Board Member Nominations 2014

The following nominations have been received for the OSGeo Board in 2014 through the Election 2014 process.


 * The nomination period ends on 23 August 2014.
 * This list is presented in the order nominations were received.
 * Incumbent board members are marked with an asterisk (*).
 * 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.

Massimiliano Cannata

 * Nomination by: Venkatesh Raghavan

Prof. Massimiliano Cannata (aka Maxi) has been active with the FOSS4G community since 2004 Bangkok, Thailand. He has been deeply involved in OSGeo since its inception and was elected as a Charter Member in 2012. Over the last decade he has been a regular presenter, workshop lecturer, code sprinter, and organizer of academic sessions in numerous international and regional conferences and events. He has led the development of several FOSS4G tools like istSOS, GeoShield etc. He is also an active contributor and PSC member of GRASS GIS and ZOO-Project. He has contributed to FOSS4G education through development of courses, training material and support of international students at his university. He has been team leader in several national and multi-national R&D projects through which he has actively promoted transfer of FOSS4G technologies to the developing world in Asia, Africa and South America. He presently serves as the Head of Geomatics Department at SUPSI (University of Applied Sciences of Southern Switzerland). He is a great organizer and leader, and the OSGeo Foundation and Board stand to gain immensely though his expertise and experience. Brief details of his vast activities are mentioned in [1] and [2] below.


 * 1) http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maxi71
 * 2) https://www.linkedin.com/pub/massimiliano-cannata/17/46/45a

Endorsements and discussion


 * Nomination from Venkatesh Raghavan
 * Support by Jachym Cepicky
 * Support by Maria Antonia Brovelli
 * Support by Suchith Anand
 * Support by Margherita Di Leo

Michael Smith

 * Nomination by: Daniel Morissette

Mike works for the US Army Corps of Engineers Remote Sensing GIS Center and has been a long time power user, supporter and contributor of MapServer, GDAL/OGR and other OSGeo projects. He is a member of the MapServer PSC and is also one of the instigators behind the PDAL project, the GDAL of Point Clouds. In addition to his experience with the OSGeo projects and community, he would bring to the board the perspective of government organizations, which is a very important group of users and contributors of OSGeo software that needs to be represented on the board in my opinion.

He is a FOSS4G regular (he has not missed one since the 2003 MapServer Users Meeting), and was an active participant and supporter of the FOSS4G WMS Benchmarking exercise for several years.

Finally, Mike has been following the activities of the board for the last few years (at least), often present as a quiet observer in IRC board meetings and even in one of the face to face meetings, so I believe he is well aware of the way OSGeo operates and prepared for the challenges of serving on the board.

See also http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Msmitherdc

 Endorsements and discussion


 * Nomination by Daniel Morissette
 * Support by Jeff McKenna
 * Support by James Klassen
 * Support by Helena Mitasova
 * Support by Jachym Cepicky
 * Support by Doug Newcomb

Landon Blake

 * Nomination by: Daniel Morissette

I would like to nominate Landon Blake for the OSGeo board election.

I have always been impressed with Landon's commitment and thoroughness in all his contributions to OSGeo over the years, and I think those attributes would make him a very valuable board member.

Landon is the Board Representative for the OSGeo California Local Chapter and has been a very active OSGeo charter member since 2007. His contributions to OSGeo include leading the production of a few editions of the OSGeo Journal and Annual report (quite a job!), working with projects in OSGeo Labs to help them prepare for incubation, and more recently acting as mentor for the incubation of the Orfeo Toolbox (OTB) project.

Finally, on the software development front, Landon is also one of the main contributors of the OpenJUMP project.

Landon's OSGeo profile is available at http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Surveyor

 Endorsements and discussion


 * Nomination by Daniel Morissette
 * Support by Jachym Cepicky

Vasile Craciunescu

 * Nomination by: Gérald Fenoy

Vasile Crăciunescu [1] is a very active FOSS4G promoter and uses his free time to maintain and enhance geo-spatial.org [2], a collaborative effort by and for the Romanian community to facilitate the sharing of geospatial knowledge and the discovery and publishing of free geographic datasets and maps. Started in 2009, geo-spatial.org then became the local chapter of OSGeo in Romania. Over the last eight years, he has been involved in the organization of different OSGeo/FOSS4G events (e.g. 15 Romanian FOSS4G workshops, chairman at FOSS4G-CEE 2013, organizing committee member at FOSS4G-Europe 2014, OSGeo conference committee member since 2013, OSGeo charter member since 2012). For the last three years he is teaching FOSS4G-based techniques at the Faculty of Geography - University of Bucharest in the first Romanian ICA-OSGeo Lab [3].

