FOSS4G newsletter June 2016

Although the core conference will start on the 24th of August 2016, many of us will have already arrived a few days earlier in Bonn, since the Business2Business meeting starts on Tuesday 23rd, the workshops take place on Monday 22nd and Tuesday 23rd and the Code Sprint on Sunday 21st of August!

In this newsletter we give you not only information on the schedule, side-events and workshops, but also tips on how to get to Bonn and what does this lovely town has to offer.

Some figures

At this point we have over 500 registrants, from all continents (OK ... except for Antarctica :-), from more than 50 different countries. That makes FOSS4G a unique chance to meet people from literary all over the world. And the city of Bonn is the perfect décor with its more than 180 nationalities!

An introduction to three of our keynoters

As you may already have noticed in the programme we have a fine set of keynoters with broad-ranging backgrounds. In this newsletter we would like to introduce you to three of them. The others will be introduced in our next newsletter.

Andreas Veispak. (from Estonia), taking the stage on Wednesday morning (24th of August), is head of the Unit for Space Data for Societal Challenges and Growth at the European Commission. The mission of this unit is to maximize the uptake and use of the Copernicus program (and space data more generally) among different user groups so as to fully exploit the societal and economic potential it offers.

Thomas Zerweck of the Munich Re (Reinsurance company) is our keynoter on Thursday morning (25 Aug). He will tell us how to build a geospatial platform for Risks and Claims management based upon GIS and Remote Sensing information and software.

Bianca Hoersch (from Germany) faces the challenge to get you all back on track after Thursday's lunch. She is working at ESA. Until recently she was the Third Party Mission Manager responsible for ensuring access to ESA's Earth observation data by a broad range of partners (NASA, European governments, commercial data providers). Starting with 2015, Bianca is mission manager of Sentinel-2 Copernicus.

Conference Programme completely scheduled

(and chairs needed) As you may have seen on our homepage, our 180 presentations program is now put into place. Our programme committee did a great job in scheduling it in such a way that every session is a coherent set of 3 (sometimes 2) talks. That saves you the stress of having to run from one room to the other (although, of course, that's not forbidden!).

Since FOSS4G is a conference that we all organize together, we hereby encourage you to step up as a session chair. In the programme you can find out which session still needs one. We'd like to hear from you at info@foss4g2016.org.

Into the deep in our workshops

The workshop committee put together a fine set of workshops, to be held on Monday and Tuesday (22nd-23rd of August). Learn how to apply and develop open source software for geospatial applications, directly from the experts (and of course from your fellow workshop participants also). And all this just for 100 euros. Some workshops are already near their maximum of 30 participants, so don't wait too long. You can apply for workshops in the registration form that is used for the general subscription.

Speakers & demo corner

As an additional part of the program, we’ll be settings up a speakers & demo corner where anyone can take 5 minutes to give a short demo or talk about his/hers project or application. Thus, if you have something you want to share with the community, this is the place to do it!

Sponsorship deals

We are still open for sponsorship deals. In our kasba-exhibition placed in the middle of our venue, we have two booths left. Every sponsor can have a booth for net cost price, first-come, first-served. If you consider sponsorship, please contact us as soon as possible, as we have to finalize the art directions for the venue by 22nd of July. After that, your logo can't be printed on the banners inside the venue. Keep in mind that we still have two open slots on Friday afternoon, when sponsors can present their company. Also consider, that every sponsor can have a talk on our B2B meeting on the 23rd of August. Take the chance to present your business to the world of Open Source for Geospatial!

Practical tips: Traveling to and in Bonn

If you plan to fly to Germany, take note that besides the Köln (Cologne)-Bonn airport, the larger airport of Düsseldorf as well as the main hub of Frankfurt flights bring you within reasonable reach (by car as well as by public transport) of Bonn. For those of you who have the chance to leave a smaller CO2 footprint, please note that the Siegburg/Bonn railway station is directly connected to the high speed (ICE) train network. Besides that, Köln Central Station ("Hauptbahnhof") offers frequent connections to Bonn.

Those of you who have already registered must already have got a ticket for the public transport in Bonn and its surroundings. But the city is also well known for its widespread use of bicycles to get from A to B.

Not registered yet?

If you're not yet among the 500+ people who already registered, we of course do hope you will do so soon. For organizational aspects, such as catering, it makes our life much easier to know as soon as possible how many people will show up. So point your browser and click that "register now" button!