[Board] News item for announcing OSGeo as supporting organisation GWF 2016

[Venkatesh Raghavan]

Dirk and all,

I made some edits and additions
to the News about OSGeo Support for GWF.
Best

Venka

-----------------------Draft Version 2 -------------------------

*OSGeo Joins Geospatial World Forum (GWF) as Supporting Organization*

In line with OSGeo's renewed vision to "Empower everyone with open source
geospatial", we seek to promote our activity not only though the hosting of
events such as the FOSS4G [2], but also proactively engage with the broader
Geospatial Community in various forums.

Our mission is foster global adoption of open geospatial technology by
being an inclusive software foundation devoted to an open philosophy and
participatory community driven development.

Our partnership with GWF goes back to 2007 when OSGeo organized a well
attended OSGeo session at Map World Forum (former avatar of GWF) in 
Hyderabad, India. OSGeo was an Institutional Partner at the first GWF 
held in
Hyderabad, India in 2011 and also at GWF 2012 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
It is a great pleasure to renew our partnership as Supporting
Organization for GWF 2016 [3] and organize a special OSGeo Session at 
the event.

The conference will take place in Rotterdam 23 - 26, May 2016. As OSGeo 
we will have the chance to present our multifaceted activities and 
initiatives we support. We are very exited to have this opportunity 
showcase OSGeo projects to the participants of GWF. As an inclusive 
software foundation, we attach great important to be present at tech 
events like GWF and enhance our global impact and reach.

OSGeo will organise a full day event on May 24 and wishes to initiate a 
call for presenters promote our products and core values. Volunteers can 
contact Dirk Frigne, Vice-President, OSGeo Foundation [4] to help 
organise the session. OSGeo will also be have a booth at the exhibition 
special 1 day pass for access to the exhibition area and OSGeo Session 
will be 25Euros.

Look forward to meeting you all at GWF and wish the event a great success.

Dirk Fringe
VP, OSGeo Foundation

[1] http://geospatialworldforum.org/
[2] http://www.foss4g.org/
[3] http://geospatialworldforum.org/
[4] https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Dirkf

*About the Open Source Geospatial Foundation*

The Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) is a not-for-profit 
organization whose mission is to foster global adoption of open 
geospatial technology by being an inclusive software foundation devoted 
to an open philosophy and participatory community driven development. 
The foundation provides financial, organizational and legal support to 
the broader open source geospatial community. It provides an independent 
legal entity to which community members can contribute code, funding and 
other resources, secure in the knowledge that their contributions will 
be maintained for public benefit.

OSGeo also serves as an outreach and advocacy organization for the open 
source geospatial community, and provides a common forum and shared 
infrastructure for improving cross-project collaboration. The 
Foundation's projects are all freely available and useable under an 
OSI-certified open source license.
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On 2016/02/08 0:16, Dirk Frigne wrote:
> Dear board,
>
>
> I prepared a news item for the OSGeo news section on the website as an
> action for the decision to act as supporting organisation for GWF 2016.
> Please change and update where appropriate.
> Any tips or advise how I should proceed to organise the site event is
> more than welcome.
>
>
> *OSGeo news* *OSGeo supporting organisation of the Geospatial World
> Forum in Rotterdam May 23 - 26*
>
> According to the new OSGeo Vision "Empower everyone with open source
> geospatial", OSGeo decided to step forward, not only towards the calssic
> community activities, but also to the broader Geospatial Community in
> general.
>
> One of the goals for the next ten years is to foster the use of open
> source geospatial software.
>
> It is in this role that OSGeo is happy to be invited as a supporting
> organisation for the Geospatial World Forum conference [1]. The
> conference will take place in Rotterdam May 2016, 23 - 26.
> As Osgeo we will have the chance to present the different activities we
> are standing for, and the different initiatives we support.
> It is a great forum to present some of the great projects OSGeo hosts to
> a broader geospatial community. We think as an inclusive software
> foundation, it is very important to be present at all sort of Geo
> events, enlarging our impact on the Globe.
>
> OSGeo will organise a full day event on May 24 and want to initiate for
> this reason a call for papers from OSGeo projects to promote our core
> values and products. Volunteers can contact Dirk Frigne to help
> organising the event.
>
>
> Dirk
>
> [1] http://geospatialworldforum.org/
>
>
>