Conference Resources

= Goals = The goals of Conference Resources is support LOC with the conference organisation, providing some solutions to problems that other already solved. Some of the topic we will be able to address:
 * support using Pretalx if the LOC choose to use it
 * support for the online platform (Venueless) and streaming options
 * support to find sponsors; maintaining and sharing the list of contact of previous sponsor
 * support for travel grant
 * support for website and app for schedule

= Members =
 * Luca Delucchi (proposer and chair)
 * Astrid Emde
 * Silvia Franceschi (sponsor)
 * María Arias de Reyna (website support, can help with venueless, pretix, pretalx)
 * Laura Mugeha (General & tech support)
 * Codrina Ilie (Program support, can help with pretalx)
 * Besfort Guri

= Topics =

Pretalx
pretalx is a FOSS conference management software that give you the opportunity to set up a call for papers, review the abstracts, contact the speakers and finally create your schedule. OSGeo is running a pretalx instance at https://talks.osgeo.org/. This can be used by the LOC of international or regional FOSS4Gs. Admins of this service are Regina Obe, Luca Delucchi, Astrid Emde, María Arias de Reyna Domínguez, Vicky Vergara. Conference Resources can:
 * invest some of OSGeo money to improve pretalx
 * help you creating an event for you and guide you for a better experience
 * have a list of potential reviewers to be included in the call for papers process
 * help navigate the academic track (ISPRS publishing, for example)

Venueless
Venueless is a FOSS software to manage online and hybrid conferences. It has the capabilities to provide live streaming with integrated chat, Q&A sections, standalone chat rooms, video group chat, sponsor exhibition, integrate web pages using iframes. Conference Resources can help you explaining how to set up your Venueless instance

Sponsor
Sponsors are really important component of a conference, OSGeo has contacts with several entities, a lot of big/medium/small companies use OSGeo products in their daily work and they like to advertise it during conferences. Conference Resources should be able to provide to LOC an updated list of possible sponsors with main contacts.

Travel Grant
Travel Grant is one of the most demanding work, LOC has to set up a call, assessing candidates and finally support them with invitation letter to get them VISA if needed. Synergies with other realities like HOT and YouthMappers should be created and maintained.

Website
Could be really useful to have a website simple to create and reusable every year without the force to recreate it from scratch. State of the Map conference is doing something like that.

Mobile app for schedule
Using pretalx as conference management software the two better apps for mobile are giggity (to see your schedule just add a pull request with the link to your pretalx instance) and EventFahrplan (who require some customization usually done by the main developer with a small amount of money). Right now the bigger problem seems to be iOS without any app available.