Election 2015 Candidate Manifestos

A space for the candidates for election to the Board to share some information about themselves, their aspirations for OSGeo, what they would like to change, improve or introduce and what role they would like to play on the board.

Dirk Frigne
Alias D.

About me
founder and spiritual father of the OSGeo geomajas project Father of 3 daughters founder of technology companies wants to help improving the world, and believes strongly this is possible and realistic when everybody is just changing a small little bit OSGeo advocate. [read more] I am not native English speaking, please feel free to improve my tekst 

My vision
Climate change, migration, IOT, robotica, public privacy, ... The world is changing. The world is changing very fast. It is happening during our lifetime. The current politicians don't have an answer yet on these new challenges. Knowledge is generated and exchanged in such a fast way, even universities have difficulties to transfer this know how to the brains of the new generations. From Entrepreneurs it is expected to build businesses to maximise profits, but I am not motivated in this respect. I do believe that Entrepreneurs take initiative, which can result into a success, or which can fail. Profit should be re-invented into a broader scope. In the changing world of today, with all our challenges, a new balance should be found between protection and proprietary between sharing and openness. Both are important values, but balance points a little to far to the protection/proprietary side. I believe communities are a great mechanism for individuals, to act as self steering organisms which interact with other communities and organisms and as such are able to focus on the real needs to adapt our society to make a better world.

What you have done within the community in the past
I am an OSGeo member since 2007 and became a charter member in 2013. I am a member of the steering committee of geomajas and am a regular speaker on FOSS4G conferences since 2007. I try to keep contact with the Dutch and German chapters. In 2015 I took the initiative, together with a team of enthusiastic open source adepts to found The Belgium OSGeo local chapter, and I am actively involved in the organisation of the first FOSS4G.be in Belgium. I am evangelising the foundation of the European chapter, which is right now under construction, discussing the goals and principles (http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Europe). Looking for members to become involved.

What your interests are in terms of the board
OSGeo is a community of communities. It is a global organisation which is growing year after year. OSGeo is reflecting on her own organisation, if it should become more professional, or stay a group of friends. I see a lot of opportunities when observing everything which is happening in this community, where I am proud to be a member of. I became a member, not because I registered my name on a website (of course this was the first step), but because I felt me accepted as a person by the other members. People encouraged me to speak up and try to express my thoughts, share them with others in the community. And by doing that I encountered even more great people. And doing that, I was nominated to become a candidate for board member. I am of course very honoured to be nominated, this is important to me, as a person, but not for the community. If the community thinks I could be an added value to the board, I will be more than happy to help.

Any things that you would like to change or introduce
If I would be a member of the board, I would like to work on a more professional OSGeo. Which is a global organisation, working through local chapters that are not only language oriented, but also regional and even cultural. I think the CoC discussions prove that not for all issues there is only one answer or solution. Europe has for certain circumstances other values than the US or the Asian countries. I think a great value we all share is respect. One of the things I want to work on is the branding of OSGeo as an organisation, strengthen the role OSGeo has to play into the world of Geo-ICT. Promoting the diversity of all the work of the different communities, but at the same time bring communities closer together, working together, so we can bring the message of openness and respect to those in the industry who didn't see the light, to the politicians who have dare to take long term decisions, and to the schools where students can experience the great applications we already have.

What role you would wish to fulfil on the board (if any)
If I should have a role, I would want to be the public relations evangilist. I would help the president in bringing the different communities more together, bridge OSGeo to other initiatives such as Geo4All, Locationtech, OGC, INSPIRE, other open initiatives (OSM, Open Knowledge, Open Data, ...) but also other open source communities: Apache, Drupal, Gnu foundation, ....