[Board] GIS for the United Nations and the International Community Conference

[Ravi Kumar]

It is pertinent to react, as the organisation is UN, which is supposed to
help the less-fortunate and so on.
It is time UN has a Open Source Software group.
Board may give a strong reaction.

On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 8:47 PM, Margherita Di Leo <diregola at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Dears,
>
> with some colleagues we noticed the following event organized at UN:
> http://www.gisfortheun.com called "GIS for the United Nations and the
> International Community Conference". At a closer look at the agenda (
> http://www.gisfortheun.com/agenda/index.html), it turned out that the
> only GIS mentioned is Esri.
>
> At the beginning we thought that Esri was a sponsor, but apparently it
> does not seem to be the case
> http://www.gisfortheun.com/sponsors/index.html
> However, although the very general title, turns out that the event is
> co-organized by Esri. Indeed in the home page, it reads:
>
> "The event is jointly hosted by UNITAR’s Operational Satellite Application
> Programme (UNOSAT) and Esri."
>
> I don't have anything against Esri but with such general title, it seems
> misleading that no other software representative is invited. For the sake
> of diversity, some OSGeo software might as well be part of this event. Just
> to be sure that people do not think that Esri is the only GIS on Earth.
> Otherwise, if it is an advertising event, it could just be clear in the
> title: instead of just GIS, it could as well be called "Esri GIS for the
> United Nations and the International Community Conference".
>
> What do you think? Could OSGeo politely ask Esri to clarify the situation
> and either open up to the broader GIS community or just change the title of
> this event? Would the board take action in this sense?
>
> Thank you
>
> --
> Best regards,
>
> Dr. Margherita DI LEO
> Scientific / technical project officer
>
> European Commission - DG JRC
> Institute for Environment and Sustainability (IES)
> Via Fermi, 2749
> I-21027 Ispra (VA) - Italy - TP 261
>
> Tel. +39 0332 78 3600
> margherita.di-leo at jrc.ec.europa.eu
>
> Disclaimer: The views expressed are purely those of the writer and may not
> in any circumstance be regarded as stating an official position of the
> European Commission.
>
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>
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