General program submissions timeline

The full program schedule is available

Description

Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) Europe is the regional flagship event of OSGeo - an open, grassroots, and dynamic community. We are looking for novel and original submissions on development, use, and advocacy for FOSS4G over a wider array of topics ranging from state-of-software to specific use cases, from building and sustaining a community to building a business around FOSS4G technology, from software technical details to democratic processes and policy making.

Whether you are a seasoned FOSS4Ger or it would be your first time presenting, we are very happy to welcome your submission - the conference series and the whole FOSS4G community flourishes on the shared experiences and knowledge of its presenters.

As this is a regional OSGeo event we are more concentrated on themes related to European topics, activities, and possibilities. But as we live in an interconnected World the themes will not be limited to Europe only.

Please keep in mind this is a Free and Open Source Software conference. Submissions promoting restricted license / closed source software will not be accepted.

Session types

A regular talk slot is 30 minutes long:

• 20 minutes for the talk,
• 5 minutes for questions and answers, and
• 5 minutes for the participants to change rooms and next speaker setup.

There is also a possibility to submit a lightning talk with a 5 minute speaker slot, with 4 minutes for the talk, and 1 minute for the next speaker setup.

We are preparing to host 5 parallel tracks with 1.5h long sessions, meaning we will be able to host approximately 130 presentations in total.

Submitting a proposal

1. general topic

When submitting your talk, you will be asked to select one general topic that best defines your contribution. This will help us group similar-themed talks to the same tracks. The topics for general sessions are as follows

- Transition to FOSS4G

Do you have a success story to share about transitioning a system or workflow to FOSS4G technology? Maybe some lessons learned? We would like to hear about it, and have you share your experiences with the rest of the community.

- Open standards and interoperability for geospatial

Open standards help us to be interoperable. They help us share and consume data.
Do you want to share the inner workings of your SDI? Or maybe you have thoughts on implementing INSPIRE services? Or maybe you are building something pan-European on top of INSPIRE? Updates on the European Union Location Framework (EULF) Blueprint?

- Building a business with FOSS4G

You have built a business around supporting and maintaining a FOSS4G product. It’s a different kind of attitude toward the users, and the product itself with respect to the “traditional” closed source business model. How do you manage that? What are some of the pitfalls, and what are the gains with the choices you’ve made?

- State of software

Recent developments in Free and Open Source Software projects. Maybe tease the audience with a sneak peek of what’s to come in a release later in the year?

- Open community

How do you engage people? What makes people want to contribute, and be part of the community? Maybe your local OSGeo chapter? A software user group? Or maybe you’ve participated in a mapathon and want to share your thoughts. This is most suitable for sharing experiences so we can all grow as individuals and build and sustain our communities better. Sharing is caring.

- FOSS4G “Made in Europe”

A special track co-organized with the European Commission to investigate and introduce the many Free and Open Source software tools, data capture and collection and sharing projects carried out at the European Commission, European institutions, or funded by them.

- Open Data

Open source software is a nice thing but it is of little use if there’s no data to use it with. Are you using Open Data to build something? Or better yet, are you producing Open Data? A dataset we haven’t heard about? Excellent! We are all eager to find out about it, to make decision making processes more transparent and democratic.

- Use cases and applications

You have a very specific use case for doing things with Free and Open Source Software. Maybe you are using AI to do Earth Observation? Or maybe routing? Farming a flock of drones? Making sense of a gazillion points in space and time? Something completely different that we didn’t even imagine Free and Open Source Software could be used for? We are all eager to find novel and interesting ways of solving geospatial puzzles, and to make existing workflows smoother. Something will click in the audience’s heads after hearing your talk.

- FOSS4G in education and research

Are you an educator? And you are making your students use Free and Open Source Software? Perfect! We’d like to hear from you how you have managed that. What is the reaction of students? How do you engage them and how do you introduce them to the wonderful world of Free and Open Source Software and the communities that surround them?

2. General theme(s)

In addition, you’ll be asked to provide at least one general theme to describe your submission (think of this as a keyword)

• Data collection, sharing
• Data processing and analysis
• Spatial machine learning
• Data visualization
• State of software, or new features
• Business case around FOSS4G
• FOSS4G at governmental institutions
• FOSS4G and sustainable development goals (SDG)
• FOSS4G for movement, transport, and networks. In space and time, by any subject (water, asphalt, people, birds, animals, air, or even cosmos)
• FOSS4G for crisis / disaster response, civil defence
• FOSS4G for land use planning, land management, monitoring, smart cities, population mapping
• FOSS4G for ocean / marine monitoring
• Drones, sensors, lasers, and remote sensing
• FOSS4G for agriculture
• IoT, indoor mapping
• Standards, SDI, INSPIRE, interoperability
• Education
• Community building and participatory FOSS4G

3. Level of difficulty

And finally, we would like to ask you to identify the level of the technical complexity of your presentation on a 3-point scale ranging from “no previous knowledge needed” to “must be a super expert to understand”.

Guidelines

There are no formal indications when preparing your contribution for the conference, but please consider the following suggestions:

• FOSS4G is - first and foremost - about open source, so make sure you clearly indicate which projects are essential in your talk
• If your talk is about developments in or a completely new project, please point to the appropriate repository (or repositories)
• Your talk would not be about the development of software? Yes! Although software development is in the heart of FOSS4G it is not the only purpose of the conference. The goal is to bring together developers and users, policymakers and open community advocates over the broad sphere of geospatial to share experiences and showcase the power and reach of free and open source software.
• The more suitable the selection of topic, theme, and technical complexity are, the better shaped the final program will be. So, please, help us optimize your time and make the best out of the conference.
• Although we are working hard on bringing you good internet connectivity at the venue, please don’t rely on it solely in your presentation. Things tend to break exactly at the moment of live demonstrations.
• We believe in equality, therefore please keep in mind the talk slot lengths when preparing your presentation. But at the same time be prepared that the hallway discussions on your presentation might continue until the early hours of the morning.
• FOSS4G is an open community of people from various, diverse backgrounds and lived experiences. This is what makes us strong and we care for each other’s well-being. Please keep in mind that a derogatory attitude towards other people or their work is not welcome.
• We are working on making the streaming of presentations a reality, however, the conference presenters would be expected to be on-site
• And lastly, the success of this event lies in the responsible actions of all participants and organizers alike. If you have confirmed your participation but later on you or the co-authors are no longer able to present, please let us know as soon as possible.

Selection process

FOSS4G Europe is a community event and therefore the main selection of talks will be done through an open community voting process. The highest-scoring ones will automatically be included in the program, while others will be reviewed by the volunteer Program Committee.