New Member Nominations 2012

IMPORTANT: Charter member election: nomination period ends on 2012-07-05!

The list of nominees for the 2012 Charter Member Election is maintained by the Chief Returning Officer (cro at osgeo.org).

To submit a charter member nomination:
 * Please confirm with the nominated person first.
 * Please email cro@osgeo.org with their name, contact email and paragraph describing why you are recommending this person as a Charter Member
 * Please also feel free to cc: the nomination to the OSGeo discussion list - discuss@lists.osgeo.org - so the community can be nudged along and have a sense of what is going on.
 * Also, you might want to reference your OSGeo Advocate profile.

The list of nominees will be maintained by the CRO here:

{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1" cellpadding="5" !Name !Country !Notes


 * - valign="top"
 * Barend_Kobben
 * Netherlands
 * From: Suchith Anand

I would like to nominate Barend Köbben, University of Twente (ITC, Netherlands) as Charter Member of OSGeo. Barend has done excellent contributions to the educational efforts of Open Source GIS not only through his teaching and research in his university but also wider outreach programs. One good example is his short courses and workshops in Open Source GIS & WebMapping, promoting the use of the Open Source geospatial applications and data (recently one at AGILE for example, see list at http://kartoweb.itc.nl/kobben/OSGEOcourses.html   ). These kind of workshops have been very successful in outreach and education efforts for OSGeo.

His full details at http://kartoweb.itc.nl/kobben/


 * - valign="top"
 * Angelos Tzotsos
 * Greece
 * From: Cameron Shorter

I'd like to nominate Angelos Tzotsos as an OSGeo Charter member, as I believe he exemplifies many of the key qualities we look for in OSGeo Advocates.

For the last few OSGeo-Live releases, Angelos has taken responsibility for the OSGeo-Live build, then tested every application, and then worked with projects to help get them working on OSGeo-Live. He also contributes to a number of OSGeo projects, leads Greek OSGeo translations, and has presented on OSGeo topics at numerous conferences.

As per his OSGeo Advocate profile [1]:

Angelos is a remote sensing expert with background in surveying engineering and software development. He is involved in numerous activities around free and open source software and has great experience in geospatial applications. His research involves object-based image analysis, machine learning, computer vision and remote sensing. He is an active advocate of OSGeo in Greece at related conferences ...


 * [1] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeo_Advocate#Angelos_Tzotsos
 * [2] Nomination support by steko (aka Stefano Costa)


 * - valign="top"
 *  Anita Graser
 * Austria
 * From: Ian Turton

I would like to nominate Anita Graser for charter membership. Many of you will know her work under the name of Underdark which is her user name on gis.stackexchange [1] and her blog "Free and Open Source GIS Ramblings" [2] where she is tireless in promoting QGIS and other open source GIS tools. Anita is also a contributor to the QGIS code base [3] and QGIS Community Assistant (Press Material Team Lead)[4].


 * [1] http://gis.stackexchange.com/users/187/underdark
 * [2] http://underdark.wordpress.com/
 * [3] https://github.com/anitagraser
 * [4] http://hub.qgis.org/wiki/quantum-gis/Project_Organigram#Press-Material-Translation


 * - valign="top"
 * Victor Olaya
 * Spain
 * From: Lluís Vicens

I would like to nominee to Victor Olaya, an GIS enthusiast and a multifaceted character. He's the creator and the main developer of the SEXTANTE library[1], an open-source library for spatial data analysis currently used by several applications such as gvSIG, QGIs, uDIG, ... He has been involved in open-source software development and GIS since the beginning of his career, focusing on spatial data analysis and geomorphometry. His contribution to the open source for geospatial is very remarkable and he is also the author of the first free book based on Geographic Information Systems[2].


 * [1] http://www.sextantegis.com/
 * [2] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Libro_SIG
 * [3] Support of this nomination by Yves Jacolin
 * [4] Support of this nomination by Gabriel Roldán


 * - valign="top"
 * Pedro-Juan Ferrer
 * Spain
 * From:  Jorge Gaspar Sanz Salinas

I want to nominate Pedro-Juan Ferrer[1] for the Charter Member election.

Pedro-Juan has been really active at OSGeo and specially OSGeo Spanish Language Local Chapter (OSGeo-es) since the beginning of its activities. He is member of the Board of Directors of OSGeo-es (recently re-elected) and the Liason Officer between the LC and the Foundation, always attentive with any task required from him.

So he is an experienced OSGeo'er with a good knowledge of the foundation internals and an advanced user with experience on many FOSS4G tools as his talks about OSGeo and OSGeo Live can demonstrate. Finally he is also very active at our microchapter here at Valencia[2] with talks and workshops.

The Charter Membership is needed of active profiles like him, in my humble opinion he is a truly OSGeo advocate.


 * [1] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Pedro-Juan_Ferrer
 * [2] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Category:Geoinquietos_Valencia


 * - valign="top"
 * Andrea Aimee
 * Italy
 * From: Jody Garnett

I would like to nominate Andrea Aime for OSGeo charter membership.

Andrea as a key contributor to the GeoServer[1] and GeoTools[2] projects. Actually Andrea may be the key contributor - the GeoServer issue tracker lists Andrea as the project lead. While I feel I should quote some bug closing statistics here, what is more important is his commitment to the community (always ready with a code review) and supportive presence on the GeoServer [1] and GeoTools [2] user lists.

As a public representative Andrea is beloved for his effective stage presence. Most recognisable in the popular FOSS4G "WMS Shootout" series[3], or exploring topics at regional events (most recently making the trip to FOSS4G-NA [4]).


