[OSGeo-Discuss] Sol Katz Award for Geospatial Free and Open Source Software - Call for Nominations 2023

[Astrid Emde (OSGeo)]

see news Item: 
https://www.osgeo.org/foundation-news/sol-katz-award-for-geospatial-free-and-open-source-software-call-for-nominations-2023/
8 May 2023

The Open Source Geospatial Foundation would like to open nominations for 
the 2023 Sol Katz Award for Geospatial Free and Open Source Software.

The Sol Katz Award for Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial 
(FOSS4G) will be given to individuals who have demonstrated leadership 
in the FOSS4G community. Recipients of the award will have contributed 
significantly through their activities to advance open source ideals in 
the geospatial realm.

Sol Katz was an early pioneer of FOSS4G and left behind a large body of 
work in the form of applications, format specifications, and utilities 
while at the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. This early FOSS4G archive 
provided both source code and applications freely available to the 
community. Sol was also a frequent contributor to many geospatial list 
servers, providing much guidance to the geospatial community at large.

Sol unfortunately passed away in 1999 from Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, but 
his legacy lives on in the open source world. Those interested in making 
a donation to the American Cancer Society, as per Sol's family's 
request, can do so at https://donate.cancer.org .

Nominations for the Sol Katz Award should be sent to solkatzaward at 
lists dot osgeo dot org with a description of the reasons for this 
nomination (after sending, please wait for the moderator to accept your 
message). Nominations will be accepted until end-of-day May 26th 
Anywhere on Earth. A recipient will be decided from the nomination list 
by the OSGeo selection committee.

The winner of the Sol Katz Award for Geospatial Free and Open Source 
Software will be announced virtually during the FOSS4G 2023 event in 
Prizren, Kosovo. The hope is that the award will both acknowledge the 
work of community members, and pay tribute to one of its founders, for 
years to come.

It should be noted that past awardees and selection committee members 
are not eligible.

Past Awardees:

  2022: Sandro Santilli
  2021: Malena Libman
  2020: Anita Graser
  2019: Even Rouault
  2018: Astrid Emde
  2017: Andrea Aime
  2016: Jeff McKenna
  2015: Maria Brovelli
  2014: Gary Sherman
  2013: Arnulf Christl
  2012: Venkatesh Raghavan
  2011: Martin Davis
  2010: Helena Mitasova
  2009: Daniel Morissette
  2008: Paul Ramsey
  2007: Steve Lime
  2006: Markus Neteler
  2005: Frank Warmerdam

Selection Committee 2023:

     Jeff McKenna (chair)
     Frank Warmerdam
     Markus Neteler
     Steve Lime
     Paul Ramsey
     Sophia Parafina
     Daniel Morissette
     Helena Mitasova
     Martin Davis
     Venkatesh Raghavan
     Arnulf Christl
     Gary Sherman
     Maria Brovelli
     Andrea Aime
     Astrid Emde
     Even Rouault
     Anita Graser
     Ariel Anthieni
     Sandro Santilli

Extended Program Text
--------------------------------
The Sol Katz Award for Geospatial Free and Open Source Software (GFOSS) 
is awarded annually by OSGeo to individuals who have demonstrated 
leadership in the GFOSS community. Recipients of the award will have 
contributed significantly through their activities to advance open 
source ideals in the geospatial realm. The hope is that the award will 
both acknowledge the work of community members, and pay tribute to one 
of its founders, for years to come.
Solomon Stuart Katz aka Sol 1947-1999
Background

Sol Katz was born in Sweden (on August 3rd, 1947) and moved to NY at the 
age of 1. Yiddish was his first language, but he was amazingly bright, 
and learned both Hebrew and English quickly. After high school, he spent 
three years in the US Air Force, stationed in Germany, where he picked 
up yet another language. Following his brief military career, he decided 
to go to Brooklyn College in NY where he got his Bachelors in Geology in 
2.5 years. He then married his wife Hedy in 1969, and went back to 
Brooklyn College while teaching in NY Public Schools and got his MA, 
also in Geology. After several years working for the U.S. Bureau of Land 
Management (BLM) in several states, he settled down in Lakewood, CO and 
decided to go back to school at the University of Denver in Computer 
Science and earned a second masters. At this time, he also had two 
children - Shanna and Risa. He was well loved in his office, at his 
children's school, and at home. Always full of laughter and good humor, 
Sol could easily be recognized by his flamboyant Hawaiian shirts and 
toucan or propeller hats. Sadly, after fighting Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma 
for almost a decade, Sol died April 23, 1999 in bed.

Open Source
-----------------
Sol Katz was an early pioneer of GFOSS and left behind a large body of 
work in the form of applications, format specifications, and utilities. 
In the early 80's, Sol assisted in the development of a public domain 
GIS package called MOSS (Map Overlay and Statistical System). This 
software was arguably the first open source GIS software in the world. 
Sol would later go on to release and maintain PC MOSS (GitHub archive: 
https://github.com/OSGeo/MOSS/). He was also one of the first involved 
in public data translator utilities. Utilities that he developed for 
converting DEMs and reading SDTS files were contributed back to the 
geospatial community, and are still available today (GitHub archive: 
https://github.com/jmckenna/sdts2dem). Sol was also a frequent 
contributor to many geospatial list servers, providing much guidance to 
the geospatial community at large. Sol Katz's collection of GIS 
utilities at the BLM continues to be implemented by many software 
projects. His legacy still lives on in the GFOSS world.

Utilities
----------
Sol's code continues to be implemented in many software drivers, 
including the updated sdts2dem utility. Sol Katz's collection of GIS 
utilities at the BLM was formerly available at 
ftp://ftp.blm.gov/pub/gis/ (currently not available on the new BLM 
transfer system).


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--------------------------------------------------------------

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