Considering future Open Geospatial conferences in Oceania

“What should we do about upcoming conferences for Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) and State of the Map (SotM) within our Oceania region?”

Image by @mapmakerdavid

We didn’t have an answer to this question at the last OSGeo Oceania board meeting. At the moment, no one is volunteering to chair. No one is backing a city with commitment, and that is a problem we hope to solve.

Pertinent is that the international FOSS4G will be held somewhere outside of Europe or North America in 2021 and a call for a two-page Expressions Of Interest is coming out in September 2019 (soon). We have a very compelling case for bringing the international community to our region, if we try.

Are you keen to see FOSS4G and SotM continue in our region? Do you have ideas about where and how? Would you like to help make it happen? Are you interested in mentoring or being mentored by a bunch of committed volunteers who have worked on prior FOSS4G events? If so, why don’t you talk to us? Come join our email list and introduce yourself. We particularly want to hear ideas about what we should do about FOSS4G in the next two years.

Some history:

• 2009: FOSS4G-International in Sydney. During the global financial crisis, we had lower attendance than expected, but managed to stay profitable when similar conferences were losing money.
• 2018: FOSS4G SotM Oceania in Melbourne. Exceeded expectations for size, sponsorship, activities, and engagement.
• 2019: FOSS4G SotM Oceania Wellington: Has already exceeded sponsorship targets and sold out early bird tickets within a week.
• 2020: FOSS4G SotM Oceania: Where?
• 2021: FOSS4G-International: Should we bid for it?