New Member Nominations 2026
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This list of nominees is maintained by the Chief Returning Officer (cro@osgeo.org). This page is write protected and can only be edited by CRO
| # | Nominee Name | Country | Positive attributes | Nominated by |
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| 1 | Dirk Stenger | Germany | Astrid Emde: Dirk Stenger is a familiar face on FOSS4Gs and FOSSGIS as speaker. He is promoting deegree and OGC standards since many years. Dirk is an expert in designing and implementing SDI solutions based on Open Source software, OGC standards and cloud architecture. He is an active community member of the OSGeo project deegree contributing as a committer. He is based in Germany and is working at latlon. He is involved in the project TEAM Engine, an OSGeo community project that provides a testing facility for executing test suites. It ẃould be great to welcome Dirk in our community.
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| 2 | Jin Igarashi | Japan | Vicky Vergara: Jin Igarashi is a Senior Software Engineer with over 13 years of international experience across Japan and Eastern Africa, specializing in GIS, information technology, and the Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) sectors. He holds an MSc with distinction in Water, Sanitation, and Health Engineering from the University of Leeds—where he conducted research on urban sanitation lifecycle costs in Kenya for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s CACTUS project—and an MSc in Computer Science (Artificial Intelligence) from the University of York. Jin Igarashi has made extensive contributions to open-source software (FOSS4G) and enterprise applications, primarily focusing on spatial data visualization, map interaction, and water management infrastructure. At the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), he architected and developed UNDP GeoHub, a centralized open-source cloud platform utilizing SvelteKit, MapLibre GL, and PostGIS to help policymakers analyze and visualize spatial datasets, as well as RAPIDA, a semi-automated geospatial tool for rapid crisis response. He is a key maintainer and contributor to popular map-drawing libraries like Terra Draw and maplibre-gl-terradraw, alongside developing custom SvelteKit component libraries and boilerplates for MapLibre JS. Through his open-source organization WaterGIS, Igarashi builds and maintains open-source mapping tools, vector tile generators, and WebGIS applications—work that supports water asset mapping, rural water supply tracking, and Non-Revenue Water (NRW) management for utilities in Kenya and Rwanda. His broader technical footprint spans enterprise software development for companies like Fujitsu and Fracta, as well as Japanese localization contributions for mobile geospatial tools like QField and Input.
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| 3 | Matthias Mohr | Germany | Joana Simoes: Matthias has been heavily involved with STAC and other specifications from the cloud native geospatial realm, as well as their open source implementations. He is the main author of the openEO specification, which lowers the barrier to use EO data. By participating in OGC and OSGeo events like Code Sprints and Conferences, Matthias has been helping to build bridges between the two communities, pushing towards interoperability in Free and Open Source Geospatial Software.
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| 4 | Luiza Marques Fonseca dos Santos | Brazil | George Porto Ferreira: I'm nominating Luiza because she supports and promotes the use of free and open source geospatial software and data in a collaborative manner. She volunteered at FOSS4G 2024 - Belém do Pará and presented the talk "Uber's Open Source H3 Index in Open Source Projects: Simplifying Distance Calculation and Data Storage". Her contribution to the open source community, mainly as a coder, has been consistent over the past years.
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| 5 | Berit Mohr | Germany | Luís de Sousa: Berit Mohr is a passionate GIS expert and advocate for open-source software. With a background in Geology, she has worked in New Zeeland and accross Europe, in academia and the private sector, also in international development. Berit has regularly attended FOSS4G conferences, easily engaging with the community. In 2025 she was part of the effort to revive OSGeo-Europe as a legal and institutional entity. Since 2024 Berit has been a GIS specialist at OpenGis.ch.
