Nomination for Board: Venkatesh Raghavan

[Markus Neteler]

Dear all,

I am honored to nominate Dr. Venkatesh Raghavan
(http://www.media.osaka-cu.ac.jp/~raghavan/indexe.html), professor at
Osaka City University in Japan, for one of the OSGeo board of directors
seats.

Venka is well known in Asia for his promotion of FOSS4G.
He co-ordinated the successful FOSS/GRASS 2004 International
conference in Bangkok, Thailand (http://gisws.media.osaka-cu.ac.jp/grass04/).

Preceeding this conference Jeff McKenna from DM Solutions and me
(I was  awarded a fellowship from Venka to come to Japan and hold a
couple of seminars in FOSS geomatics) came to Osaka to join the
discussions. It was there in Bangkok then, over a few drinks, that
initial discussions of a joint international FOSS geomatics conference for
2006 were discussed, in particular by Venka, Dave McIlhagga, Jeff
and me. But I can honestly say that it was Venka's passion for FOSS
geomatics that got the ball rolling. A very personable person, Venka
has a way of setting you at ease, that hopefully all of you will get to
experience.

Venka has been a big promoter of FOSS geomatics in the Asian market.  He
has personally contributed to FOSS by being instrumental in bringing
international character support (i18N) to GRASS and MapServer (see
http://www.foss4g.org/), writing a tutorial as well as creating FOSS4G
installers for Mandrake Linux (including a MapServer/MapLab rpm available
on maptools.org).

Venka possesses a passion for FOSS geomatics, and, after discussing this
with Jeff McKenna, we both feel that he would be a great asset to have
on the board.

Venka is currently traveling through Vietnam and Thailand, but he
has said that when he returns he is excited to take more of an active
role in the OSGeo discussions.

Best regards

 Markus