Thanks to the FOSS4G 2009 LOC

This is a note to be given at FOSS4G 2009 thanking the local conference committee.

Setting the Scene

All conferences so far were a great success. Thanks to Paul 2007 raised the bar considerably. In 2008 we were not sure whether South Africa would really do it. But they did exceptionally and just yesterday the last bit of the extra revenue came in, badly needed to fund OSGeo infrastructure as acquiring sponsorship is not exactly easy right now. And then on to Down Under.

Going for Sydney

Sydney was given the FOSS4G conference before the financial crisis, and then had to run it afterwards, with sponsors tightening budgets, and many travel budgets being reduced or cut. Despite this, Sydney has kept the conference out of debt. More than that, current estimates show we will come out of the conference with 30k extra to seed fund the next conference and maybe finally move our servers to a virtualized platform.

So the Local Organizing Committee had to put on this FOSS4G conference in the best conference venue in Australia. They have enhanced marketing by building and distributing a LiveDVD of Software and consolidated ties with the OGC by introducing a Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest

They have left a trail of processes and lessons learned as they have gone, which will be of great benefit for future conferences And of course they have continued the usual back breaking work involved in running a conference:

• Sending press releases
• Finding sponsors
• Managing budgets
• Answering delegate queries
• Updating websites
• Selecting presentations and managing the schedule
• Coordinating workshops
• Coordinating network access
• And attending to the hundreds of details when running a conference

FOSS4G 2009 Organising Committee

This leaves with extending our gratitude and thank you to the local committee in the name of OSGeo and all FOSS4G folks, users, developers, evangelists and - well, all of them.

Cameron Shorter , LISAsoft (Chair)

Tim Bowden , Mapforge

Shoaib Burq , Geoscience Australia

Bruce Bannerman , Bureau of Meteorology

Ben Searle , Office of Spatial Data Management

Simon Hope , ESRI Australia

Harley Prowse , Geographic Business Solutions Ltd , Auckland, New Zealand.

Jody Garnett , LISAsoft

Mark Leslie , LISAsoft

Volker Mische

OSGeo Representatives

Jeff McKenna , OSGeo conference committee Chair

Paul Ramsey , OSGeo Board Representative

Tyler Mitchell , OSGeo Executive Director

Professional Conference Organiser

Arinex as the FOSS4G 2009 Conference Managers