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| 6 | Dominik Weckmüller | Germany | Marco Minghini: Dominik is an open source data and software advocate. He builds geospatial communities (MilanoGIS [1], gis.chat [2], social media), shares geospatial tutorials ([3]), researches (PhD Student at TU Dresden & Guest Researcher at IIASA) and is an active member of global geospatial organizations such as the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) and the Group on Earth Observations (GEO). He maintains core infrastructure such as CEOS' EO Glossary [4], a public dataset of all European legislation (EUR-LEX [5]) and contributes to a tighter integration of EU policy and EO products at the Joint Research Centre (JRC) at the European Commission [6]. Giving frequent talks at conferences (FOSS4G, EGU) and podcasts (Mapscaping [7]), he tries to share as much as possible and give back to the geospatial community. Dominik would like to take on more responsibilities and help strengthen the community he benefited from in his career.
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| 7 | Jonathan Beliën | Belgium | Gaël Kruwialis: Jonathan Beliën has been a pillar of the Belgian open-source geospatial community since its earliest days. As a full-stack web developer specialising in digital cartography, he has contributed concrete open-source tools — including a PHP library for MapServer Mapfile management — and has been an active board member of OpenStreetMap Belgium, with involvement that extends well beyond Belgium's borders with a commitment that extends far beyond Belgium’s borders, building bridges between communities. Jonathan has been present at OSGeo Belgium events from the very beginning, helping build the local community that FOSS4G Belgium now represents. His combination of technical contributions, community leadership, and sustained long-term engagement makes him an ideal Charter Member candidate.
Moritz Lennert: I second the nomination of Jonathan.
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| 8 | Roel Huybrechts | Belgium | Gaël Kruwialis: Roel Huybrechts has been the Treasurer of OSGeo Belgium for nearly ten years, quietly and reliably ensuring the organisation's financial health across multiple editions of FOSS4G Belgium. His long-term commitment is exactly what the Charter Member programme is designed to recognise: not the loudest voice in the room, but the steady hand without whom the community simply could not function. But as well as his vital role in supporting our local chapter, he is, of course, an experienced developer and contributor to our solutions, promoting and improving various resources, particularly those related to QGIS, amongst others.
Moritz Lennert: I also second the nomination of Roel.
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| 9 | David García | Uruguay | Sergio Acosta y Lara: David is a strong advocate for the use of open-source GIS software, particularly for managing geographic databases for the Montevideo Municipality's Geomatics Service and the National Public Education Administration's Department of Educational Research and Statistics. He develops research initiatives focused on historical cartography using open-source GIS tools and creates geographic databases by digitizing historical information; he also develops tools for querying historical geographic data archives. He has dedicated significant effort to teaching QGIS proficiency by conducting basic and advanced courses at the Montevideo Municipality's Training and Studies Center.
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| 11 | Yasuto Furukawa | Japan | Toru Mori: I nominate Yasuto Furukawa as an OSGeo Charter Member. I have known Yasuto and worked with him in the Japanese FOSS4G community for many years. As one of the founding members of the OSGeo Japan Chapter, I can say that much of the growth of FOSS4G use in Hokkaido is due to his work. In 2010 he started a small QGIS study group in Sapporo. It became FOSS4G Hokkaido, which has met every year since then. Many of its participants are not developers but local government staff, researchers, and students who use QGIS and other FOSS4G tools in their work. Yasuto has kept the event open to beginners. He has also applied FOSS4G and open data to public services, working with local governments and civic tech projects. His role is no longer limited to Hokkaido. He has served on the OSGeo Japan Chapter steering committee. In my view, he has become an essential person for the OSGeo community in Japan as a whole. He has worked for OSGeo's goals for close to 20 years without being a Charter Member. I believe he should be one.
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| 12 | Alen Mangafić | Slovenia | Edouard Choinière: I met Alen as an user 3 years ago. Since then, he’s been a remarkable advocate for GRASS and open source GIS, introducing new members and even turning into a code contributor: created a whole set of tools for modern hyperspectral data processing and analysis. He pushed for the local OSGeo chapter in Slovenia and helped organise events.
Luís de Sousa: It is a great honour to second Alen's nomination to charter member. Alen is one of the jokers in the GRASS project, no dull moment around him. He is regularly present at Community events and often promotes the project at venues like FOSS4G. Alen has contributed greatly to the development of satellite imagery processing in GRASS, being a major human engine in that domain within the OSGeo Community. Alen is also deeply engaged in the promotion of open source software for geo-spatial in his native Slovenia.
