New Member Nominations 2007

Voting to start soon - please read the Descriptions section, below, to learn about the nominees - This page lists and describes the nominees for new OSGeo Charter Membership
 * Current Charter Members are listed here and will have 15 votes to cast for the election
 * Role and responsibilities of membership are here.

Confirmed Nominees
The following people will be standing for election as an OSGeo Charter Member. For more details about their involvement and contributions in the free/open source software, see the next section below.
 * 1) Aaron Racicot
 * 2) Yewondwossen Assefa
 * 3) Christopher Schmidt
 * 4) Lorenzo Becchi
 * 5) Tom Kralidis
 * 6) Josh Livni
 * 7) Daniel Ames
 * 8) Dr. Markus Müller
 * 9) Eduardo Patto Kanegae
 * 10) Patrick Cunningham
 * 11) Mateusz Łoskot
 * 12) David Bitner
 * 13) Victor Minor
 * 14) Landon Blake
 * 15) John Graham
 * 16) Dr K. S. Rajan
 * 17) Charlie Schweik
 * 18) Dr. Georg Loesel
 * 19) Patrick Wilke-Brown
 * 20) Simone Giannecchini
 * 21) Tamas Szekeres
 * 22) Kazunori Noda
 * 23) Dao Van Tuyet
 * 24) Till Adams
 * 25) Puneet Kishor
 * 26) Dr. Jan-Oliver Wagner
 * 27) Rob Atkinson
 * 28) Christoph Baudson
 * 29) Paolo Viskanic
 * 30) Jachym Cepicky
 * 31) Martin Klopfer
 * 32) Carlos Grohmann
 * 33) Peter ter Haar
 * 34) Adrian Custer
 * 35) Dr. Lúbia Vinhas
 * 36) Professor Rongguo Chen
 * 37) Dr. S. N. Prasad

Nominee Descriptions
The following are comments received from nominators or personal descriptions of the nominees. Each bullet represents a comment from an individual nominator.

Aaron Racicot
 * He is always eager to help out with VisCom-related activities, vocal champion of Open Source solutions, co-founder of CUGOS, all-around good guy

Yewondwossen Assefa
 * Assefa has been a long time developer with commit rights to MapServer, has committed himself to the objectives of the MapServer community, and is well respected by the developer and user community surrounding MapServer. He is involved to varying degrees in several other related Open Source projects, including OWT, ROSA, MS4W, MapLab, Chameleon, andMapGuide OS (and probably others too).  He has a strong personal interest in fostering the adoption of Open Source GIS software in Africa.  I believe he would be a conscientious and constructive contributor to OSGeo.

Christopher Schmidt
 * Major players in the OpenLayers, FeatureServer, etc, arenas; member of the MetaCarta gang
 * His contributions to open source geospatial have been extremely impressive.

Lorenzo Becchi
 * Lorenzo is involved in OSGeo as a member of the Web Site Committee, has contributed to the OSGeo Journal, and is active in the formation of the Italian and Spanish local chapter. He is also active in open source software development, contributing to ka-Map, PyWPS, OpenLayers and more, and has helped make it easier for others to experience open source geospatial as part of the Ominiverdi LiveCD project.  Having had contact with Lorenzo on several fronts (WebCom, FOSS4G2007), I have found him to be generally helpful and a great team player.

Tom Kralidis
 * Tom has been active for several years in the OSGeo world, especially with MapServer, but also with all OSGeo projects that involve OGC specifications. Tom is very knowledgeable about interoperability and OGC specifications and has been contributing a lot on that front to the MapServer project. He is also a committer for the MapServer project and has been nominated as a new member of MapServer's expanded PSC.

