Draft FOSS4G Travel Grants

Preface
This is a very first draft edited by Till. Feel free to add/edit/discuss.

About
This is the draft page used by the Conference Committee (ConfComm) as discussion base in order to structure travel grant ship for global FOSS4G conferences. Regional conferences may follow later.
 * OSGeo boards decided in May 2017 to pass over responsibility for travel grants to the Conference committee.
 * OSgeo board also decided to dedicate an amount of 10k US $ as travel grant program money
 * ConfComm voted to request the take-over of responsibility for travel grant programme
 * ConfComm decided to add the rules for thew programme to the foss4g conference handbook

Coverage
Each global FOSS4G has a travel grant programme (TGP), that is run under the governance of OSGeo's ConfComm. If the local team requests to participate, ConfComm is open to run the TGP together. Regional conferences may request at ConfComm for support for their TGP.

Suggestion: * if people already planned their travel, but do not get a valid visa, the money is gone (also because of other reasons, such as illness) * we do not know the people requesting, the money might just disappear
 * TGP only covers Conference Ticket and accommodation, no travel costs. Why?
 * if TGP supports travel costs, they might be granted in advance, so that attendees can pay for their tickes, problems:

Suggestion:
 * Accommodation should cover a regular hotel, not a "cheap" solution, because travel grantees should not feel as 2nd class attendees
 * TGP pays an Early Bird ticket, regardless whether Early bird registration is already closed, when TGP is fixed or not (should be approved by upcoming local teams)

Selection Process
We expect, that the money for TGP normally is less than people wanting to get sponsorship for FOSS4G attendance Therefore we need a selection process.
 * TGP should be announced xx (4 e.g.) month before the conference. The apply period should be open for at least xx (4?) weeks.
 * Each applicant needs to draft an application letter in which he/she introduces him/herself and the individual contact or relation to FOSS4G

* LOW-INCOME ECONOMIES ($1,025 OR LESS) * LOWER-MIDDLE-INCOME ECONOMIES ($1,026 TO $4,035) * UPPER-MIDDLE-INCOME ECONOMIES ($4,036 TO $12,475) * HIGH-INCOME ECONOMIES ($12,476 OR MORE) * Residents from the first three groups are justified to attend
 * Selection process is based on world banks country ranking (https://datahelpdesk.worldbank.org/knowledgebase/articles/906519) that groupd cxountries into these groups:

* Low-Income Countries: 3 P * Lower-Middle Income Countries: 2 P  * Upper-Middle Income Countries: 1 P
 * Selection process is based on a point system:

* male/female (1P) * student (1P) * accepted talk (3P) * rejected talk (1P)
 * Additional points could be given for (e.g.)


 * Every applicant will be rated in a secret table, after a calculation between money/costs per applicant travel grants are assigned to the top ranked applicants
 * If two applicants have the same amount of points and only one could be accepted, this last travel grant is assigned by lot (need a defintion of the lot process)