[Viscom-dev] 33rd IGC 2008, Oslo

[Henning Lorenz]

Dear VisCom!

Regarding event IGC2008, http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/IGC2008

The 33rd International Geological Congress (to open for an even wider
audience also promoted as "Geosciences World Congress 2008";
http://www.33igc.org) is organised by the Nordic Countries and will be
held from 6th to 14th August 2008 in Oslo (at the /The Norway Convention
Centre, Lillestrøm/. The IGC
http://www.iugs.org/iugs/science/sci-igc.htm is held every forth year,
1988 USA, 1992 Japan, 1996 China, 2000 Brazil, 2004 Italy, 2008 Norway,
2012 Australia). This conference is truly international, attracting
geoscientists from all over the world. At least 8000 participants are
expected and presentations are organised in 40 parallel sessions. Also
all aspects of geoinformatics have their space in the programme (see
second circular on the conference webpage). Ian Jackson from the British
Geological Survey took the lead to organise a Geoscience Information
Super-Session  (3 parallel session, max. 3 days). One session will be a
GFOSS session (Free and open-source geospatial software: applications in
Earth Sciences and recent development.) and possibly a Public Geodata
Session (if there is enough interest, i.e. submitted abstracts). The
former will be convened by Markus Neteler and myself, and we hope to get
a heap of contributions. This session, and the IGC in general, is a
unique possibility to promote the case of OSGeo amongst geoscientists
worldwide. For the time being I can think of the following possibilities:

- promotion of OSGeo during sessions in general and the GFOSS session in
particular
- promotional material: flyers, posters and as many logos on members as
possible (t-shirts, pins, etc.)
- a booth at Geoexpo 2008 (http://www.33igc.org/coco/info/default.aspx)
- OSGeo workshop (I have to check with science scretariate if still
possible)?

A booth would be the most effective way of promotion as most of the
participants will visit the Geoexpo. I asked for information (size of
both, price, etc.) but did not get any answer yet, but I will come back
to it if there is any interest from OSGeo. Of course, this would require
some OSGeo members to be present at the congress who are willing to help.

If VisCom is of the opinion that the IGC is a good platform to promote
OSGeo and when we know more about prices at Geoexpo 2008 I will try to
find out if there are enough OSGeo members who plan to attent the
meeting and are willing to help with the organisation of OSGeo
activities beyond the sessions mentioned above.

With best wishes,

Henning
P.S. I'm a geologist at the Uppsala University, Sweden. The IGC Science
Secretariat is located almost next door to my office and gives me the
possibility to stay in close contact to the development of IGC.

-- 
Henning Lorenz
Researcher
Scientific coordinator for the Swedish Deep Drilling Program
Uppsala University
Department of Earth Sciences
Villavägen 16
752 36 Uppsala
Sweden
phone:  +46 (0)18 471 23 24
mobile: +46 (0)733 622 655
fax:    +46 (0)18 50 11 10
e-mail: henning.lorenz at geo.uu.se

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