Board Member Nominations 2015

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The Board Member nomination (part of the Election 2015) will be open from 2015-09-07 to 2015-09-20. The list of nominees for the 2015 Board Member Election is maintained by the Chief Returning Officer (cro at osgeo.org). This page is write protected and can only be edited by SysOps.

The following nominations have been received for the OSGeo Board in 2015 through the Election 2015 process.

  • The nomination period ends on 20 September 2015.
  • This list is presented in the order nominations were received.
  • Candidate statements and support by OSGeo participants or members, if they have been provided, are linked to immediately after the candidate name as a bulleted list.

Helena Mitasova

Nomination by
Venkatesh Raghavan

It is a great honor for me to nominate Prof. Helena Mitasova [1] for the 2015 OSGeo Board Elections.

- Prof. Helena Mitasova - USA

Prof. Helena Mitasova hardly needs any introduction. Her activities that encompass the entire gamut of the OSGeo Foundation goals, speak for themselves. She was awarded the Sol Katz Award in 2010 for her long standing contribution to the OSGeo Foundation and FOSS4G communities. Recently, she has been one of the driving forces behind the Geo4All initiative. Her invaluable experience in area of Education and Research will be a great asset to the OSGeo Foundation Board.

I thank her for agreeing to be nominated for the 2015 OSGeo Board elections.

  1. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Helena
  2. http://www.geo4all.org/

Endorsements and discussion

Anita Graser

Nomination by
Lene Fischer and Jeff McKenna

It is our pleasure to nominate Anita Graser, from Austria, for the OSGeo Board. Anita needs no introduction to the community, as she is very visible through her work on the QGIS Steering Committee, as a core contributor, and working very hard to promote Open Source geo through workshops, tutorials, mailing lists, FOSS4G events, and just about every possible way. She has a lot of experience managing and building communities, and she is actually quite honoured to be considered for the OSGeo Board.

Anita's presence on the Board would be a great addition to the foundation.

We excitingly nominate Anita for the OSGeo Board of Directors.

  1. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:AnitaGraser

Endorsements and discussion

Venkatesh Raghavan

Nomination by
Sanghee Shin, Markus Neteler and Jeff McKenna

It is our pleasure to nominate Venka Raghavan, from Japan, for the OSGeo Board. It is hard to put into (few) words, Venka's influence on FOSS and geo. The 2012 winner of the Sol Katz Award, he created the term “FOSS4G” back in 2004, using it as the name of an international event in Thailand, and since then he has promoted FOSS4G all over the globe. He was also one of the organizers of the recent FOSS4G-Asia event this past December.

Venka has also been directly involved in OSGeo since its inception, in fact he was on the first OSGeo Board of Directors from 2006 to 2007. He is also a long-time board member of the OSGeo Japan chapter.

A professor at Osaka City University in Japan, Venka constantly encourages his students to leverage FOSS4G in all of their research. His influence in Asia wide reaching, being easily the most influential FOSS4G leader there. Venka also helps organize the GIS-IDEAS Symposium every 2 years in Vietnam, which is always FOSS4G-based.

Venka is enthused to be a part of the OSGeo Board again, helping a foundation that he helped form at the beginning. We could not be more please and honoured to nominate Venka for the Board of Directors.

  1. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Venkatesh_Raghavan

Endorsements and discussion

Sanghee Shin

Nomination by
Venkatesh Raghavan, Markus Neteler and Jeff McKenna

It is our pleasure to nominate Sanghee Shin, from South Korea, for the OSGeo Board. Most are aware of Sanghee as the passionate chair of the upcoming FOSS4G-Seoul event (http://2015.foss4g.org/), but Sanghee has been involved in Open Source geo for a long time. Locally, he is the founding member of the OSGeo Korean Chapter, which chapter actually hosts a local FOSS4G-Korea event every year since 2011. Sanghee is also the C.E.O. and President of Gaia3D in Seoul (http://www.gaia3d.com/).

Sanghee (secretly) commutes often between the UK and Seoul, so he is well aware of the global geospatial community. His strong business sense and his focus on Asia gives the Board an interesting perspective, and a much needed perspective as our local chapters are so active there.

Sanghee is very honoured to accept this nomination, so please welcome him onto the OSGeo Board of Directors for 2015.

  1. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Sanghee

Endorsements and discussion


Dirk Frigne

Nomination by
Jeff McKenna

It is my pleasure to nominate Dirk Frigne, from Belgium, for the OSGeo Board. Dirk has that rare passion and vision for community, and speaks strongly about building and maintaining a healthy OSGeo 'ecosystem' made up of both the development community as well as professional service providers. A "do-er", he has built his company Geosparc (http://www.geosparc.com/) and the OSGeo project geomajas into strong and healthy entities.

Dirk also feels strongly about building local OSGeo communities. He recently helped form the new Belgium local chapter (http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Belgium), and he is actively trying to formalize a European representation of OSGeo.

Dirk understands the industry today, our community, the software, and is willing to help guide the growth of the foundation. I feel strongly that he would be a wonderful addition to the OSGeo Board of Directors.

  1. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Dirkf

Endorsements and discussion


Nimalika Fernando

Nomination by
Jeff McKenna and Venkatesh Raghavan

It is our pleasure to nominate Nimalika Fernando, from Sri Lanka, for the OSGeo Board. Nimalika is very active in FOSS in her local area, giving training, and in fact launched a local GeoForAll lab at her institution (Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology - SLIIT). She also played a large part in organizing the first FOSS4G-Sri Lanka event in early 2014. More recently she was active at the FOSS4G-Asia event this past December in Thailand, and she is looking forward to the big FOSS4G coming to Asia next week.

Actually in messages with Nimalika this week she summarized her nomination reaction with very thoughtful input: "South Asia is still to reap the benefits of FOSS GIS and I think passing the message to the next generation is the most effective way while convincing policy makers also is a priority. The idea of "openness" is missed much here and may be due to long lasting social issues our nations have faced. I will continue my work irrespective of the results, of course."

We strongly feel that Nimalika would be a great asset to the OSGeo Board, and a strong representation for the South Asia region. Please welcome Nimalika to the Board of Directors.


  1. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Nimalika

Endorsements and discussion

Jody Garnett

Nomination by
Cameron Shorter

I would like to nominate Jody Garnett to serve on the OSGeo Board.

Jody is a man who has a depth of experience with the OSGeo foundation, right from getting his hands dirty writing code, through to setting up and managing projects, through to evangelising at conferences and workshops, as well as chairing OSGeo committees.

He steps up to tackle the hard problems, provides insightful feedback and advice, as well ask taking on the less exciting tasks to get things done. This depth of can-do practical experience will serve OSGeo well if Jody were voted onto the OSGeo board.

For background: Jody chairs the OSGeo Incubation committee, was on the FOSS4G 2007 and FOSS4G 2009 organising committees, has presented regularly at conferences and workshops, is on the Project Steering Committees for UDig, GeoTools, GeoServer, and is a regular contributor to numerous OSGeo email lists.


  1. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Jody_Garnett

Endorsements and discussion

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