[Aust-NZ] Wrappup report of Spatial@Gov conference in Canberra, Australia

[Cameron Shorter]

http://cameronshorter.blogspot.com/2009/06/osgeo-at-spatialgov-conference-canberra.html

The Aust-NZ OSGeo local chapter set up and OSGeo booth at the 
Spatial at Gov <http://www.spatialgov2009.com/> conference a few days back, 
and I gave a well attended Geospatial Open Source presentation. The 
conference attracted ~ 200 delegates and covered:

    * Climate Change
      <http://www.spatialgov2009.com/abstractsClimateChange.asp> (7
      abstracts)
    * Local Government
      <http://www.spatialgov2009.com/abstractsLocalGovernment.asp> (1
      abstracts)
    * Indigenous culture and communities
      <http://www.spatialgov2009.com/abstractsIndigenouscultureandcommunities.asp>
      (4 abstracts)
    * Health <http://www.spatialgov2009.com/abstractsHealth.asp> (1
      abstracts)
    * Future directions of spatial technologies
      <http://www.spatialgov2009.com/abstractsFuturedirectionsofspatialtechnologies.asp>
      (24 abstracts)
    * Public/Private partnerships
      <http://www.spatialgov2009.com/abstractsPublicPrivatepartnerships.asp>
      (5 abstracts)
    * Social Inclusion
      <http://www.spatialgov2009.com/abstractsSocialInclusion.asp> (4
      abstracts)
    * Not Specified
      <http://www.spatialgov2009.com/abstractsNotSpecified.asp> (9
      abstracts)

The conference was particularly encouraging for people interested in 
"Open Technologies". It was opened by Senator Kate Lundy 
<http://www.katelundy.com.au/>, who is making a name for herself in 
Australia around Open Government (and who is also a keynote speaker at 
the FOSS4G <http://2009.foss4g.org/>conference in October). Then most of 
the presentations I attended mentioned Open Standards. In particular, 
there is a strong push to develop a "Spatial Marketplace" which is 
effectively a Spatial Data Infrastructure. I was pleasantly surprised to 
hear ~ 30% of the presentations mention how agencies are deploying Open 
Source software. And there was regular mention about how agencies are 
following Queensland's initiatives moving government data to Creative 
Commons licenses. (There are abstracts on this at FOSS4G too).
Thanks to the following people for helping to man the OSGeo stand:

    * Milton Lofberg & Autodesk for sponsoring the booth
    * Cameron Shorter (me) and LISAsoft for providing fliers and giving
      an Open Source presentation
    * Bruce Bannerman
    * Shoaib Burq
    * Plus a couple of others who dropped by for a bit


-- 
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Systems Architect
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

Think Globally, Fix Locally
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
http://www.lisasoft.com