Ireland/Symposium2017

OSGeo Ireland – 1st National Symposium 2017


Registration is now open!  

Welcome to the 1st National Symposium of the OSGeo Local Chapter in Ireland - May 2017

The Irish Local Chapter of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) are delighted to announce the hosting of the first national Symposium of the OSGeo Local Chapter in Limerick, Ireland on Friday, 26th May 2017. We, the organisers, are delighted to welcome all delegates to our first meeting as an OSGeo community in Ireland. Getting started is often the hardest part. We decided to run a small single day event as our OSGeo Local Chapter launch. The key objective of the event is to gather together people in Ireland who are associated with OSGeo tools and software or FOSS4G in general.

The schedule for the day will include the following:


 * A Morning Session of Short, Lightning Talks
 * A Keynote Presentation from Dr. Markus Neteler (GRASS-GIS Project, Mundialis, OSGeo)
 * An Afternoon Session of hands-on workshops focusing on popular OSGeo software projects, including GRASS-GIS and QGIS.

The event is open to anyone. However it will be particular interest to individuals or groups such as : those with an interest in FOSS4G, users of open source software and FOSS4G, geographers and geoscientists, computer scientists, software developers and programmers, software companies, open data users, researchers, government agencies, SMEs, NGOs, students, citizens, etc.

The symposium will provide a relaxed and stimulating environment to learn about OSGeo, meet people with similar interest in OSGeo and FOSSG, and in some cases learn some new skills in the workshops. There are lots of people using OSGeo software and tools in Ireland. This symposium will give such people a chance to meet as a community officially for the first time.

Draft Programme

The programme is currently under preparation with the current version of the programme provided in the table below. The morning session will include a Keynote presentation, some lightning talks and an open town-hall style discussion. In the afternoon, after lunch, there will be a selection of hands-on workshops. The idea is that the symposium will provide delegates with a chance to experience OSGeo and FOSS4G in a hands-on way, talk to experienced users and developers of OSGeo software and other FOSS4G and generally meet like minded people in this space.

Symposium Location

The symposium will be held in the Castletroy Park Hotel, Limerick, Ireland. The Castletroy Park Hotel is located in the midwest of Ireland, in Castletroy, Limerick in the province of Munster. This link provides an OpenStreetMap map of the hotel location.

The hotel is situated just off the M7 Dublin motorway, adjacent to the University of Limerick and just minutes from Limerick's centre of commerce. For symposium delegates who wish to drive to the hotel the M7 provides excellent connectivity with most major cities in Ireland.

Keynote Speaker

The Irish OSGeo Chapter are very happy to welcome Markus Neteler as our Keynote Speaker for the symposium. Markus Neteler Markus received his MSc degree in Physical Geography and Landscape Ecology from the University of Hannover in Germany in 1999. He worked at the Institute of Geography as Research Scientist and teaching associate for two years. From 2001 to 2007, he was a researcher at FBK-irst (formerly ITC-irst), from 2005-2007 also at Centro di Ecologia Alpina. From 2008 to 2016 he was employed as head of the GIS and Remote Sensing Unit at Fondazione Edmund Mach, Trento (Italy). His main interests are remote sensing for environmental risk assessment and Free Software GIS development. He is author/co-author of two books on the Open Source Geographical Information System GRASS and various papers on applications in GIS. He is founding-member of GRASS Anwender-Vereinigung e.V. and the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo.org). In September 2006, he was honored with the Sol Katz Award for Geospatial Free and Open Source Software (GFOSS). In 2010, he obtained the the degree of a Doctor of Natural Science (Dr. rer. nat.) in Physical Geography.

Registration Fees

We have a special registration rate for all delegates of €50. This rate includes coffee/tea breaks, lunch and access to the workshop(s) of your choice in the afternoon of the symposium. The registration costs have been kept as low as possible and the Symposium is organised on a cost-recovery basis only. We are grateful to our sponsors and those who donated during their registration for their financial support to allow us to host this event.

Registration is open and available here

Symposium Sponsorship

Symposium sponsors are always welcome. We can offer the sponsors the following: If you, or your organisation, is interested in providing some sponsorship to this event please contact Daniel McInerney (daniel DOT o DOT mcinerney AT gmail DOT com) or Peter Mooney (peter DOT mooney AT nuim DOT ie) and we would be happy to discuss this in more detail with you.
 * Visual presence on any programme materials produced for the symposium
 * Links and organisational logo(s) from the symposium webpage
 * Opportunity to provide promotional material for distribution to delegates in their registration pack
 * Clear acknowledgement of support during the opening and closing sessions of the symposium

More information Further details about the Irish Local Chapter of OSGeo area available on our Wiki page.

Organising Committee

We are, at the moment, a small committee. The people who have contributed most to the organisation of the symposium are as follows. All of us will be in Limerick on May 26th!


 * Peter Mooney (Maynooth University)
 * Daniel McInerney (Coillte Teoranta - Irish State Forestry Board)
 * Ozan Emem (Environmental Protection Agency)
 * Seth Girvan (Compass Informatics)
 * Richard McDonnell (The Office of Public Works)
 * Padraig Fitzmaurice (Environmental Protection Agency)
 * Hrishikesh Ballal (Geodesign Hub)