Election 2022 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.

You are welcome to follow the template, and add further relevant info as you need:

About me
They began in 2007 in the city of Santa Fe, in the interior of Argentina, participating in the formation of the SDI of the province of Sante Fe, then going through different organizations that were contributing to the community the insertion of Open Source, such as the Argentine Space Agency (CONAE) and the Government of the City of Buenos Aires. Together with a group of colleagues we started the foundation of Geoinquietos in Argentina.

In 2018 we founded the Geolibres Association (https://geolibres.org.ar/ ), which supports the communities of Argentina (Geolibres Argentina, Openstreetmap Argentina, QGIS Argentina, Geochicas) in its beginnings as treasurer and currently President of the Association.

Always thinking of adding open source tools for community decision-making.

My vision
My vision is to achieve the implementation of open source solutions in different regions, with a focus on Latin America. In turn, generate an approach of the free software industry to the different stakeholders in order to reverse the opinions in relation to the fact that "free software is not reliable"

What you have done within the community in the past

 * Chair of the FOSS4G Argentina 2016
 * Organizer of the FOSS4G Argentina 2017
 * Organizer of the FOSS4G Argentina 2019
 * Organizer of the SOTM Argentina 2017
 * Organizer of the SOTM LATAM 2018.
 * Coordinator of LOC the FOSS4G Buenos Aires 2021 (International)
 * Founder Member of Geoinquietos Argentina
 * Founder of the Geolibres Argentina
 * President of the Geolibres Argentina
 * Responsible for the Local Chapter OSM Argentina
 * Responsible for the Local Chapter QGIS Argentina
 * Member of the SDI of Argentina since 2012
 * Chair of Metadata Working Group of SDI of Argentina, IDERA (2012 - 2020)
 * Participation in software development Geonetwork, Geonode and transation a spanish for help

What your interests are in terms of the board
My incorporation to the Board, I believe, would strengthen the link between the Latin American communities with the rest of the world. Promoting the project with its documentation in Spanish and generating spaces for the insertion of open source technologies in Latin America. Thus contributing to the paradigm shift where the only thing that exists is the option of proprietary software for some solutions.

Any things that you would like to change or introduce
I would like from the board to be able to achieve a greater reach in Latin America, either by generating events such as FOSS4G 2021 in the region, as well as giving greater relevance to the fact that the documentation and help are translated into Spanish for the software that is have to achieve a better insertion in the region.

What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any)
I am willing to assume the role that is necessary

About me
For those of you that don't know me, I'm Michael Smith, a physical scientist at the US Army Corps of Engineers. I've been involved with the MapServer community since 2001 and OSGeo since its inception. For the last 8 years, I've been honored to be a OSGeo Board member and the OSGeo treasurer. It’s been quite a learning experience and I greatly thank Daniel Morissette, the previous OSGeo treasurer for so much support in handling the transition.

My vision
In my time on the board and as treasurer, my focus has been on encouraging governments (in general) and the US in particular, especially the Department of Defense which, personally I know makes extensive use of OSGeo projects, to more actively participate is OSGeo and the projects beyond just use and occasional commits.

What your interests are in terms of the board
If reelected, I plan to continue as OSGeo Treasurer. It's been a bit of a learning experience handling the funds from OSGeo, learning how to do the non profit tax filings for the US Government (where OSGeo is incorporated) and handling distributions of funds to Code Sprints and Events. It has also been a lot of fun to work directly with groups and individuals all over the world with OSGeo. Its been a very rewarding experience.

What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any)
If reelected, I plan to continue as OSGeo Treasurer.

It’s really wonderful to see a great group of new candidates to the board. It is wonderful to see the diversity and multiple regions of the world represented in the candidates. Thank you for the nomination, OSGeo Community!

About me

 * https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomkralidis
 * https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Tomkralidis
 * https://github.com/tomkralidis
 * https://noc.social/@tomkralidis
 * https://twitter.com/tomkralidis

I've been involved in FOSS4G efforts since the 1990s. Starting as a user with no open source or development experience, I was drawn to the principles and inclusiveness of FOSS and the rest (as they say) is history. I develop, use and advocate for FOSS4G/OSGeo tools both in a volunteer capacity as well as my role at the Meteorological Service of Canada as a Senior Geospatial Architect.

Best of luck to all candidates! It is an honour and a privilege to be nominated again for the Board. Thank you!

My vision
For Geospatial Open Source to always be a strong viable option for implementation by anyone, anywhere, anytime. FOSS4G is neither too big or too small for any requirement, project or activity.

This is realized by a balanced, interoperable, sustainable and healthy OSGeo.

