[FOSS4G2016] travel granting - your opinion

Fri Apr 15 02:32:45 PDT 2016

Hi Till, 

A few questions:
1. Do you have a link to this world bank country index? 
2. Do we want to grant the entire entrance fee and the entire accomodation costs?
3. Is supposed to be an open-end funding, or do we have a fixed budget
4. If it is a fixed budget; do we use it on a "first come, first serve"-base or do people have to make applications for a grant a do we make a decision on the grant at a certain moment (e.q. 1st of July)

And one idea:
Keep It Simple

Regards, 

GJ

-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: FOSS4G2016 [mailto:foss4g2016-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] Namens till.adams at fossgis.de
Verzonden: vrijdag 15 april 2016 10:53
Aan: list
Onderwerp: [FOSS4G2016] travel granting - your opinion

Dear list,

looks like this is my favourite subject these days, the "travel grants".

Now we have 10k $ and want to ask the community for personal donations via FOSSGIS paypal account (as dicsussed on IRC yesterday). Now we need clever ideas, how to proceed with this.
I just had a phonecall and discussion with Torsten about this topic and like to share  my ideas with you and also request for your opinion on this.

1. Who gets a grant?
My idea that I also discussed with the board is based on a "point system"

Country points:
I like the idea to follow world banks country rating. They assigned all countreies due to average income into 4 groups. So, looking to the last (in sense of "most poor" group), people applying from there become 3 points, from the second poorest group 2 and from the next classified group 1 point. I would also cut here and not accept any applying people from other countries.

Male/Female
In order to prosper a diverse community, in general applying women get 
+1 point.

Students
If a student applies, he/she gets another +1 point

Proposal/Talk
Board initially wanted that only spekaers become a grant, but for this we are too late, so I convinced them, not to make this to the onliest criteria, but i agreed to take that into account. So I would rate a handed in proposal with 1 point and an accepted talk with 3 points, so that we ensure, that people that handed in a talk become in favour of our granting programme if they have an accepted talk and apply for the granting program.

This is in my eyes a transparent procedure and everybody could rate him/herself and see, whether he/she gets a chance for granting.

2. What do we grant?
That's really not easy. 2014 and 2015 only granted attendance fee and 
accommodation and I think that's the way we should proceed as well, 
because it is really tricky to pay for someones travel. When do we get 
receipts? What if we pay for a flight and the granted person becomes ill 
or does not get a visa? Pay money in advance and people disappear? -> 
two words: very difficult.

So my favourite is to grant accommodation and conference pass.

But - what do we do with the applying student,s that also take part on 
the studentship programme? If they get a free ticket, there is no need 
for them to work for us. Solution: As a non-profit organisation we can 
pay a volunteering lump-sum, it's somewhere between5 and 700€ per year. 
So we could pay this for granted students, that also take part on the 
studentship programme and they can use it for paying their travel. they 
get the money cash after the conference.

Please share your ideas!

Till

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