[Northamerica] Intro

[Brian Hamlin]

Hi All-

   I'd like to introduce myself and say something about my interest  
in a North American Chapter of OSGeo

   My introduction to most things formally geospatial came by fate or  
by fluke, with a hand-me-down assignment as steering committee member  
for a conference that was slated for June of 2007 - the 5th  
International Symposium on Digital Earth.  Dr. Tim Foresman had  
committed to chairing the next ISDE, and had a deep rolodex -  
unfortunately without the funding to match !  The insiders saw it  
coming miles away (kilometers?)

   So basically it was a huge, 5 day, 120 presentation conference,  
done United Nations Environment Programme style - on a wing and a  
prayer. The nations of China, New Zealand, Australia, the EU were all  
officially represented.. as were NASA, NOAA, the National Snow and  
Ice Center.. UC Berkeley ... UC Santa Barbara sent Michael  
Goodchild.. the State of California sent the Lt Governor.. Florida  
was represented.. The commercial interests.. ESRI, Google, Microsoft,  
Yahoo and a host of startups.. etc etc.. I built the exhibition floor  
network working with the surprisingly strict UCB network people..  I  
did meet and greet with presenters..  I also handled presentation  
graphics jobs and fought endless fires as they came up.. as the  
'local' - since most everyone else was out of town, out of state or  
out of country.. I had a chance to meet Roger Tomlinson.. (he didnt  
say much :-)  Ben Discoe and Rebecca Moore.  I met many of the  
innovators of this nascent 'digital earth' tech.. and at that time,  
Keyhole, acquired by Google as Google Earth, had gotten 300m  
downloads.. as you well know, this is what the past looked like..

            http://vterrain.org/Packages/GovEdu/

So what was the theme of this ISDE5 ?  It was to *bring together* the  
disparate forces, including military, so use these new tools and new  
capacities, and spark * new intelligence *  which we almost all  
agreed, we desperately need right now..  (The National Snow and Ice  
people were freaking out about the arctic ice melts and larger  
climactic indicators - the State of California was very aware of the  
changes in salinity in the San Juaquine Delta system and its  
implications for agriculture in the central valley.. Florida is in  
line to be the next Netherlands.. the island nations political  
protests were starting in earnest, etc)

   What concerns me personally ?  Environmental issues.. over-used  
and insufficiently understood words, like.. bio-diversity or its  
opposite, mass extinctions . My ex-wife is a professional conference  
facilitator, so I have spoken at or played organizational roles in  
many, many "camps" and "un-conferences" in the SF Bay Area...

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event

   As far as OSGeo - along Alex Mandel and a few others, we have  
carved out a 'California Chapter' of OSGeo, in the shadow of the Dot  
Com Ground Zero and Silicon Valley.. Also with Alex Mandel and a few  
others, I built the OSGeo LiveDVD for the last two years, as a way to  
learn first hand what the OSGeo offerings are about.. I am a  
programmer for more than 20 years.. I have an office at the David  
Brower Environmental Center in Berkeley California, across the street  
from the University. I am quite keen on seeing OSGeo grow in North  
America.

   I am quite sure that it is ** essential ** that the military folks  
are at the table, and that ** non-military ** folks are at the table,  
to take this where it needs to go.


   best regards

   Brian Hamlin
   GeoCal
   OSGeo California Chapter
   415-717-4462 cell