EGU Townhall 2015

Title of the event
TM5 OSGeo: Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in the Geosciences

Type of event
Townhalls are "power-networking events" hosted at the European Geosiences Union (EGU) General Assembly (GA) for up to 350 people.

EGU-wording: "Townhall Meetings are meetings open for all participants in the conference at which new initiatives or decisions are announced to a larger audience following an open discussion on the matter raised."

Townhalls are hosted in the evening following the conclusion of all scientific tracks. The events last one hour and usually have presentations / announcements taking up the first 20 minutes, to allow for an open discussion among the attendees. During this phase, refreshments are provided to ensure a lively and convivial atmosphere.

Expected Audience Size
100 - 150 people

Audience: Topical Background
Free Open Source Software from OSGeo projects affects most if not all EGU Divisions. Currently FOSS (OSGeo projects + R, GMT, etc.) is particularly strong in the Hydrology, Atnospheric Sciences, Earth and Space Sience Informatics and Tectonics Divisions.

Attendees are expected from the following fields (Academia, Research and Industry).


 * Atmospheric Sciences
 * Biogeosciences
 * Climate: Past, Present & Future
 * Cryospheric Sciences
 * Earth Magnetism & Rock Physics
 * Energy, Resources and the Environment
 * Earth and Space Science Informatics
 * Geodesy
 * Geodynamics
 * Geosciences Instrumentation and Data Systems
 * Geomorphology
 * Geochemistry, Mineralogy, Petrology & Volcanology
 * Hydrological Sciences
 * Natural Hazards
 * Nonlinear Processes in Geosciences
 * Ocean Sciences
 * Planetary and Solar System Sciences
 * Seismology
 * Stratigraphy, Sedimentology and Palaeontology
 * Soil System Sciences
 * Solar-Terrestrial Sciences
 * Tectonics and Structural Geology

Audience: Professional Level

 * Doctorate Students, PostDocs, Researchers, Activists, Leaders, Visionaries, Decision Makers, Funding Agencies

Venue

 * EGU GA location at the Vienna International Conference Centre, Austria
 * Townhall location: The townhall will be hosted in a dedicated lecture hall on the conference premises. Room capacity: Most likely up to 150 people.
 * Preliminary date and time: April 14 2015, 19:00 - 20:00 hours. The date will be synchronized with the FOSS-themend topical sessions (Hydrology and Earth and Space Science Informatics)

Relevance for OSGeo
how will our participation help OSGeo
 * Continuation and expansion of the "topical bridge head" established within EGU by the first OSGeo Townhall in 2014.
 * Raise awareness at and reach-out to the European geoscience community by hosting a dedicated public OSGeo event at the largest European geoscience conference.
 * Reach out to young scientists starting their careers.
 * Meeting place for people already active in OSGeo ("meta-BoF") as a large number of people congregates every year at the EGU GA.
 * Reach out to decision makers/elders/scientific activists within the EGU Divisions.
 * Culmination of the "FOSS day" (a new concept @ EGU, to be introduced in 2015) at the EGU GA: The organizers are trying to schedule all FOSS / OSGeo - related events on the same day. This will ensure we have a large audience and niceties such as "FOSS flashmobs" can be arranged for poster sessions. The "FOSS day" could and should be finished off with the OSGeo townhall, as a "multiplier/bring them all together" event.
 * Peaceful und friendly coexistence: Propiertary platforms including Microsoft, Google and ESRI are also staging dedicated events during EGU GA.
 * Awareness on the decision maker level: Significance of OSGeo within the emerging Data Science / Open Science debate ("-> OSGeo-tailored research programmes ?")

Budget

 * Venue rental: none
 * Catering: 2000 USD (based on last years experience) [required]
 * Promotional material: 100 USD (Posters/flyers announcing the event) [required]
 * Give aways: 500 USD (production of OSGeo-live USB-drives) [optional] (this is a guestimate due to lack of lessons learned on this from FOSS4G2014)

Total requested budget: 2600 USD

Proposed Payment Method

 * No seed money required
 * Catering bill (ca. 2000 USD) can be charged on the OSGeo Credit Card (as in 2014) after the event.
 * Promotional material / give aways (600 USD max): Money transfer to german bank account ?

Support by OSGeo

 * Finacial support
 * Use of Logos
 * Volunteers: Preparation phase, event hosting, presentations during the event.


 * Markus Neteler ?
 * Yann Chemin ?
 * Edzer Pebesma?
 * Madi ?
 * GeoForAll folks ?
 * OSGeo-Live folks ?

Related Documents
Summary Report for the OSGeo Townhall at the EGU 2014 GA

EGU Board Request for funding
Board meeting 2015-02-05: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_Meeting_2015-02-05#Minutes

and the motions:

- approve past meeting's minutes

- allocate 10k USD in OSGeo 2015 budget for the ICA-OSGeo-ISPRS Students Awards initative. The funds will be requested by the award's committee with a detailed fund request.

- approve the funding request of 2600 USD for EGU OSGeo Townhall meeting

THE FUNDING REQUEST FOR 2600 USD WAS APPROVED BY THE BOARD on 2015-02-05.