 * [1] http://geoserver.org/
 * [2] http://geotools.org/
 * [3] http://2010.foss4g.org/wms_benchmarking.php
 * [4] http://foss4g-na.org/schedule/the-state-of-geoserver/
 * [5] Support of this nomination by Jeff McKenna
 * [6] Support of this nomination by Gabriel Roldán


 * - valign="top"
 *  Jean-Roc Morreale
 * France
 * From: Yves Jacolin

I would like to nominate Jean-Roc Morreale [0]. His work is mainly focuse on Francophone Local Chapter (as Board member) and QGIS project.

He managed the French QGIS translation [1] process and in this way published the QGIS user manuel in french (book and pdf file). He is a great contributor to QGIS and realized several presentation and training on OSGeo FOSS application.

As a OSGeo-fr board member he brings an user point of view and as a charter member can bring a local chapter point of view which is imho important.

I will let Jean-Roc give more information about his point of view and works on QGIS and OSGeo-fr LC.


 * [0] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:JRM
 * [1] French QGIS translation


 * - valign="top"
 *  Serena Coetzee
 * South Africa
 * From: Suchith Anand

I would like to nominate Dr Serena Coetzee, University of Pretoria (South Africa) as Charter Member of OSGeo. Serena has done excellent contributions to the educational efforts of OSGeo. She not only established and lead the first Open Source Geospatial Laboratory in Africa [0] but is actively helping and sharing expertise with other universities in Africa for building up the educational efforts.

Short biography: Serena Coetzee joined the University of Pretoria in 2006, where she received her PhD on data grids, SDIs and address data in the Department of Computer Science. She is now in the Department of Geography, Geoinformatics and Meteorology where she leads the Centre for Geoinformation Science [1] and established the first Open Geospatial Laboratory in Africa. Her research interests are geospatial web services, geographic information standards, address data, spatial databases and SDIs. Serena actively participates in international geographic information standardization efforts in ISO/TC 211, Geographic Information/Geomatics, where she leads the ISO 19160, Addressing, project and chairs the ISO/TC 211 Programme Maintenance Group (PMG). She also leads SANS 1883, the South African Address standard. Serena started her career as a software engineer on the development teams of desktop GIS products. Subsequently, at AfriGIS, she led GIS projects on spatial data capturing, manipulation and maintenance to geocoding, spatial analysis and Internet mapping.


 * [0] http://www.osgeo.org/node/1279
 * [1] http://www.up.ac.za/cgis


 * - valign="top"
 *  Michael Smith
 * USA
 * From: Jeff McKenna

I have the honor to nominate Michael Smith for OSGeo Charter membership.

Mike is with the US Army Corps of Engineers, Remote Sensing GIS Center, and has been a longtime supporter of FOSS. Most recently he is working very hard with Howard Butler to develop an Open Source point cloud translation library, PDAL [1]. Mike is also very active in the MapServer [2] community, as one of its most vocal power users, and in 2011 he was named to the MapServer Project Steering Committee [3].

I also had the pleasure of giving a MapServer workshop with Mike at FOSS4G 2011 in Denver; many attendees said that it was a wonderful workshop, and I attribute that to Mike's thorough knowledge of MapServer and its recent changes.

Mike is often one of the first to sign up for Code Sprints, and register for FOSS4G events, which to me says everything about his passion for this community. He may not prefer to be giving fancy presentations and taking the glory, but scratch the surface of many OSGeo communities and you'll find Mike supporting it in every way he can.

I feel that Mike Smith would be an excellent representative of OSGeo.


 * [1] http://www.pointcloud.org/
 * [2] http://www.mapserver.org/
 * [3] http://mapserver.org/development/rfc/ms-rfc-23.html


 * - valign="top"
 * Karel Charvat
 * Czech Republic
 * From:  Jachym Cepicky

I would like to nominate Karel Charvat as charter member of OSGeo.

Karel is long-time GIS visionary and supporter for Open Source GIS development in both - private activities as well as business.

He is also active on the European level, working on various projects, always looking at Open Source GIS and its improvement. He is also closely related to INSPIRE "movement", with experiences of practical life with this directive. Karel is always looking for the ways, how to bring practical features, required by users, to developed software packages. He was chair of first FOSS4G-CEE Conference in Prague 2012 (even though he could not participate personally).


 * [0] Add some links


 * - valign="top"
 * Jan Jezek
 * Czech Republic
 * From:  Jachym Cepicky

I would like to nominate Jan Jezek for OSGeo Charter member.

Jan is long-time Java developer, being active mostly in the Geotools community. Jan is currently working at University of West Bohemia and in Help Service Remote Sensing company - so he has connection to both - academic and private business worlds.


 * [0] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Contributor_Agreements_Received


 * - valign="top"
 * Vasile Craciunescu
 * Romania
 * From:  Jachym Cepicky

I would like to nominate Vasile Craciunescu for OSGeo Charter Member.

Vasile is long-time active supporter of Open Source GIS movement. He is the key-person in Rumanian Geo-spatial.org community, which is organising various events regarding Open Source GIS.

Vasile is also known for his old-maps activities. He and his team is going to organise FOSS4G-CEE 2013 in Bucharest.


 * [0] http://earth.unibuc.ro/


 * - valign="top"
 * Thomas Bonfort
 * 'France
 * From: Stephen Woodbridge

I would like to nominate Thomas Bonfort for OSGeo Charter Member.

Thomas has been a long time active supporter of the Open Source GIS movement. He developed mod_geocache which has since been merged with MapServer as MapCache, he is an active developer of MapServer and recently taken on the responsibility for the latest MapServer release in the works.

Thomas has presented in various FOSS4G conferences and is constructive and a great team player. I think Thomas would make an excellent OSGeo Charter Member.


 * [0] http://www.mapserver.org