Title: FOSS4G 2018: The Geospatial Event of the Year
This post was written by Sutton
The annual Free and Open Source Software 4 Geospatial (FOSS4G) conference is the largest community gathering focused on open source geospatial software. FOSS4G brings together developers, users, decision-makers and observers from a broad spectrum of organizations and fields of operation. Through six days of workshops, presentations, discussions, and code sprints, FOSS4G participants, learn, exchange, and create new collaborations, geospatial products, standards.
FOSS4G is a global conference, with attendees from around the world! Last year, Boston, USA was the host city, before that in 2016 it Bonn, Germany. Now is the time for Dar es Salaam, Tanzania! FOSS4G 2018 will host numerous workshops over 27 – 28 August with exciting keynotes and presentations at the Julius Nyerere International Convention Centre 29 – 31 August, and finally Code Sprints and community building events September 1 & 2. In addition to bringing together the FOSS4G community in Dar, the 21st QGIS Developer meeting will take place in Zanzibar (a short 60min ferry trip away!) the 22 – 26 of August – the Geospatial Savanna is on the rise in East Africa!
The vision for our conference is to make it as accessible and inclusive as possible, bridging the gaps between the various communities that make us so strong, to make us stronger. This will be achieved through a Travel Grant Program that will enable economically disadvantaged participants the opportunity to attend, covering travel, lodging and conference costs. This will be bolstered by an exciting conference program, taking the very best that the open source geospatial community can offer. This ranges from locating schools to the instrumentation of communities with cheap, open source, 3D printed weather stations that improve community resilience to climate change.
Our theme for FOSS4G 2018 is “Leave No-One Behind”. We live in a world where our users and developers have the opportunity to make a difference to the lives of everyone, whether it’s those in extreme poverty looking for access to clean water, to those using routing algorithms to calculate the fastest route to work. Location and geography are at the heart of these challenges and a FOSS4G 2018 in Dar es Salaam will invigorate our existing projects, bringing them to new users and developers while supporting and nurturing the existing community.
To deliver on this mission, we’ve built collaborations with various communities, from within the open source geospatial community and beyond. For example, in collaborating with Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, FOSS4G 2018 will host their annual summit as a track within the main program; collaborating with Understanding Risk: Africa, to focus on the use of open geospatial tools like Geoserver, Geonode, and Inasafe while be bringing users and developers together at an extent not done before. To see the full extent of this exciting program, have a look at the lists of presentations and workshops!
Ultimately, you should attend FOSS4G 2018 because:
- Dar es Salaam is the centre of technological innovation, culture and social activities in Tanzania;
- A vibrant city of many cultures and warm hospitality;
- The gateway to African sights, such as world beating safaris, heritage and world leading beaches;
- A historic centre surrounded by the construction of a new Africa;
- At the centre of East Africa, within easy reach of the world;
Workshop, Main Conference (and experience tickets!) are now available at 2018.foss4g.org at the lowest early bird price in years for a global FOSS4G: $500. Early bird registration ends on June 5, book your place today. We’re looking forward to welcoming you to Dar es Salaam in the warm Tanzanian sun!