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<div>Hello Anita, hello Board,</div>
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<div>currently we have for EGU 2016 **two** activities coming from OSGeo. Both are being discussed within the OpenGeoScience Committee group (https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Open_Geoscience_Committee):</div>
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<div>1) A training course based on OSGeo-Live to reach out to people unfamiliar with OSGeo and especially young scientists. Goal: Introduce them to the OSGeo software stack.</div>
<div>2) A Townhall event. Goal: Address the significance/potential of OSGeo in the current discussion about Open Science / Open Data / Open Access with stakeholders both within and beyond OSGeo.</div>
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<div>In general, it would be great if the OSGeo presence both within EGU and its (larger) twin organisation American Geophysical Union (AGU) could be extended: The majority of scientists both within EGU (about 11.000 geoscientists attending the General Assembly -> Vienna) and the AGU GA (> 20.000 geoscientists attending the GA -> San Francisco) are still at best dimly aware about OSGeo, that they probably already use software from OSGeo projects for their research – and why the publication of scientific FOSS matters both for Academia and OSGeo.</div>
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<div>Other formats, as stated in the report from the EGU GA 2015, were considered for 2016.</div>
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<div>So why another EGU townhall in 2016, which even requires funding? </div>
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<div>Over the last year the trinity of Open Science [including FOSS ---> OSGeo] / Open Data and Open Access has continued to gain momentum within EGU and AGU. These topics were massive at the AGU GA in early December 2015 – unfortunately the OSGeo angle did not get communicated there at all.</div>
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<div>Townhalls are an established format in EGU to discuss strategic issues. The significance of OSGeo for Academia / Open Science should be communicated adequately, reaching out to all stakeholders at EGU – via a Townhall. To mitigate the competition with parallel events, this will require good preparation before and during the conference, to identify stakeholders and invite them personally to the Townhall.</div>
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<div>I believe we can (and should) have a two tier approach for EGU 2016: On the one side, provide practical hands-on experience via the training course. On the other side, host an OSGeo-Townhall and get strategic stakeholders involved (both “traditional” and “open” Scientists, EGU-leaders, publishers (-> Springer/Wiley/Elsevier, etc) and industry (-> ESRI, Google, Microsoft, etc.).</div>
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<div>It would be wonderful if the OSGeo activities both within EGU and AGU could be further grown in the future, including dedicated Splinter Meetings for OSGeo Projects and much more. </div>
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<div>Best,</div>
<div>Peter</div>
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<div style="margin:0 0 10px 0;"><b>Gesendet:</b> Freitag, 25. Dezember 2015 um 18:07 Uhr<br/>
<b>Von:</b> "Anita Graser" <anitagraser@gmx.at><br/>
<b>An:</b> "Peter Löwe" <peter.loewe@gmx.de><br/>
<b>Cc:</b> "osgeo-board List" <board@lists.osgeo.org><br/>
<b>Betreff:</b> Re: [Board] Topic for the Board Meeting: Funding request for Townhall event at European Geosicence Union General Assembly 2016</div>
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<div class="gmail_default" style="font-size: small;">Hi Peter,</div>
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<div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Dec 24, 2015 at 2:52 PM, "Peter Löwe" <span><<a href="peter.loewe@gmx.de" target="_parent">peter.loewe@gmx.de</a>></span> wrote:
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.8ex;border-left-width: 1.0px;border-left-color: rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style: solid;padding-left: 1.0ex;">* Request for funding for the third OSGeo Townhall at the European Geoscience Union (EGU) General Assembly. Details and background info here: <a href="http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/EGU_Townhall_2016" target="_blank">http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/EGU_Townhall_2016</a></blockquote>
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<div class="gmail_default" style="font-size: small;">It's great that you're organizing a OSGeo event at EGU again! I just went through last year's summary which reads suggests that a different format would be helpful to reach out to people not yet familiar with OSGeo:</div>
<h2 style="color: black;font-weight: normal;margin: 1.0em 0.0px 0.25em;overflow: hidden;padding: 0.0px;border-bottom-width: 1.0px;border-bottom-style: solid;border-bottom-color: rgb(170,170,170);font-family: "Linux Libertine" , Georgia , Times , serif;line-height: 1.3;background-image: none;"><span id="Options_.26_Opportunities_for_EGU_General_Assembly_2016">Options & Opportunities for EGU General Assembly 2016</span><span style="font-size: small;margin-left: 1.0em;vertical-align: baseline;line-height: 1.0em;display: inline-block;font-family: sans-serif;"><span>[</span><a href="https://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php?title=EGU_Townhall_2015&action=edit§ion=42" style="text-decoration: none;color: rgb(11,0,128);background: none;" target="_blank" title="Edit section: Options & Opportunities for EGU General Assembly 2016">edit</a><span>]</span></span></h2>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: rgb(37,37,37);font-family: sans-serif;font-size: 14.0px;line-height: 22.4px;">- Townhall (saturation has been reached -> 50 participants). Competition with similar events in the same timeslot most likely to continue. Most attendees in 2015 were already familiar with OSGeo (-> Birds of a feather). No need to preach to the choire. Reach-out to newbies needs different channels.</span></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: rgb(37,37,37);font-family: sans-serif;font-size: 14.0px;line-height: 22.4px;">- Option: Splinter Meeting (free software - free speech - free lunch) during a lunch break timeslot to avoid Townhall-competition issue.</span></div>
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<div class="gmail_default" style="font-size: small;">Did you consider changing to a different format than a townhall meeting?</div>
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<div class="gmail_default" style="font-size: small;">Best wishes,</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-size: small;">Anita </div>
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