Josh Livni
 * He is always eager to help out with VisCom-related activities, vocal champion of Open Source solutions, co-founder of CUGOS, all-around good guy

Daniel Ames
 * I'm nominating Dan since he's an active member of the open souce geospatial community. He is the leader of the open source software MapWindow project and he has furthered the cause of open source geospatial software in general and specifically OSGeo in many of his writings and presentations. Dan is also active in the OSGeo email lists and willing to volunteer. I believe Dan would strengthen the scientific community of the OSGeo.
 * He is the director of the MS GISci program at ISU, and team leader for the MapWindow GIS project that is the most active .NET based FOSS GIS.

Dr. Markus Müller
 * [These detailed answers relate to the Positive Attributes for new members list ] Markus is not yet involved directly with OSGeo. This could change with becoming an OSGeo charter member and being more directly involved with the foundation. His company participated and sponsored the Intergeo 2007 OSGeo Open Source Park and past German FOSSGIS conferences.  Markus is founding Member of the company lat/lon GmbH, dedicated to promoting Free and Open Source Software. He actively contributes to the software project deegree.  Markus actively promotes the use of Free and Open Source software in the geospatial area. He gives talks and presentations at conferences and contributes actively to OSGeo's mission of supporting and promoting the use of Free and Open Source Software.  Additionally Markus contributes to the standardization process in the OGC and has taken part in making the Open Source package deegree reference implementation to OGC specifications.  Markus is based in Hamburg, Germany and represents European and German interests. He speaks and writes German and English fluently.  As member of the project deegree he comes from a Java FOSSGIS project that does not yet have a representation within OSGeo. As a mature project with broad scope it will strengthen software diversity within OSGeo. Markus is a corporate representative. Markus is a seasoned contributor to consensus based organizations (OGC) and FOSS projects (deegree) and is known to be constructive in discussion.

Eduardo Patto Kanegae
 * I nominate Eduardo Patto Kanegae for his long term commitment and fostering efforts to the establishment of the MapServer Brazilian Community, and more recently towards other FOSS solutions.
 * I've been around MapServer and its 'family' projects since 2000 using these technologies as an user, instructor and also have made a bit of contributions such as helping local users( for Brazilian community) with forum/list answers and some documentation products too. Most important topics include: *www.webmapit.com.br: since 2003/2004 I hosted this website( turned off recently) with own resources and spare time. I used to publish some texts, tools(mdb2shapefile, FOSS-GIS rpm's), books and tried to concentrate some usefull for GIS local users. The best rank I got with this site, was at begining of 2007 after InfoGEO (the only geomatics brazilian magazine and it has ~2,000 subscriptions in Brazil) published one article of mine about FOSS-GIS - this portuguese article presented readers  to an overview of the current situation of FOSS-GIS, recent efforts(OSGEO) and also quickly described ~30 FOSS-GIS tools such as MapServer, MapGuide, GRASS, PostGIS and others.  MapServer flyers: created portuguese and english flyers to be delivered for those who want to know a bit more about MapServer. *more than 60 persons trained in MapServer & related technologies from 2003 to 2007 (Alpina Ambiental, KNBS, Brazilian Ministry of Health, OmniLink, DataTerra, Escopo Geomarketing and others) *creation of the first online portuguese MapServer introduction course, which should be soonly available as a MS4W package. This material was gentily yielded for the 2nd (2005) and 3rd (2007) Brazilian MapServer Meeting for workshop purposes. *in 2004, helped Univali to plan the 1st Brazilian MapServer Meeting and also obtained small sponsorship (conference T-shirts and pens) for the event. *created a HTML guide for shapelib tools and also made its update in 2007 ( see 1694 Shapelib bug), including a portuguese version. *translated Thuban interface to portuguese in 2004. *hosted the 'MapServer ptForum - a mapserver forum for portuguese speakers' from 2003 to 2004, when it was transfered to Univali. *made a presentation introducing webmapping concepts in GeoBrasil2003 conference, showing a live case (ClickBrasil) using MapServer to serve Brazil maps.