What you have done within the community in the past

 * OSGeo member since inception
 * Board member 2018-2022. Contributions include:
 * OGC MoU renewal (2022)
 * startup of OSGeo OGC Committee (2022)
 * Update of policies and procedures (budget, bylaws)
 * Helping onboard numerous new community projects
 * Creation of Board member onboarding checklist
 * Charter member onboarding
 * sponsorship communications
 * OSGeo Annual Budget and Money guidance for projects, committees, initiatives and events
 * OGC coordination
 * OSGeo / OGC code sprints cross pollination
 * OGC Compliance Certification Services (CITE, SAC infra)
 * OSGeo Certification services for OGC compliance
 * OGC/W3C Web mapping workshop program committee and "Open Source for Web Mapping" panel moderator
 * ISO TC211 liaison setup


 * long term dedicated effort on user, development and advocacy of FOSS4G / OSGeo in support of interoperability
 * Charter member since 2007
 * user training and workshops
 * Incubation Committee
 * Project mentor for OSGeo incubation of PyWPS (graduated 2018)
 * Project mentor for OSGeo incubation of ZOO-Project (2022, in progres)
 * PSC memberships
 * MapServer
 * pycsw
 * PyWPS
 * MapProxy
 * core committer
 * QGIS
 * GeoNode
 * PyWPS
 * OWSLib
 * founder:
 * pycsw
 * GeoHealthCheck
 * pygeoapi
 * pygeometa
 * contributor: OSGeo-Live, numerous others
 * helped organize the first OSGeo C tribe code sprint (Toronto, Canada) in 2009
 * code sprints attendance (2009, 2011, 2014 [FOSS4G-PDX], 2017-present)

What your interests are in terms of the board
During my time with the Board thus far (2018-2022) I have been lucky to work with a strong and diverse team and was exposed to many facets of OSGeo. I also realized the significant part that standards play in numerous OSGeo projects. As a firm believer of do-ocracy and collaboration, if re-elected I will continue to advocate on lowering the barrier to geospatial tools for anyone across numerous organizations and jurisdictions. This includes strengthening our position on standards requirements and implementation (OGC, ISO).

Any things that you would like to change or introduce
If re-elected, with the OSGeo/OGC MoU having been renewed in 2022, as well as the creation of the OSGeo OGC Committee (kickoff meeting set for 19 December 2022), I look forward to continuing to help shape OSGeo's story for OGC collaboration.

Since 2018, the OGC has embarked on significant efforts on modernizing their API suite of standards via OGC API. The OGC API movement is proving to lower the barrier to implementation more than ever before. This, combined with OSGeo's TC211 liaison membership in 2020, provides our community a huge opportunity to lead and direct the future of international standards, either by providing requirements/feedback, writing software as well as providing reference implementations. OSGeo's standards efforts need to undergo a similar review and renewal activity so we can participate more efficiently, have our voice heard and have FOSS4G projects be a key contributor and option to users.

This will not happen by accident. Continuous improvement on our Certification serivces, OSGeo participation in OGC events, CITE compliance and infrastructure, and OGC threads at OSGeo sprints will all contribute to adding value for FOSS4G as the best option for standards based implementations.

What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any)
To continue as a trusted voice as part of a strong leadership team and community to help steer OSGeo in achieving its goals for the long term.

About me
My name is Angelos Tzotsos. I am a remote sensing scientist/researcher and have been a FOSS developer for more than half of my life. I wrote my first program at the age of 11 and installed my first GNU/Linux distribution in 1997. I started working with Free and Open Source Software as an undergraduate student in engineering. I was very excited with the quality of the code and got determined to contribute back and help the community. I am very proud to be a member of the OSGeo community and honored to be nominated again for a position at the Board of Directors.

My vision
In my early days in academia, my vision was to inspire young people to join our community (or any other FOSS community) and discover the technical and ethical revolution of Free and Open Source Software, the way I did. In the last few years, while being also active on the business side, I have realized the need for a sustainable future for our FOSS4G projects and the need to keep promoting open source solutions to governments, organizations, universities, research institutions, private companies, users and decision-makers. I also see the need to continue reaching out to other communities and organizations.

What you have done within the community in the past

 * OSGeo President since 2020
 * OSGeo Board member 2016-2022. Participated in all board meetings.
 * OSGeo Vice-President 2017-2019.
 * OSGeo charter member since 2011.
 * Chair of the OSGeoLive PSC and core developer.
 * OSGeo Project Officer for pycsw and OSGeoLive.
 * Core developer and contributor of many projects like pycsw, GeoNode, pygeoapi, ZOO-Project, OTB (more contribution details can be found on my wiki page https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Angelos_Tzotsos).
 * Maintainer of UbuntuGIS.
 * Maintainer of openSUSE Geo.

What your interests are in terms of the board
My first priority is keeping a healthy and viable OSGeo community. It is evident in the last few years that our contributor activity is falling with less volunteers willing to pick up roles in our internal process. We need to inspire new and older members to become active within the organization, projects and committees. We were able to sustain the COVID-19 crisis because we have a very strong community. Within the last year we were able to host a successful FOSS4G again (I am really sorry I did not make it in person). We also managed to strengthen our relationship with external partners with more MOUs and collaboration (OGC, HOT and more) A critical priority of the board is to ensure that our graduated and incubated projects are sustainable. The board has introduced funding support for our projects in the last years, and my goal is to keep this happening. We also need to focus on keeping the projects healthy: as a board member I focused on monitoring our projects' status and asking their officers and PSCs to report to the board regularly. I also wish to be one of the voices in the board that remind all of us of our Free Software roots (Free is part of FOSS4G, even if not reflected in the OSGeo name), avoiding proprietary systems as much as possible. Once again, I thank you for giving me the chance to represent you and will try my best if you keep trusting in me.

Any things that you would like to change or introduce
I would like to work towards expanding our community and try to attract a new generation of contributors both for our projects and the organization.

What role you would wish to fulfill on the board (if any)
I would be happy to serve the OSGeo Board in any role I am assigned.