Team

 * Peter Loewe (Convener)
 * Alessandro Frigeri (Convener)
 * Margherita Di Leo (Convener)
 * who else ?

Prep Phase Timeline
Give-aways obtained from FOSSGIS e.V. by: End of FOSSGIS conference MARCH 16 (fallback giveaways acquired). Remaining give-aways be sent to hotel in Vienna by FOSSGIS

Give-aways: USB-drives with OSGeo Life 8.5 ready by: Will be sent to hotel in Vienna by FOSSGIS

Poster materials printed by:

Steampunk A4-posterlets printed by: Mid-March (30 x)

Catering money coming in from OSGeo by:

Catering planning completed by: 2015-03-23

Catering contract confirmed by: 2015-03-24

Important: Consider Easter Holidays !

Townhall Venue Details
(Copernicus 2015-02-09): Room R8 has a capacity for 122 people.

Catering
Catering planning will be based on lessons learned in 2014. The room holds 122 persons max. Catering guestimate: 100 attendees

2015-02-09: Copernicus announces new caterer: egu@mottogroup.at

2015-02-18: Request for catering proposal sent to Mottogroup

2015-02-27: First quote from Mottogroup available. POC: [s.mueller@mottogroup.at Sandra Müller]

2015-03-13: Mottogroup confirms that EGU credit card can be used

2015-03-19: Mottogroup quote repeatedly edited

task: Inform OSGeo about changes of payment model due to new catering company. Request seed money (Done: 2015-03-15)

Jeff McKenna & Michael (Treasurer): OSGeo credit card details remain with Mike. Caterer has to ocnatct Mike for billing details. Mike is informed about Mottogroups 1/3 1/3 1/3 billing approach (in our case 2/3 before - 1/3 post-event)

2015-03-24: Final quotation signed & sent to Mottogroup (1.700 EUR max)

FOSS-related sessions during EGU GA
Monday: HS3.3 Open Source Computing in Hydrology - PICO Session is scheduled on Monday 13 Apr, 13:30–17:00 (23 abstracts). An EGU PICO session which combines a 2-minute oral presentation (2-minute madness) with an interactive poster presentation on dedicated touch-screens.
 * Detailed programme here.

Tuesday: ESSI2.13/SSS1.8 Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) for Geoinformatics and Geosciences (co-organized) 30  Abstracts
 * Oral: TU3 (R14) TU4 (R14)
 * Poster: TU5

Copernicus
2015-02-09: To advertise your townhall meeting you can send us a DIN A3 poster (300 dpi) by the end of February at the very latest. C2: Katja Gaenger, Copernicus

2015-02-26: Poster was sent to COPERNICUS (based on OSGeo Design). COPERNICUS (Katja) confirms reception.

task: upload poster

Guerilla Marketing
2015-02-20: No response from the creator of the Pulp-O-Mizer Steampunk website regarding a hi-res poster 2015-02-26: low-res Pulp-o-mizer poster-handout was created for use during the conference.

task: upload pulp-o-mizer poster

task: Produce sufficent copies (A3/A4/smaller ?) AHEAD of the conference, to be carried to Vienna.

task: t-shirts ??

task: Mugs ?

Press / Media
To be considered: -Contact Östereichischer Rundfunk (national radio) in advance. Reference: Helli. -Contact FOSS-minded science bloggers.

Materials / Give-aways
2015-02-27: FOSSGIS e.V. Conference Team (Katja) confirms that surplus give-aways can be picked up at the end of the FOSSGIS conference in Münster, to be used up during the Townhall.

2015-03-13: Agreement with Katja Haferkorn (FOSSGIS) that the most of the FOSSGIS leftover material is sent by parcel to Vienna. A batch of fallback materials will be brought by Peter. Agreement to use the 40-something (?) USB-drives produced by FOSSGIS and to sell them for 5 EUR (don't make it too cheap..) at the Townhall. Revenue to be returned to FOSSGIS e.V.

todo: Allocate time and ressources to put OSGeo Life 8.5 images on blank FOSSGIS usb-drives. (n/a ?)

Programme
20 Minutes of presentations + discussion.

Speakers
Intro: Peter Löwe I: Markus Neteler II: Edzer Pebesma III: tbd Peter Fox ?

Guest List
This is a list of people to be actively informed about the event ahead of time.

CL Climate: Past, present, Future
- Jucundus Jacobeit et al.

GI Geosciences Instrumentation and Data Systems
- Peter Fox

HS Hydrological Sciences
- Edzer Pebesma - Attilio Castellarin

NH Natural Hazards
- Joachhim Wächter - Stefano Tinti

Tectonics and Structural Geology
- Jan Barmuta, - Jan Golonka

Companies
- ESRI (Dawn Wright) - Microsoft Research(Dan Fay) - Drilling industry ? - Google - tbd

Organisations
- DLR - GFZ - PIK - AWI tbd

Execution Phase (April 2015 - May 2015)
tbd

Wrap-up
- Bills to pay - Lessons learned - Report - Networking