Patrick Cunningham
 * As President of Blue Marble Geographics Cunningham is responsible for all aspects of Blue Marble’s software development, sales and marketing. Blue Marble Geographics is known for their GIS data conversion software and solutions.  They are a leader in coordinate conversion and geodetic software in particular.  Blue Marble works to promote the development of cross-platform, scalable, open and cutting edge software everyday.  Since its founding in 1993 the company has utilized a number of the libraries that OSGeo now maintains including Gdal/OGR and others.  Cunningham instructs Blue Marble developers to submit bug fixes and feature enhancements on any applicable open source projects the company works with.  They have been doing this in good faith for a number of years and management now feels that it is time to be more active with the open source community and in particular as it relates to geospatial software.

Mateusz Łoskot
 * He has been a prolific contributor to GDAL and has also been involved in GEOS, QGIS and a variety of other activities as well as having been active in OSGeo activities over the last year.

David Bitner
 * I am a GIS Coordinator for a regional government agency (Metropolitan Airports Commission, Minneapolis, MN, USA) as well as an independent consultant (dbSpatial) utilizing OSGeo and other FOSS GIS software. I am a certified GIS Professional (GISP) through the GIS Certification Institute. Besides developing with the FOSS GIS stack, I also advocate for free data and open source practices at the regional (MetroGIS Coordinating Committee, OpenMNND collaborative) and state level (MN Governor's Council Strategic Planning and Enterprise Architecture Committees).  I have been an active participant in mailing lists and IRC (user bitner or bitnerd) channels for OSGeo, PostGIS, MapServer, Ka-Map, and OpenLayers.  I am one of the founders of the Twin Cities Mapserver Users Group and was on the planning committee for MUM3.  I am a member of the OSGeo Geodata committee.  I am also currently working at bringing together members of the OSGeo community with those of the disaster management community involved in the Sahana project.

Victor Minor
 * As Director of Software Development for Blue Marble Geographics Minor is responsible for all aspects of Blue Marble’s software development, design, support and testing. Blue Marble Geographics is known for their GIS data conversion software and solutions.  They are a leader in coordinate conversion and geodetic software in particular.  Blue Marble works to promote the development of cross-platform, scalable, open and cutting edge software everyday.  Minor has personally worked with and submitted bug fixes for many of the open source tools supported by OSGeo.  As a graduate of the University of Maine at Orono he is well positioned to leverage his background with the same engineering program that is responsible for Maine’s current leading geospatial and forestry programs.  Minor also has a great deal of applied expertise with spatial conversion, definition and manipulation software.

Landon Blake
 * Landon (aka the Sunburned Surveyor) is very active as a developer and community leader with OpenJUMP and has been helping with some OSGeo efforts such as the summer of code. He is a real community builder and would be an asset to OSGeo.
 * He is committed to helping the OSGeo Journal develop and is very good to work with. His interests in open source are genuine and his knowledge of surveying field is a good asset to OSGeo.

John Graham
 * I would like to nominate John Graham of TelaScience and San Diego Super Computing Center. The reasons should be obvious :)
 * John is a really great guy to work with who is committed to open source geospatial software. He has provided OSGeo access to several servers, storage space, tech. support and much much more through his work with TelaScience and San Diego Super Computing Center.  Some of the services he helps support and run include the OSGeo free geodata project, OSGeo download server, and more.

Dr K. S. Rajan
 * Rajan is an active member of the OSGeo activities in India and has been leading the efforts at establishing the India Chapter there, is its Treasurer and his office at the research university - IIIT Hyderabad also hosts the Chapter headquarters. He has been organizing events like workshops and an active participant in the free and open source geospatial software, and will soon be releasing his GIS based modelling software for land use change studies under the GPL.   He is an Associate professor at the University and also the head of the Lab for Spatial Informatics, where he is leading efforts and build a research framework on GIS concepts and methodologies that will help in improving some of the geographic representation and spatial data handling aspects. Currently, working with students on adapting and adding some functionality to the GRASS toolset. In his courses on GIS, he has been using the Open source tools like GRASS, OpenJump and OSSIM.

