[Aust-NZ] RE: Wrappup report of Spatial at Gov conference in Canberra, Australia [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

[Ben.Searle at osdm.gov.au]

Cameron,

Thanks for the positive comments - but a point of correction we had 343 registered delegates,  67 presenters, 25 sponsors and 19 exhibitors.....

Also, the presentations will be available online shortly at the Spatial at Gov web site

Regards

Ben Searle
General Manager,
Australian Government Office of Spatial Data Management

Phone: 02 6249 9298
Mobile: 0439-995-785
Fax: 02 6249 9942
Email: ben.searle at ga.gov.au
Postal address: GPO Box 378, Canberra ACT 2601
------------------------------------
spatial at gov Conference - Canberra 15 - 16 June 2009

 See more at http://www.spatialgov2009.com/



-----Original Message-----
From: Cameron Shorter [mailto:cameron.shorter at gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, 25 June 2009 10:21
To: Aust-NZ OSGeo; OSGeo Marketing
Cc: Searle Ben
Subject: Wrappup report of Spatial at Gov conference in Canberra, Australia


http://cameronshorter.blogspot.com/2009/06/osgeo-at-spatialgov-conference-canberra.html

The Aust-NZ OSGeo local chapter set up and OSGeo booth at the Spatial at Gov <http://www.spatialgov2009.com/> conference a few days back, and I gave a well attended Geospatial Open Source presentation. The conference attracted ~ 200 delegates and covered:

    * Climate Change
      <http://www.spatialgov2009.com/abstractsClimateChange.asp> (7
      abstracts)
    * Local Government
      <http://www.spatialgov2009.com/abstractsLocalGovernment.asp> (1
      abstracts)
    * Indigenous culture and communities
      <http://www.spatialgov2009.com/abstractsIndigenouscultureandcommunities.asp>
      (4 abstracts)
    * Health <http://www.spatialgov2009.com/abstractsHealth.asp> (1
      abstracts)
    * Future directions of spatial technologies
      <http://www.spatialgov2009.com/abstractsFuturedirectionsofspatialtechnologies.asp>
      (24 abstracts)
    * Public/Private partnerships
      <http://www.spatialgov2009.com/abstractsPublicPrivatepartnerships.asp>
      (5 abstracts)
    * Social Inclusion
      <http://www.spatialgov2009.com/abstractsSocialInclusion.asp> (4
      abstracts)
    * Not Specified
      <http://www.spatialgov2009.com/abstractsNotSpecified.asp> (9
      abstracts)

The conference was particularly encouraging for people interested in "Open Technologies". It was opened by Senator Kate Lundy <http://www.katelundy.com.au/>, who is making a name for herself in Australia around Open Government (and who is also a keynote speaker at the FOSS4G <http://2009.foss4g.org/>conference in October). Then most of the presentations I attended mentioned Open Standards. In particular, there is a strong push to develop a "Spatial Marketplace" which is effectively a Spatial Data Infrastructure. I was pleasantly surprised to hear ~ 30% of the presentations mention how agencies are deploying Open Source software. And there was regular mention about how agencies are following Queensland's initiatives moving government data to Creative Commons licenses. (There are abstracts on this at FOSS4G too). Thanks to the following people for helping to man the OSGeo stand:

    * Milton Lofberg & Autodesk for sponsoring the booth
    * Cameron Shorter (me) and LISAsoft for providing fliers and giving
      an Open Source presentation
    * Bruce Bannerman
    * Shoaib Burq
    * Plus a couple of others who dropped by for a bit


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

Think Globally, Fix Locally
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source http://www.lisasoft.com