| Welcome to the OSGeo:UK Newsletter |
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Hello, and welcome to another OSGeo:UK newsletter. Every couple of months, this is where we share updates and information about the OSGeo:UK local chapter, along with other FOSS for geospatial goodness. Please share the newsletter widely so that interested friends and colleagues can sign up too. For now, enjoy this edition. |
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Tell us about your work!
You can submit news stories to be highlighted in this newsletter by supplying suitable details for us to add to a future newsletter issue. We are always looking for individuals willing to write a short thought piece, no more than a few hundred words, for inclusion in future newsletters. Use the same link to submit an idea, which can be about anything to do with the concept of 'open' in geospatial, and we'll get back to you if we'd like you to write that up. |
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Find out more about OSGeo:UK and how you can be part of our community on our website. |
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OSGeo:UK Survey
A quick reminder about our 2-minute member survey - please fill it in if you haven't already. OSGeo:UK are interested in understanding a bit more about our members. We believe we are not particularly diverse, and would like to collect some data so we can quantify our current supporter makeup along with any changes we manage to achieve in increasing our diversity. Please fill out our OSGeo:UK Members Survey 2026 at https://forms.gle/BkT2jc7x671pXoRh9.
All questions are optional, and all responses will be stored anonymously. More details on OSGeo:UK can be found at https://uk.osgeo.org/. If you have any questions, please email [email protected]. |
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FOSS4G:UK 2026
After the success of FOSS4G:UK 2025 in Leeds (including 180 delegates, 50+ talks and workshops, and a £6,000 surplus distributed to open source projects), the OSGeo:UK committee would like to repeat the event in 2026. The plan is to do this at the same venue. To make this happen we need an organising committee (aka the LOC). Would you be willing to step up?
At least a couple of the 2025 LOC should be available for 2026, but they will need help with gathering sponsorship, organising ticketing, managing the programme, publicising the event and organising social events. If you not been involved before, this would be a great opportunity to work on an established event and be part of making it happen. You can give back to the UK open geospatial community.
If you're interested, drop an email to [email protected] or contact a member of the committee - we hope to get a group together in the next week or two. If you have said you'd be interested in organising FOSS4G:UK 2026 as part of the OSGeo:UK survey then please get in touch as the survey is anonymous and we don't know who you are! |
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FOSS4G 2027
Plans are progressing for the submission for hosting the international FOSS4G 2027 in the UK. The bid team are in the midst of holding calls to pull together all that is needed to create a (hopefully) winning bid. If you want to help with the bid, please get in touch using [email protected]. Additionally, there will be plenty of opportunities to get involved if the bid is a success. |
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Reminder: The OSGeo:UK mailing list (https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/uk) has had a modern makeover and is now available (as read only) on Discourse. The UK Discourse list is a mirror which shows the posts made to the mailing list, and a new topic will be created under the OSGeo UK category for each email thread sent to the mailing list. You can see more here: https://discourse.osgeo.org/c/local-chapters/uk/72. Whilst you are there, you might want to check out the top level OSGeo Discourse (https://discourse.osgeo.org) where you will find messages from all sorts of different committees and projects. |
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20 years of OSGeo
Time has whizzed by - it's been 20 years since OSGeo first came into being. A comprehensive post about this anniversary can be found on the OSGeo website, but the organisation (or more rightly, the people who work to support the aims and objectives of the organisation) has made leaps and bounds in promoting open source geospatial software.
OSGeo Elections
The 2025 Board of Directors election is complete, and the following five people have been elected onto the Board. The OSGeo Charter Members get to vote and it is reported that 285 of the 468 Charter members cast their votes (a 60% turn out). The following new Board of Directors members are listed in alphabetical order: Codrina Maria Ilie Jeroen Ticheler Marco Bernasocchi Tim Sutton Vicky Vergara
Additionally, the annual election to create new Charter Members is now complete. The Charter Members come from around the world and this year three new UK representatives were elected: Alastair Graham from United Kingdom James Milner from United Kingdom Jonny Huck from United Kingdom
The full list of elected Charter Members is available here.
Sol Katz Award 2025
The Sol Katz Award is awarded each year by OSGeo to individuals who have demonstrated leadership in the FOSS4G community. Recipients of the award are varied but all have contributed significantly to advance open source in geospatial. In 2025 the award was given to Nyall Dawson who has been working on FOSS4G projects since 2013. Nyall has contributed to numerous projects such as QGIS, GDAL, and PROJ (he has over 24,000 commits to QGIS!). He is also a key member of the OSGeo and FOSS4G community. |
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FOSS4G Conferences 2026
Organisation pushes on for the 2026 global event in Hiroshima between August 30 and September 5. All the details can be found at https://2026.foss4g.org/en/ but the key things to note are that the call for papers is open, and that the Travel Grant Scheme is also taking applications (see https://2026.foss4g.org/en/register/travel-grant/). Another important date is the opening of registration on 23 February 2026 - keep an eye on the official website for early bird and all other pricing.
We also need to remain mindful of the European conference to be held in Timișoara, România between 29 June - 3 July. All the details can be found here: https://2026.europe.foss4g.org/ |
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Other UK meetings
There are a number of opportunities for talking geo with like-minded folks in the UK. A non-exhaustive list includes OpenStreetMap meetups, GeoMob, Geobeers Bristol, Geographical Association talks. There are also events from the AGI and RGS and many more once you start searching. If you are an organiser or attendee of an event that you'd like listed in a future newsletter then get in touch. There are also nascent plans for a new London based geo-meetup that will be supported by OSGeo:UK. Keep an eye on LinkedIn and other social channels for more information. |
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We hope that you found this edition of the newsletter interesting and informative. If you have any feedback or comments then let us know! You can check out the April and June 2025 newsletters and feel free to share this and previous newsletters with your colleagues and friends. |
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