Charlie Schweik
 * Charlie is an effective advocate for the use of open source geospatial software in academia and is an active member of the OSGEO education committee. He is an Associate Professor with a joint appointment shared between the Department of Natural Resources Conservation and the Center for Public Policy and Administration at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is also the Associate Director of the National Center for Digital Government, and an affiliated researcher with the Science, Technology, and Society Initiative at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His research focuses on environmental management and policy, public-sector information technology, and the intersection of those domains. His recent peer-reviewed publications focus on free and open source software and the social frameworks and institutions that drive their development and use. This past year he offered a college-level introductory GIS course using only open source software. The initial course was offered as a distance learning course and included participants from Nigeria, Uganda, Brazil, and the United States. He is actively developing another, more advanced course. Through Charlie's hard work and persistence, the content for these courses will be openly distributed with a creative commons license. Charlie's formal training and experience as a computer programmer with academic interests in studying the open source movement and promoting the use of open source geospatial tools makes him well qualified to be a charter member of OSGEO.

Dr. Georg Loesel
 * Georg is very active in Europe (especially Germany) and supports Free Software GIS for many years. He's current Chair of the German GRASS Anwender-Vereinigung e.V. and pushing for a German local chapter of OSGeo. Additionally, he is actively involved in the Free Software GIS for schools project.

Patrick Wilke-Brown
 * Patrick provides unique experience and perspective as an academic and state government employee that would benefit OSGeo. Patrick is involved in other outreach organizations like IGIC, and is a user of many OSGeo software projects.

Simone Giannecchini (aka Simboss)
 * He has made a contribution to free and open source geospatial software already: He is working on GeoServer, GeoTools, JAI. He belives in the general goals of the foundation, he supports and promotes the use of free and open source geospatial software in a collaborative manner. He is working constructively and positively towards the goals of the foundation. He has great abilities to work in/with a team.
 * I'm nominating him since he has an extensive experience in the GeoSpatial context and he is a constant proposer of new ideas and solutions. Furthermore he is an active member, developer and PMC of the GeoTools geospatial library belonging the OSGeo projects list and he is also an active developer of the GeoServer for which he developed along with its colleague Alessio Fabiani the WCS service and added raster support to WMS.  Finally, he is a very experienced Java software developer since, on top of that, he is an active contributor in the world of open source geospatials projects since 2003.
 * Simone Giannecchini has been the leading developer in the ISO 19123 multidimensional coverage standard implementation. Moreover, he has been the leading developer in Geoserver's web coverage service implementation, where his deep understanding and experience of both standards and programming technologies have come to be key factors for the huge success of Geoserver's raster support. Last but not least, Simone is always willing to provide support and helping hand to experienced, as well as new Geoserver users. The open source community is extremely appreciative of Mr.  Giannecchini's efforts and contributions.
 * He has a good experience in open source geomatics software. He is President of GeoSolutions, an italian enterprise that focused in the implementation of GIS software.  Furthermore, he is an active developer of GeoTools, the open source Java GIS toolkit. He is a very collaborative person.  So, I think he is very skilled to work in groups in an interactive way.

Tamas Szekeres
 * Tamas Szekeres takes part in the following open source geospatial activities: 1-Member of the Project Steering Committes of the GDAL and MapServer projects.  2-Developer/Contributor of the GDAL and MapServer projects with special regards of the C#/.NET interfaces. 3-Takes part of the maintainance of the OSGeo buildbot configuration, provides builders for the Windows Server 2003 x64 platform. 4-Active member/supporter at the GDAL/MapServer mailing lists and IRC channels.  Lead designer/developer of various GIS related projects in the following areas: - GPS based vehicle tracking and remote surveillance, - Remote sensing communication and signal processing of human physiological data, - Radar data processing and communication, - Asset tracking and logistics management, - Route planning of objects/vehicles based on complex parameters, - Informatical system for storing/designing and analyzing wired and wireless communication networks.  Tamas Szekeres is an M. Sc. El. Engineer and works for the Hungarian Ministry of Defense in Budapest. Member of the Hungarian Chamber of Engineers with expertise/consulting rights in the area of speciality in logistics and telecommunications.

