FOSS4G 2009 Press Release 2

Tour Hosts selected to manage the FOSS4G conference in Sydney 2009

Sydney, Australia. Monday 5 May 2008.

Aust-NZ OSGeo <A u s t - N Z @ l i s t s . o s g e o . o r g>

Bruce Bannerman < b r u c e @ b a n n e r m a n . i d . a u> +61 3 9658-4572

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The Open Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) has selected Tour Hosts to manage the international conference for Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) to be hosted in Sydney 17-21 November 2009 20-23 October 2009.

FOSS4G is heralded as the international "gathering of tribes" of open source geospatial communities, where developers and users show off their latest software and projects. The theme for 2009 is "User Driven", highlighting the power of Open Source to solve business problems.

Tour Hosts were selected based upon their track record hosting quality international conferences for technically savvy audiences, their experience marketing to the government sector (a key user group), and their experience attracting international audiences, especially within the Asia-Pacific region.

Bruce Bannerman, chair of the selection committee, summarized, "I'm confident Tour Hosts will ensure FOSS4G is well attended and memorable for all delegates".

This adds another great reason for coming to the FOSS4G conference in Sydney in 2009:

• Great conference full of the latest open source geospatial goodies and

all the geospatial open source celebrities.

• Hosted in Sydney, with a beautiful harbour and golden beaches.
• November is almost summer and is beautiful warm weather.
• And now add first-class conference organisers who will ensure the

event is run like clockwork.

About OSGeo

The Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) has been created to support and build the highest-quality open source geospatial software. The foundation's goal is to encourage the use and collaborative development of community-led projects, data development and education.[1]

About OSGeo - Australia/New Zealand

The Australian and New Zealand chapter of OSGeo focuses on local issues like promoting OSGeo principles at conferences and lobbying for and building open, local, geographic datasets.

About FOSS4G

FOSS4G is the international gathering of open source, geospatial tribes. The spatial industry is undergoing rapid innovations and the open source spatial community is one of the forces driving the change. From its beginnings the FOSS4G conference has been the gathering of the spatial tribes and has a reputation of being a melting pot for great ideas in the spatial industry and a catalyst for many successful geospatial products, standards and protocols. The 2007 conference was held in Victoria, BC, Canada and was a huge success[2]. The 2008 conference will be held in Cape Town, South Africa[3]. FOSS4G 2009 Sydney will be the seventh "formal" gathering of the open source geospatial community and is expected to focus on the increasing importance of FOSS4G in the public and private enterprise.

[1] http://osgeo.org

[2] http://www.foss4g2007.org

[3] http://www.foss4g2008.org