Greek Language Chapter Report 2010

Greek Language Chapter

 * Period covered by report: Jan-Dec 2010
 * Contact name: Dimitris Kotzinos
 * The OSGeo Greek Local Chapter was initiated only in November 2007. During 2010 membership grew somewhat but we still need more people.

Key Accomplishments

 * Two main events were organized and successfully carried out and where OSGeo Local Chapter or its members participated:
 * National ISPIRE based SDI infrastructure
 * When: October 1st, 2010
 * Where: University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece
 * Organized: HellasGI (www.hellasgi.gr)
 * The event was highly successful with over 90 participants who stayed for the whole duration of the event. Many Greek and internation experts presented issues evolving around the main theme. The repetition of th event was highly suggested by all participants.
 * National Greek GI Conference
 * When: December 2nd - 3rd, 2009
 * Where: NTUA, Athens, Greece
 * Organized: HellasGI (www.hellasgi.gr)
 * During the Greek GI Conference many open source based papers were presented and many members of the community had the opportunity to get together.

Areas for Improvement

 * We still do not have the participation in OSGeo we expected. We need to intensify the efforts to increase the membership and the overall awareness. A big problem is securing funding for organizing further events.

Opportunities to Help

 * In the future we will definitely need some speakers for national FOSS or just simple GIS events.
 * We would also like to demonstrate some cases of successful use of FOSS GIS by the public sector to local government officials.
 * We would like to plan some demo classes on FOSS GIS for students in universities and how these can be integrated in their curricula in order to show that we can achieve the exact same educational result.

Outlook for 2011

 * We would also be very interested in having the ability to apply for funding as a chapter/organization and we would like to seek help/information from other local chapters that do or plan to do the same.