Kazunori Noda
 * Mr.Kazunori Noda has been very active in promoting OSGeo in Japan since its inception. He has vast experience in commercial aspects of Geospatial technologies and also a very wide human network both in the Japanese Geospatial Industry and academic circles. He has been instrumental in organizing several symposia, workshop and seminar on OSGeo in Japan. His efforts have helped in several companies to consider/offer Open Source Geospatial Solutions.

Dao Van Tuyet
 * Mr.Dao van tuyet has been very active in promoting OSGeo in Vietnam since its inception. He has experience in using developing OSGeo based solutions technologies and also a good reputation amongst the geospatial community in Vietnam. He has been instrumental in organizing OSGeo promotions at GIS-IDEAS 2006 International Symposium in Saigon. Report about the symposium is available in the first OSGeo Newsletter too. He has also organized several symposia, workshop and seminar on OSGeo in Vietnam. His efforts have helped in OSGeo being highlighted on Vietnamese TV news on several ocassions. He is working hard to convince government departments and private companies to adopt/offer Open Source Geospatial Solutions.

Till Adams
 * [ Reasons for nomination, referring to the New Membership Process page ].  Till has kindly provided for hardware to operate the OSGeo Wiki and contributed to several conferences including FOSSGIS. His company participated and sponsored the Intergeo 2007 OSGeo Open Source Park and past German FOSSGIS conferences.  Till is a seasoned power user of MapServer and has contributed in great depth to building up a German MapServer community. He is originator of the migration software projects AVeiN and AMeiN that convert ArcView and ArcMap data to PostgreSQL/PostGIS and MapServer.  Till Adams actively promotes the use of Free and Open Source software in the geospatial area by giving talks and presentations at conferences and being involved in several FOSSGIS projects, some of which are already part of the OSGeo foundation (GRASS, MapServer). He is active in the Mapbender PSC.  Till acitvely contributed to several FOSS projects both inside the OSGeo and outside.  [Re: diversity:] Till Adams is based in Bonn, Germany and represents European and German interests. He speaks and writes German and English.  Till is web developer and knowledgeable in SQL, spatial databases and Mapbender. He is a high level architecture integrator and almost agnostic in the use of software components. He is a corporate representative.  He is a seasoned contributor to the MapServer and Mapbnder community.

Puneet Kishor
 * I have been the Chair of the Education and Curriculum Committee since inception. The primary focus of my energies has been in evangelizing OSGeo in general, and its educational activities in particular. My most recent accomplishment in this has been convincing Brazil's INPE to join and support OSGeo. INPE is the premier Brazilian National Institute for Space Research, and a long-time developer and supporter of open source GIS and remote sensing technologies. Because of the overlap with my Ph.D. research, I am also active in areas of interest to OSGeo. These areas include archival of and access to scientific data, a commons of geospatial data, legal issues related to licensing and copyright, and the role of public policy in all of this. Besides carrying out my duties as the Vice-President of OSGeo, I am an independent consultant in open geospatial technologies, a nominated member of Terra Institute, Pvt. Ltd, an international land policy research institute, a "Science and Technology Policy Fellow" at the US National Academy of Sciences, and am completing my Ph.D. at the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
 * Puneet has been a steady advocate for open source in the geospatial domain, giving talks, representing OSGeo at events and helping to build deeper relationships with others.