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| 13 | Kilian Paenen | Belgium | Gaël Kruwialis: Kilian Paenen represents the next generation of the Belgian open-source geospatial community. Introduced to open-source tools through his studies, he has carried that approach into the private sector, championing free and open-source geospatial solutions as both relevant and effective in a professional context. He has been an active bridge-builder between the Belgian and Dutch communities — connections that matter greatly in our region. Over the past years, Kilian has shown a growing commitment to the local OSGeo Belgium community, and his profile — technical, engaged, and values-driven — makes him an excellent candidate for Charter Membership.
Marc Ducobu: Kilian Paenen represents the next generation of the Belgian open-source geospatial community. Introduced to open-source tools through his studies, he has carried that approach into the private sector, championing free and open-source geospatial solutions as both relevant and effective in a professional context. He has been an active bridge-builder between the Belgian and Dutch communities — connections that matter greatly in our region. Over the past years, Kilian has shown a growing commitment to the local OSGeo Belgium community, and his profile — technical, engaged, and values-driven — makes him an excellent candidate for Charter Membership.
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| 14 | Kaue de Moraes Vestena | Brazil | Federica Gaspari: It is my pleasure to nominate Kauê de Moraes Vestena as an OSGeo Charter Member. Kauê is one of the most passionate and energetic persons I have ever met in the open source and open data community, always dedicating all his energy to spreading his contagious passion through contributions to both tools as well as community. He is currently a Professor at the Federal University of Technology – Paraná (UTFPR) and a doctor in Geodetic Sciences, where FOSS4G technologies play a central role in his teaching and research. He has developed and contributed to several impactful open source geospatial projects, including the OSM Sidewalkreator QGIS plugin, OpenSidewalkMap, and the Maplibreum Python library. His technical experience and outstanding dedication make him an excellent candidate for Charter membership.
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| 15 | Corey T. White | United States of America | Anna Petrasova: Corey T. White is a core contributor to GRASS, working on both the core codebase and the addons in Python and C. Beyond developing new tools for terrain analysis and change detection, he helps with the everyday work that keeps the project running, including code reviews, maintaining the GRASS website, and community outreach. Corey is a Geospatial Research Software Engineer at NC State University's Center for Geospatial Analytics. He brings deep domain expertise in UAS mapping and geomorphology, which he applies in his research and graduate courses he teaches on geospatial modeling and UAS mapping with open source tools. He regularly participates in FOSS4G North America, where he gives talks and workshops, and he presents at the Geomorphometry conference, bringing OSGeo tools to the scientific community. He has also run workshops introducing high school students in North Carolina to open source geospatial software. Corey is full of innovative ideas; he founded OpenPlains, a platform built on GRASS, and keeps finding new ways to bring GRASS to new users. He is a friendly and reliable collaborator, and it would be great to welcome him as an OSGeo Charter Member.
Luís de Sousa: I am glad to second Corey's nomination to charter member. Corey has long been involved with the GRASS project and even building a business around it. A plus to our community.
