[FOSS4G2016] open data track / cross-over at FOSS4G?

[Codrina Maria Ilie]

Hi Bart and everyone,

Thank you for raising that question.

As Gert already pointed out, we had a dedicated Open Data track at the 
FOSS4G Europe 2015 in Como. As Chair of that track, I can say that the 
response of the community was far from faded. We had more papers 
submitted than expected and even had to redirect some towards the poster 
session. In my personal humble opinion, this was a very clear sign of 
the growing interest in open (geo)data and, even more, that there are 
activities already reaching maturity around the topic.

To better understand what we wanted to do, would be to read the call for 
papers [1] we put out for this track.

This was not a singular communion though that I was part of. In 2013, at 
FOSS4G Central Easter Europe [2], we organized an open data side event 
[3] with representatives from Open Government Partnership [4] and Open 
Knowledge [5].

IMHO, the conferences and events around open data are not less abundant 
than at the start of this initiative. I think we are experiencing a 
coagulation of the open data related events. The topic has been 
constantly expanding in complexity, as it bares many facets, from 
economic to social, from legislative to transparent and accountable gov 
administration and so on. The number of organizations around the world 
that are actively working, supporting and promoting the open data 
movement is ever growing. Even more, EU and not only is heavily 
investing in the topic, most often related to the idea of smart cities, 
ex: [6]. Furthermore, all sorts of indexes giving ranks to countries, 
regions or cities as "how open they are", or indexes of how, where, with 
what social/ economic impact open data is used, have already been around 
for 3-4 years [7], [8], [9], [10].
Furthermore, European agencies, such as the European Space Agency has 
implemented an open data policy for Sentinel data products acquired 
through Copernicus program [11]. Building on that, EU is launching calls 
[12] to support smart applications that use the open data made available.
As a significant amount of data that an entity (nation, city, community, 
agency) produces and/or collects is spatial, a lot of applications tend 
to be geo-based. And behold, a beautiful connection to FOSS4G. The 
cultures of open source and open data are very closely related indeed 
and I couldn't agree more that we should keep the momentum built at 
FOSS4G Europe 2015. Furthermore, I would be very happy to be part of the 
open data team, as I have some experience in the area by being part of 
the GEOIDEA.RO [13] project and actively collaborating with Open 
Knowledge for some time now.


Best regards,
Codrina

[1] http://europe.foss4g.org/2015/Call_opendata-track
[2] http://2013.foss4g-cee.org/
[3] http://2013.foss4g-cee.org/program/opendata
[4] http://www.opengovpartnership.org/
[5] https://okfn.org/
[6] cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/191779_en.html
[7] http://index.okfn.org/
[8] http://barometer.opendataresearch.org/index.html
[9] http://www.epsiplatform.eu/content/european-psi-scoreboard
[10] http://www.opendata500.com/
[11] https://sentinel.esa.int/web/sentinel/sentinel-data-access
[12] http://digitalearthlab.jrc.ec.europa.eu/mygeoss/
[13] http://geoidea.ro/



On 26/09/15 13:30, Gert-Jan van der Weijden - Stichting OSGeo.nl wrote:
> Hi Volker,
>
> "the culture was a bit different".
> That's an interesting observation. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?
>
> Regards,
>
> GJ
>
>
>
>
> -----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
> Van: foss4g2016-bounces at lists.osgeo.org
> [mailto:foss4g2016-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] Namens Volker Mische
> Verzonden: zaterdag 26 september 2015 12:18
> Aan: Bart van den Eijnden; foss4g2016 at lists.osgeo.org
> Onderwerp: Re: [FOSS4G2016] open data track / cross-over at FOSS4G?
>
> On 09/25/2015 07:52 PM, Bart van den Eijnden wrote:
>> Hello Bonn,
>>
>> at my shared office space there is an open data expert (Frank
>> Verschoor, he is part of http://thegreenland.eu) and we were
>> discussing that it would be cool to have some cross-over between FOSS4G
> and open data.
>>
>> It seems the open data conferences are less abundant than they used to
>> be, i.e. they don't get organised a lot anymore and hardly on the
>> European / global level.
>>
>>  From the stories I've heard, their conference culture seems very close
>> to ours.
>>
>> Is there any interest in pursuing this idea?
>>
>> TIA for your thoughts.
>
> Hi Bart,
>
> I think that's a great idea. The culture was a bit difference (at least in
> 2010 when I experienced it a bit), but nonetheless it would be great to
> welcome the open data movement to the FOSS4G. I should probably revive my
> contacts in the community (in hope they're still there).
>
> I've noted it on my TODO list, so that this idea doesn't get lost.
>
> Cheers,
>    Volker
> _______________________________________________
> FOSS4G2016 mailing list
> FOSS4G2016 at lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foss4g2016
>
> _______________________________________________
> FOSS4G2016 mailing list
> FOSS4G2016 at lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foss4g2016
>