[Board] Official expression of interest forming a European Chapter

[Dirk Frigne]

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