Dr. Jan-Oliver Wagner
 * [These detailed answers relate to the Positive Attributes for new members list ]  Jan-Oliver is not yet involved directly with OSGeo. His company participated and sponsored the Intergeo 2007 OSGeo Open Source Park and past German FOSSGIS conferences and supports the OSGeo booth at the LinuxTag 2007 with inkind contribution.  Jan-Oliver is founding member of and active contributor to http://freegis.org/ and GAV e.v. (http://www.grass-verein.de/). He is long time contributor to a variety of FOSSGIS projects, actively involved with the Free Software Foundation Europe and is a Free Software business advocate.  Jan-Oliver actively promotes the use of Free and Open Source software in the geospatial area via FreeGIS, by giving talks and presentations at conferences and being involved in several FOSSGIS projects, some of which are already part of the OSGeo foundation (GRASS, MapServer).  Furthermore Jan-Oliver's experience and expertize in founding, running and promoting Free Software also with respect to licensing issues and a legal background will be a valuable addition to OSGeo's assets.  [Re: diversity...] Jan-Oliver is based in Osnabrück (Osnabrueck), Germany and represents European and German interests. He speaks and writes German and English fluently.  Jan-Oliver is almost agnostic with respect to programming languages and has experience in bridging gaps between technologies. He contributes to Python based Thuban.  Jan-Oliver is both corporate representative and member of the Germany based GAV e.V. that currently manages financial affairs of the (officially) non-existent German local chapter.  Jan-Oliver is a seasoned contributor to consensus based organizations (FreeGIS) and several FOSS projects and is known to be constructive in discussion.

Rob Atkinson
 * Rob has made a number of contributions to Open Source GIS projects, most notably, he is a developer and on the Project Steering Committee of Geoserver. He is one of the founders of the Web Services Interop Profile Environment. Rob is one of the pioneers of Spatial Data Infrastructures, setting up a Australia's first SDI, ICMISS, and now working with the UN on international solutions.  Rob has made major contributions to OGC standards, he is part editor of a number of standards and has participated in a number of their testbeds.  Rob is a director of http://webmap.socialchange.net.au, an Australian company focused on providing inter-operable solutions for Australian Government Agencies.

Christoph Baudson
 * [These detailed answers relate to the Positive Attributes for new members list ].  Christoph Baudson is core developer of the Mapbender project. He has represented OSGeo at last year's GIS conference in Indonesia, FOSSGIS and FOSS4G.  Christoph Baudson is core developer and PSC member of the Mapbender project.  Christoph Baudson already spends a good time on building and serving the Mapbender developer community. He furthers quality by implementing development guidelines and redesigning the application framework.  Christoph Baudson is FOSS through and through.  Christoph Baudson is located in Bonn, Germany. He speaks and writes German and English fluently and is currently learning Indonesian.  Christoph mostly implements in PHP, JavaScript and SQL plus is very knowledgeable in interoperability and standards. Christoph is a professional developer.  Christoph is a long time contributor to the project Mapbender. He is one of the most active PSC members and manages several administrative tasks in the project.

Paolo Viskanic
 * [These detailed answers relate to the Positive Attributes for new members list ].  Paolo has contributed actively to past years German language FOSSGIS conferences and spreads word in northern Italy. Paolo is actively involved in internationalization of several projects including the OSGeo projects QGIS and Mapbender. His company through in kind contribution is also a Mapbender development sponsor. Paolo is already actively involved in several projects near to OSGeo. He is fluent in German, English and Italian and thus able to bridge several language barriers. Beyond promoting the general Open Source idea Paolo can put a business edge to the process that is essential to building a health ecology around FOSS projects. Paolo is located in Meran, Italy. He speaks and writes German, Italian and English fluently. Paolo operates on a meta level and is not tied to any specific language or development philosophy. Paolo is a corporate representative and additionally has many contacts on international level where leveraging Open Source has to be done politically. Paolo is a seasoned contributor to consensus based organizations known to be constructive in discussion.

