[clug] FW: Sydney to host FOSS4G in 2009 [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

Sun Feb 17 23:01:52 GMT 2008

-----Original Message-----
From: aust-nz-bounces at lists.osgeo.org
[mailto:aust-nz-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Cameron Shorter
Sent: Monday, 18 February 2008 6:36 AM
To: OSGeo Discussions; Aust-NZ OSGeo
Subject: [Aust-NZ] Sydney to host FOSS4G in 2009

http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/FOSS4G_2009_Press_Release_1

  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).*

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

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

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