unfortunately passed away in 1999 from Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, but his legacy lives on in the open source world. Those interested in making a donation to the American Cancer Society, as per Sol's family's request, can do so at https://donate.cancer.org . Nominations for the Sol Katz Award should be sent to solkatzaward at lists dot osgeo dot org with a description of the reasons for this nomination (after sending, please wait for the moderator to accept your message). Nominations will be accepted until end-of-day May 26th Anywhere on Earth. A recipient will be decided from the nomination list by the OSGeo selection committee. The winner of the Sol Katz Award for Geospatial Free and Open Source Software will be announced virtually during the FOSS4G 2023 event in Prizren, Kosovo. The hope is that the award will both acknowledge the work of community members, and pay tribute to one of its founders, for years to come. It should be noted that past awardees and selection committee members are not eligible. Past Awardees: 2022: Sandro Santilli 2021: Malena Libman 2020: Anita Graser 2019: Even Rouault 2018: Astrid Emde 2017: Andrea Aime 2016: Jeff McKenna 2015: Maria Brovelli 2014: Gary Sherman 2013: Arnulf Christl 2012: Venkatesh Raghavan 2011: Martin Davis 2010: Helena Mitasova 2009: Daniel Morissette 2008: Paul Ramsey 2007: Steve Lime 2006: Markus Neteler 2005: Frank Warmerdam Selection Committee 2023: Jeff McKenna (chair) Frank Warmerdam Markus Neteler Steve Lime Paul Ramsey Sophia Parafina Daniel Morissette Helena Mitasova Martin Davis Venkatesh Raghavan Arnulf Christl Gary Sherman Maria Brovelli Andrea Aime Astrid Emde Even Rouault Anita Graser Ariel Anthieni Sandro Santilli Extended Program Text -------------------------------- The Sol Katz Award for Geospatial Free and Open Source Software (GFOSS) is awarded annually by OSGeo to individuals who have demonstrated leadership in the GFOSS community. Recipients of the award will have contributed significantly through their activities to advance open source ideals in the geospatial realm. The hope is that the award will both acknowledge the work of community members, and pay tribute to one of its founders, for years to come. Solomon Stuart Katz aka Sol 1947-1999 Background Sol Katz was born in Sweden (on August 3rd, 1947) and moved to NY at the age of 1. Yiddish was his first language, but he was amazingly bright, and learned both Hebrew and English quickly. After high school, he spent three years in the US Air Force, stationed in Germany, where he picked up yet another language. Following his brief military career, he decided to go to Brooklyn College in NY where he got his Bachelors in Geology in 2.5 years. He then married his wife Hedy in 1969, and went back to Brooklyn College while teaching in NY Public Schools and got his MA, also in Geology. After several years working for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in several states, he settled down in Lakewood, CO and decided to go back to school at the University of Denver in Computer Science and earned a second masters. At this time, he also had two children - Shanna and Risa. He was well loved in his office, at his children's school, and at home. Always full of laughter and good humor, Sol could easily be recognized by his flamboyant Hawaiian shirts and toucan or propeller hats. Sadly, after fighting Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma for almost a decade, Sol died April 23, 1999 in bed. Open Source ----------------- Sol Katz was an early pioneer of GFOSS and left behind a large body of work in the form of applications, format specifications, and utilities. In the early 80's, Sol assisted in the development of a public domain GIS package called MOSS (Map Overlay and Statistical System). This software was arguably the first open source GIS software in the world. Sol would later go on to release and maintain PC MOSS (GitHub archive: https://github.com/OSGeo/MOSS/). He was also one of the first involved in public data translator utilities. Utilities that he developed for converting DEMs and reading SDTS files were contributed back to the geospatial community, and are still available today (GitHub archive: https://github.com/jmckenna/sdts2dem). Sol was also a frequent contributor to many geospatial list servers, providing much guidance to the geospatial community at large. Sol Katz's collection of GIS utilities at the BLM continues to be implemented by many software projects. His legacy still lives on in the GFOSS world. Utilities ---------- Sol's code continues to be implemented in many software drivers, including the updated sdts2dem utility. Sol Katz's collection of GIS utilities at the BLM was formerly available at ftp://ftp.blm.gov/pub/gis/ (currently not available on the new BLM transfer system). About the Open Source Geospatial Foundation -------------------------------------------------------------- The Open Source Geospatial Foundation is a not-for-profit 501(c)(4) organization to empower everyone with open source geospatial. The software foundation directly supports projects serving as an outreach and advocacy organization providing financial, organizational and legal support for the open source geospatial community. OSGeo works with Camptocamp, GeoCat, OPENGIS.ch, WhereGroup and other sponsors, along with our partners to foster an open approach to software, standards, data and education. Open Source Geospatial Foundation https://www.osgeo.org/ From astrid_emde at osgeo.org Mon May 8 13:23:26 2023 From: astrid_emde at osgeo.org (Astrid Emde (OSGeo)) Date: Mon, 08 May 2023 20:23:26 +0000 Subject: [OSGeo-Announce] OSGeo Welcomes 7 students for GSoC 2023 | Heartiest Congratulations! Message-ID: <942123596ee0261ace77507f68f80a32@posteo.de> See news item https://www.osgeo.org/foundation-news/osgeo-welcomes-7-students-for-gsoc-2023/ 5 May 2023 Dear OSGeo Community, We are proud and extremely elated to announce that 7 students have been selected to work on OSGeo projects for GSoC 2023. ? Browse the projects at: https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/programs/2023/organizations/osgeo-open-source-geospatial-foundation Please join us in congratulating all the students and welcoming them to the OSGeo community. We are excited to see their contributions to our community in the coming months. To the students who were not selected, we commend you for your hard work and dedication to contributing to OSGeo. Please remember that this is just the beginning of your journey, and we hope to see you continue to contribute to the community in the future. We wish you the best in your future endeavors! We also want to recognize the hard work and support of our mentors. Their guidance is critical to the success of our GSoC program, and we couldn't have done this without them. Thank you, dear Mentors, for your efforts. ? We will be sending out further instructions on onboarding soon. Please stay tuned and keep checking the OSGeo SoC (Summer of Code) mailing list. If you haven't already subscribed, please do so. Best Regards, The OSGeo GSoC Admins Team. About the Open Source Geospatial Foundation -------------------------------------------------------------- The Open Source Geospatial Foundation is a not-for-profit 501(c)(4) organization to empower everyone with open source geospatial. The software foundation directly supports projects serving as an outreach and advocacy organization providing financial, organizational and legal support for the open source geospatial community. OSGeo works with Camptocamp, GeoCat, OPENGIS.ch, WhereGroup and other sponsors, along with our partners to foster an open approach to software, standards, data and education. Open Source Geospatial Foundation https://www.osgeo.org/