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| 16 | Hinako Iseki | Japan | Nobusuke Iwasaki: Hinako has been actively involved in the FOSS4G and OSGeo communities in Japan and internationally, consistently supporting and promoting free and open source geospatial software, open data, and geospatial education. She has contributed extensively to the OSGeo community through her involvement with OSGeo.JP and FOSS4G events. She has organized community activities, delivered presentations and hands-on workshops, and shared knowledge about open source geospatial technologies. Most recently, she served as the Program / Contents Committee Leader for FOSS4G Hiroshima 2026, contributing significant time and effort to the planning and organization of the international conference and supporting collaboration among members of the global FOSS4G community. Hinako has also made significant contributions to the adoption and education of MapLibre GL JS in Japan. She authored Japanese-language introductory and intermediate online tutorials for MapLibre GL JS and made these educational materials freely available to the public [1]. Based on these materials, she conducted hands-on workshops at FOSS4G 2023 Japan and FOSS4G TOKAI 2023, helping participants learn and use MapLibre GL JS in practice [2] . She has also presented at MapLibre Meetup Japan, where she introduced these freely available learning materials and shared them with the wider MapLibre community. Through these activities, she has continuously worked to lower the barrier to learning MapLibre GL JS and promote the adoption of open source web mapping technologies in Japan. Beyond MapLibre GL JS, Hinako regularly works to make FOSS4G technologies accessible to a wider audience through workshops, presentations, documentation, and other educational activities. Her contributions combine software and technology advocacy with education and community building, reflecting the collaborative values of the OSGeo Foundation. Hinako strongly supports the goals of the OSGeo Foundation and has demonstrated both the willingness and
Kenya Tamura: I have worked with Hinako Iseki for many years, both as Conference Co-Chair of FOSS4G Hiroshima 2026 and as her colleague at Eukarya Inc. From both of these perspectives, I am pleased to nominate her as an OSGeo Charter Member. At FOSS4G Hiroshima 2026, Hinako led the Program / Contents Committee, one of the heaviest roles in the Local Organizing Committee: coordinating the call for papers, the review process, the schedule across multiple tracks, and communication with speakers from around the world. The programme that attendees experienced in Hiroshima was, to a large degree, the result of her work. At Eukarya, Hinako is the Team Leader of the Solution Engineering Team for Re:Earth. She leads the team that helps a wide range of people — local government staff, researchers, educators and citizens — build GIS skills with Re:Earth and turn the geospatial content they envision into reality. Her work has consistently been about making open source geospatial technology a tool that non-specialists can actually use. Her freely published Japanese tutorials on MapLibre GL JS and her hands-on workshops at FOSS4G events are a natural extension of that same commitment. Eukarya has been a Diamond Sponsor of FOSS4G, as Re:Earth, for four consecutive years, and this is in large part thanks to Hinako. Inside the company she has steadily championed FOSS4G, built understanding and support among her colleagues, and brought many Eukarya members into the FOSS4G community every year. Several of them are now active on the organizing side of OSGeo Japan Chapter. I see this as a good example of how one person's advocacy can turn into a company's sustained engagement with the open source community and into a new generation of community organizers. We also serve together on the board of OSGeo Japan Chapter, where she is a constructive and dependable colleague who follows through on what she takes on. Hinako embodies the collaborative and open values of the OSGeo Foundation and has a
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| 19 | Salvatore Fiandaca | Italy | Luca Delucchi: Salvatore is very active in the Italian QGIS community. He creates video tutorials and helps others when they ask for support on the mailing list. He played an active role in organising FOSS4G 2022
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| 21 | Adam Stewart | Germany | Even Rouault: Adam Stewart is the creator and lead developer of TorchGeo (https://torchgeo.org), an OSGeo project, and chair of the Technical Steering Committee of the TorchGeo Organization. He also helps maintain R-tree, the Spack packaging system and is a regular contributor to a number of geospatial Python projects. Adam has demonstrated a high level of technical expertise, as well as strong leadership skills, and would be an excellent fit for OSGeo Charter Membership.
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| 22 | Isaac Ullah | United States of America | Michael Barton: Isaac Ullah has been a user, developer, and advocate of open geospatial science for over two decades. As a professor at San Diego State University (California, USA), Isaac teaches geospatial methods to anthropology and archaeology students, and carries out research in the Mediterranean and western North America using multiple open source software tools. He heads the Computational Archaeology Laboratory (https://isaacullah.github.io/CompArchLab/) where a wide range of geospatial methods are applied to understanding the long term dynamics of human socioecological systems. Isaac has been very active in the GRASS community and has developed software in Python and GRASS to model land use and landscape evolution. He also has created numerous educational software, tutorials, and videos to help others learn to use open source geospatial tools (https://isaacullah.github.io/GIS_and_ABM_Learning_Material/). Isaac is an elected member of the Executive Committee for the Open Modeling Foundation (https://openmodelingfoundation.org) promoting community standards for modeling best practices. As an OSGEO Charter Member, Isaac would bring his energetic advocacy and broad expertise in open source geospatial software and their application to the OSGEO community.
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