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<div style="direction: ltr;font-family: Tahoma;color: #000000;font-size: 10pt;"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Dear All,<br>
<br>
I am pleased to share the good news of us having new OSGeo President and two new Vice Presidents and welcoming them on behalf of our community.<br>
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Welcome to our new <b>OSGeo President Professor Venkatesh Raghavan</b> .Venka needs no introduction to the community but i will formally introduce him in his new role.<br>
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Venkatesh Raghavan is Professor of Geoinformatics at the Graduate School for Creative Cities, Osaka City University, Japan. He coined the FOSS4G acronym in 2004 to denote Free and Open Source Software for Geoinformatics and has been promoting FOSS4G ever since.
He is also one of the founders of OSGeo and currently serves as Charter Member and also plays active role in OSGeo Local Chapters in Asia. His research interest includes Geospatial Services, Sensor Web and Remote Sensing for change detection. Recently, involved
in ZOO WPS Platform Project. He also also Team leader and member in several Geoinformatics projects and vast experience in conducting national and international training programs and development of learning materials for RS/GIS using FOSS4G. On 25th October
2012, Venka was named as the recipient of the 2012 Sol Katz Award, at the inaugural FOSS4G-India event, in Hyderabad.<br>
<br>
Venka is also the Asia chair of our education outreach initiative GeoforAll (along with Thuy Vu) and had been actively working to expand OSGeo education and outreach by establishing dedicated Open Source Geospatial Labs in universities across Asia to further
expand geospatial education opportunities to all. His details at <a href="https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Venkatesh_Raghavan" target="_blank">https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Venkatesh_Raghavan</a> <br>
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Also welcome to our <b>new OSGeo Vice Presidents Professor Helena Mitasova and Dirk Frigne.</b><br>
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Details are at <a href="http://www.osgeo.org/content/foundation/board_and_officers.html" target="_blank">http://www.osgeo.org/content/foundation/board_and_officers.html</a> <br>
<br>
We are pleased to see two new Vice Presidents are also included in the OSGeo structure . This is really excellent idea and is a really good plan for ensuring smooth continuity of OSGeo for the future. Presidents role is very busy role with many travel etc,
so by having Vice Presidents we can reduce the travel and workloads associated with the role. It is also good to have a Vice President familiar with operations to ensure continuity (and accommodate vacations).
<br>
<br>
I want to take this opportunity to thank Jeff for all the excellent contributions and work he did as our OSGeo President. He has taken OSGeo to new heights through his tireless work and efforts for our community over many many years. Jeff provided huge support
for our education efforts and expanding Geo4All. Also this is great opportunity to say thank you to each member of the OSGeo Board both past and present who all have contributed their time and efforts to help build up this amazing community.</font>
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Best wishes,<br>
<br>
Suchith</font></div>
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