Vasile is currently a researcher at the Romanian National Meteorological Administration, working in the Remote Sensing & GIS Laboratory since 2001. He is in charge of the scientific and operational activities in Meteo Romania related to rapid mapping, air quality data integration, spatial data infrastructure and web mapping. He has a good experience in working and leading national, EU and ESA research projects. Since 2011 he is the Romanian representative in the Copernicus User Forum (the European Earth observation program formerly known as GMES) and the representative of Meteo Romania at OGC.

Vasile is an OSGeo leader for his dedication to the Foundation, from the community to the conference organization levels. The OSGeo Board can benefit of his valuable experience and knowledge.


 * 1) http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Vasile
 * 2) https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RxxoCQEyPU2krisEMniTyn-WQhzfrD1z24FzPtdqHmI/edit?usp=sharing
 * 3) http://opengis.unibuc.ro

 Endorsements and discussion


 * Nomination by  Gérald Fenoy
 * Support by Venkatesh Raghavan
 * Support by Ivan Mincik
 * Support by Jachym Cepicky

Jeff McKenna*

 * Nomination by: Markus Neteler

I'd like to nominate Jeff McKenna for the board election. Little needs to be said about Jeff as he is widely known in and outside the OSGeo community for his passion of our community, straight forward approach and a fantastic sense of humor.

Jeff whom I know personally since the famous initial FOSS4G 2004 conference in Bangkok is supporting the ideals and daily business of FOSS4G community and OSGeo Foundation with all his energy. Jeff is well known for more than a decade in the Mapserver community and its PSC, and he is known as a driving force of OSGeo around the globe. Jeff is one of the original charter members (from 2006, year of "birth" of OSGeo) and has years of experience serving on the OSGeo board.

Jeff is always available to listen to existing or potential community members in order to bring the community ideals of OSGeo forward. He is truely international, proven by his wide, visible network. Jeff has assisted in the formation of several OSGeo local chapters worldwide and especially supported the FOSS4G conferences the world over.

He is being a important friend to many community members. I am glad that Jeff has agreed to stand for re-election and continue to lend his voice, face and wisdom to OSGeo.

See also http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Jeff_McKenna

 Endorsements and discussion


 * Nomination by Markus Neteler
 * Support by James Klassen
 * Support by Helena Mitasova
 * Support by Ivan Mincik
 * Support by Ravi Kumar
 * Support by Jacky Cepicky
 * Support by Maria Antonia Brovelli
 * Support by Suchith Anand

Anne Ghisla*

 * Nomination by: Suchith Anand

Anne has been actively working to spread open source GIS among students and researchers through various initiatives (for example being OSGeo Google Summer of Code administrator and mentor over the last 4 years).

I have worked with Anne in the "Geo for All" initiative and Anne is the coordinator for Asia & Australia. Anne has been working actively to further our education activities globally.

Anne has also been board member of OSGeo contributing her ideas for the community and i believe her continued contributions to OSGeo Board will be of immense benefit.


 * http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Aghisla
 * http://www.geoforall.org/how_to_join/

 Endorsements and discussion


 * Nomination by Suchith Anand
 * Support by Helena Mitasova
 * Support by Alexander Bruy
 * Support by Jachym Cepicky
 * Support by Dirk Frigne

Dirk Frigne

 * Nomination by: Jeff McKenna

Having been involved in the Board for so long, I know what makes a good OSGeo Board member, and I see that in Dirk. He 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.

I had the pleasure of sitting down to dinner with Dirk way back at FOSS4G Cape Town in 2008, and he has since went on to form the company Geosparc[2], and build the OSGeo project geomajas[3] into a healthy community. More recently, many community leaders pulled me aside and were impressed with his views on the 'membership' topic, and specifically his views on what are the core principles 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
 * 2) http://www.geosparc.com/
 * 3) http://www.osgeo.org/geomajas

 Endorsements and discussion


 * Nomination by Jeff McKenna
 * Support by Jachym Cepicky