[Aust-NZ] Sydney to host FOSS4G in 2009

[Cameron Shorter]

http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/FOSS4G_2009_Press_Release_1
For those that have not heard yet, this is our official press release.


  Sydney to host FOSS4G conference in 2009

/"User Driven FOSS4G"/

*Sydney (Australia) selected to host the 2009 international conference 
for "Free & Open Source Software for GeoSpatial" (FOSS4G).*

Monday, 18 February 2008

Aust-NZ OSGeo <A u s t - N Z @ l i s t s . o s g e o . o r g>

Cameron Shorter <c s h o r t e r @ l i s a s o f t . c o m>, +61 2 
8570-5050

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

The Australian/New Zealand chapter of OSGeo is pleased to announce that 
we have been selected to host the FOSS4G 2009 international conference. 
The conference is planned for Sydney in November 2009, and is expected 
to attract the leading users and developers in the open source 
geospatial community.

Holding this conference in the Asia-Pacific will bring enormous benefit 
to the region and provide the geospatial community with the opportunity 
to discover cutting edge spatial tools through to state of the art 
enterprise deployment.

Jeff McKenna, chairman of the OSGeo conference board summed up Sydney's 
bid. "The conference committee was overwhelmingly in support of Sydney's 
bid. Sydney's professional proposal, breadth of support from Government, 
Spatial and Tourist Industry, Enthusiasts and Academia demonstrated a 
passion that we have come to expect from OSGeo Conferences. Sydney's 
attractiveness and reputation as the gateway into Asia is an added bonus."

Cameron Shorter, System Architect at LISAsoft explained his motivations 
for leading Sydney's bid were not entirely altruistic, "For years I've 
wanted to attend FOSS4G's quality of presentations and meet attendees, 
but I've been held back by family commitments. So if I can't travel to 
FOSS4G, then why not bring it to me?"

The Oceania region has a reputation as being early adopters of Open 
Source as Steve Lime, founder of the mature Mapserver project notes, 
"Its about time FOSS4G came to Australia. Australians have been long 
time supporters of Open Source, including being the first users of 
Mapserver outside the University of Minnesota." Oceania also stands out 
as the region with highest usage of Firefox, the Open Source browser[1].

*About OSGeo*

The Open Source Geospatial Foundation has been created to support and 
build the highest-quality open source geospatial software. The 
foundation's goal is to encourage the use and collaborative development 
of community-led projects, data development and education.[2]

*About OSGeo - Australia/New Zealand*

The Australia/New Zealand chapter of OSGeo apply OSGeo principles 
locally. In particular, we focus on promotion and outreach.

*About FOSS4G*

FOSS4G is the international gathering of open source, geospatial tribes. 
The 2009 theme of "User Driven" reflects the migrating focus on users 
and integration of geospatial components into systems. The spatial 
industry is undergoing rapid innovations and the open source spatial 
community is one of the forces driving the change. From its beginnings 
the FOSS4G conference has been the gathering of the spatial tribes and 
has a reputation of being a melting pot for great ideas in the spatial 
industry and a catalyst for many successful geospatial products, 
standards and protocols. The 2007 conference was held in Victoria, BC, 
Canada and was a huge success[3]. 2008 conference will be held in Cape 
Town, South Africa[4]. FOSS4G 2009 Sydney will be the seventh "formal" 
gathering of the open source geospatial community and is expected to 
focus on the increasing importance of FOSS4G in the public and private 
enterprise.

[1] http://www.itwire.com/content/view/16329/53/

[2] http://osgeo.org

[3] http://www.foss4g2007.org

[4] http://www.foss4g2008.org


-- 
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Systems Architect
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

Think Globally, Fix Locally
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