[Board] Official expression of interest forming a European Chapter

[Jody Garnett]

Thanks Dirk, added to the information section of the website.

--
Jody Garnett

On 7 July 2016 at 15:33, Dirk Frigne <dirk.frigne at geosparc.com> wrote:

> Dear OSGeo Board,
>
> Reason for my mail is to officially express our interest to form a
> Belgium local chapter of OSGeo.
>
> 1. self-organise
>
> Since the conference in Bremen in 2013, thoughts and ideas where
> exchanged to organise OSGeo more on a European basis. The Industry group
> was started, a platform of people supporting the idea arose, but there
> was no real initiative for action.
>
> This year we (OSGeoEU in formation[1) have the ambition to organise a
> legal entity OSGEO-EU to create a stronger software group in Europe to
> defend the rights of open source from the perspective of the
> Geo-ecosystem. We want to announce this chapter on the FOSS4G 2016
> conference [2].
>
> In preparation for this official expression of interest, a couple of
> meetings have already taken place. A physical BOF @FOSS4G 2014 in
> Bremen, several mails and discussions, a BOF @FOSS4G 2015 in Como and
> physical meetings (last one at the GWF 2016 conference).
> An extract of the meeting report of this last meeting, written by Till
> Adams and send to all the local chapter representatives of Europe:
>
> "Marc Vloemans, Gert-Jan van der Wejden (both from local dutch chapter),
> Dirk Frigne (from local chapter Belgium and OSGeo board member) and
> me-myself-and-I, Till Adams (from german speaking local chapter FOSSGIS
> e.V.) met end of May after Geospatial World Forum in Rotterdam. We
> discussed about the potential and the need to have an European local
> OSGeo chapter, which is not "above" the local chapters and which does
> not overtake tasks, that are already well covered by OSGeo.org, but that
> overtakes different, special European-related tasks and challenges, that
> aren't already covered by local chapters or by OSGeo.org itself. "
>
>
> In the past there where already some OSGeo EU activities, organised as
> European FOSS4G conferences, and further specific activities are planned
> (f.i. the Topic talk at the FOSS4G 2016 conference: "become INSPIRE'd by
> OSGeo" about the opportunities the INSPIRE directive can bring to OSGeo
> members and the organisation of community effort around specific EU needs.)
>
> Please find our ideas and plans in the OSGeo WIKI [1].
>
>
> 2. mission objectives
>
> After discussion amongst the active local chapter members we come to the
> following list of mission objectives:
>
>     * Community-building and networking around specific European themes
>
>     * support the European OSGeo members using FOSS4G software, help
> them to organise and bring into contact with governmental agencies and
> research institutes. Help them with European funded projects.
>
>     * encourage interoperability in European projects
>
>     * support European open standards and European directives such as
> INSPIRE
>
>     * provide support for the use of OSGeo software in education via
> European curriculum development, outreach, and capacity building
>
>     * to encourage communication between the different European local
> chapters
>
>     * to encourage different communities to work together where relevant
>
>     * Organisation of events
>
>     * Networking with other typically European organisations and groups
> (notably OSM, JRC, European projects, FIWARE, EUROGI, SMESpire, ... )
>
> 4. List of initial members:
>
> The European OSGeo Chapter has the support of the following initial
> founding members (alphabetic - first name):
>
>     Dirk Frigne - Vice president
>     Vasile Crăciunescu - board member
>     Jáchym Čepický - Secretary of OSGeo
>     Stephan Meißl - charter member
>     Till Adams - charter member
>     Marc Vloemans - Charter member
>     Markus Neteler - Charter member
>     Jorge Gustavo Rocha - Charter member
>
> 5. May I kindly ask the OSGeo Board to consider passing a motion forming
> the European chapter, and designating Dirk Frigne as the liason officer.
>
>
> [1] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Europe
> [2] http://2016.foss4g.org
>
> --
> Yours sincerely,
>
>
> ir. Dirk Frigne
> CEO @geosparc
>
> Geosparc n.v.
> Brugsesteenweg 587
> B-9030 Ghent
> Tel: +32 9 236 60 18
> GSM: +32 495 508 799
>
> http://www.geomajas.org
> http://www.geosparc.com
>
> @DFrigne
> be.linkedin.com/in/frigne
>
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