Jachym Cepicky
 * Jachym is an active person in the Free Software scene and working in various software projects such as GRASS GIS, PyWPS (his own "child") and in various communities (Czech GRASS users, German GAV etc).
 * He is also the maintainer of a repository of FOSS GIS packages for Ubuntu

Martin Klopfer
 * [These detailed answers relate to the Positive Attributes for new members list ].  Martin is not yet involved directly in OSGeo. He is long time contributor to the OGC process and supports dissemination and use of Open Source software.  Martin is neither developer nor has he contributed to any of the current OSGeo projects. He is active promoter for interoperability and open accessibility and furthers the use of Open Source in the sensor web enablement realm.  Martin has in depth knowledge of the OGC and OGC processes and interoperability programs, especially in the EU and will be a valuable addition to the broad community represented within OSGeo.  From an interoperability point of view open source geospatial software makes all sense in that it enables collaboration and furthers contributions from a broad community.  He is based in Emden, Germany and represents European and German interests. He speaks and writes German and English fluently.  Martin is agnostic with trespect to programming languages. He is involved with furthering FOSS Java software coming out of the 52N project/company.  Martin is freelance consultant and OGC representative and will be able to help communicate between OGC and OSGeo.  Martin is an experienced team worker and seasoned with all kinds of collaboration platforms.

Carlos Grohmann
 * He is currently a PhD student at Universidade de São Paulo. His research centers around geomorphology, relief morphometry, neotectonics, IIRC. He is also a strong proponent of free software, specially geospatial. His currently is involved with the GRASS project and is writing a portuguese version of a GRASS tutorial. I know him since we went to college together in 1996.

Peter ter Haar
 * [These detailed answers relate to the Positive Attributes for new members list ].  Peter has been an active member of OSGeo since the beginning by appearing at conferences, meetings and giving presentations while he was at Autodesk.  In his current function Peter reaches right into the core of public geospatial data issues. Thus he will be a perfect match for the Open Geospatial Data Access committee and extend OSGeo representation beyond pure software.  During his time at Autodesk he was thoroughly exposed to the collaborative processes within OSGeo and contributed actively.  Peter is located in the UK and speaks Dutch and English fluently. Peter is software tribe agnostic.  Peter is corporate representative of a national data agency. In this function he is currently unique within OSGeo and might be able to bridge yet another gap.  Peter is a seasoned contributor to consensus based organizations (for example OGC) and is known to be constructive in discussion.

Adrian Custer
 * Adrian Custer has come out of nowhere and involved himself in all manner of activities. And by activities I generally mean thankless tasks required to keep everything going. He has taken up the GeoTools stalled OSGeo incubation process and thrown himself into the midst of the legal research that has scared off others. Currently he is putting together a report for GeoAPI which no sane developer would approach, he has started off demos for the GeoTools codebase and so on. Adrian's main strength is NOT being a developer, and approaching everything from the standpoint of a user who needs to get things done - and importantly is willing to help fix the problem. I don't think being an OSGeo memeber would change his life one bit; but I would like to recognize him and mark him as an inspiration for others.

Dr. Lúbia Vinhas
 * Lubia is the current Development Manager of the TerraLib project. TerraLib is an GIS open source software project being developed by INPE and its partners. TerraLib is a library for the development of GIS applications. It includes facilities for storage and retrieval of different types of spatio-temporal data in databases such as PostgreSQL, including vector, raster, TIN and cell-space data. It also includes a large set of algorithms for analysis and processing of spatio-temporal data. For more information, please visit the [www.terralib.org TerraLib] site or the wikipedia [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraLib entry]. As one of the project's leaders, Lubia manages a large community of OSS developers in Brazil and is actively involved in the promotion of OSS in Brazil.

Professor Rongguo Chen
 * Prof. Chen was instrumental in getting OSGeo's Chinese chapter started, and is very well connected and active within a number of Chinese organizations. He and his colleagues are working in areas around spatial DBMS models, including benchmarking, extensions for GRASS support, etc.  He is representing the OSGeo China Chapter, with connections and support of many national Chinese organizations all actively using OS solutions today.

Dr. S. N. Prasad
 * Prasad is a professional ecologist working on use of spatial technology tools in ecology and conservation for the last one  decade. As a part of wetland conservation in India, teamed up with scientists from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore in customizing GRASS for wetland applications. Of late,for the last two years, been involved in using open source tools for webGIS applications in wetland ecosystem information system.