Difference between revisions of "North America Regional"
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== See Also == | == See Also == | ||
| + | |||
| + | === Usage of the term North America === | ||
| + | ''Definition of North America taken from the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_America#Usage_of_the_term_North_America English language Wikipedia].'' | ||
| + | |||
| + | The term North America maintains various definitions in accordance with location and context. In English, North America may be used to refer to the United States and Canada together.Alternatively, usage sometimes includes Greenland and Mexico (as in the North American Free Trade Agreement), as well as offshore islands. | ||
| + | In Ibero-America and other parts of Europe, North America usually designates a subcontinent of the Americas containing Canada, the United States, and Mexico, and often Greenland, Saint Pierre et Miquelon, and Bermuda. | ||
| + | North America has been historically referred to by other names. Spanish North America (New Spain) was often referred to as Northern America, and this was the first official name given to Mexico. | ||
| + | Outside of North America, going into the twentieth century, the whole American continent (North, Central and South America as well as the Caribbean) was referred simply as "America" or "The Americas", one of the "Five Continents" (the other four being, Africa, Europe, Asia and Oceania). | ||
= Chapter Formation Submission= | = Chapter Formation Submission= | ||
Revision as of 01:01, 11 November 2011
Mission
The primary focus of the North America Regional Chapter will be to organize and run annual North American conferences. It is not the intent of this chapter to duplicate or compete with established local chapters or the international organization's ongoing efforts.
The North America regional conference will also support and collaborate with other like minded organizations for smaller technical and business focused conferences within the region.
Background The OSGeo Board of Directors has recently discussed establishing regional focus groups and conferences that could more effectively address the needs of those areas. This would allow OSGeo to act as more of an umbrella international organization. It is anticipated that the International OSGeo conference will rotate around the globe and will be combined with the regional conference when that region is selected.
Objectives
- Organize and run an annual North American regional conference
- Increased focus on open source business models
- Provide an interface for National, Regional and Local government agencies as they adopt open source solutions
- Coordinate with local North American chapters for planned events within those localities
- Support OSGeo board for international events
- Support a broad range of interest areas - academic, social, environmental, government, etc.
What the North American Regional isn't about
- Duplicating existing efforts at the OSGeo International level or at the local chapter level
- Running development projects or support infrastructure
- Local meetups
- Managing or overseeing other groups
In addition we will be coordinating closely with other relevant organizations:
- MIL-OSS Military Open Source Software
- USGIF United States Geospatial Intelligence Agency
- OSSI Open Source Software Institute
- OSFA Open Source for America
- GITA Geospatial Information & Technology Association
Official representative
Mark Lucas Principal Scientist RadiantBlue Technologies Inc.
If the majority of chapter members wish, the post of official representative will be elected on a periodic basis.
Organization
The intent is to organize as a 501c non profit organization.
Mailing List
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/northamerica
Meetings and Events
No meetings have been planned yet, the intent will be to establish formal quarterly meetings to review conference and organizational planning.
Upcoming Events
FOSS4G 2012 - Beijing [1]
North American Regional OSGeo/foss4g Conference Initial discussion will be focused on organizing a follow on North American regional conference in 2012. We will work to deconflict this event with the OSGeo/foss4g international conference in Beijing as well as the as the annual Geoint conference.
USGIF Technology Day USGIF Technology Day
Wherecon - Washington DC [2]
Towson University Geographic Information Sciences Conference 2012 Wednesday, March 23 and Thursday, March 24, 2011 at the University Union on the Towson University campus
Recent Events
MIL-OSS WG3 MIL-OSS Working Group 3
FOSS4G 2011 OSGeo's FOSS4G Denver
Geoint 2011 Geoint 2011 in San Antonio Tx
USGIF Tech Days Washington DC
People
Sign up here to show interest! Also join the mailing list so we can be in touch directly.
- Mark Lucas
- Frank Warmerdam
- Tyler Mitchell
- Dave McIlhagga
- David Bitner
- Andrew Ross
- Michael Smith
- Ned Horning
- Robert Hollingsworth
- J. Batista (PB)
- Michael P. Gerlek (mpg)
- Lisa Sweeney
See Also
Usage of the term North America
Definition of North America taken from the English language Wikipedia.
The term North America maintains various definitions in accordance with location and context. In English, North America may be used to refer to the United States and Canada together.Alternatively, usage sometimes includes Greenland and Mexico (as in the North American Free Trade Agreement), as well as offshore islands. In Ibero-America and other parts of Europe, North America usually designates a subcontinent of the Americas containing Canada, the United States, and Mexico, and often Greenland, Saint Pierre et Miquelon, and Bermuda. North America has been historically referred to by other names. Spanish North America (New Spain) was often referred to as Northern America, and this was the first official name given to Mexico. Outside of North America, going into the twentieth century, the whole American continent (North, Central and South America as well as the Caribbean) was referred simply as "America" or "The Americas", one of the "Five Continents" (the other four being, Africa, Europe, Asia and Oceania).
Chapter Formation Submission
In order to form a chapter, the following steps should be taken:
- "OSGeo Chapter" should self-organize (for instance in the OSGeo wiki, via OSGeo mailing list, etc), seeking to determine if a critical mass of interest exists to justify a chapter.
- "OSGeo Chapter" should prepare a mission and objectives indicating the scope of the planned chapter (geographic or linquistic extent for instance).
- “OSGeo Chapter” should propose an official representative to liaise with the OSGeo Board. If accepted by the board, the representative will be an officer of OSGeo.
- “OSGeo Chapter” should submit an official expression of interest to form a chapter to the OSGeo board, listing initial members, mission, representative and other supporting information.
- The OSGeo board shall then consider passing a motion forming the chapter, and designating the liason officer.
In considering the formation of new OSGeo chapters, the board will consider issues including:
- Does the mandate (geographically or linguistically) conflict with other existing chapters or chapters-in-formation?
- Does the chapter appear to have sufficient interest to justify official formation?
- Does the chapter appear to be open to broad membership, and representative of the target geographic or linguistic community? (eg. if a chapter had the objective to cover all Spanish speakers, it would be inappropriate if the only interest demonstrated was from one country)
Official expression of interest to form a North America Regional chapter of the OSGeo Foundation
We formally petition the board of directors of the OSGeo foundation to establish a North America Regional chapter - OSGeo-NA. The membership of said chapter has self organized, establishing a wiki and mailing list. The primary focus of the chapter will be to organize and run an annual north america OSGeo conference. The members hope to establish a model for other regional chapters with corresponding regional conferences around the world. The North America chapter will coordinate closely with the OSGeo Board of Directors to support international conferences and events. The annual regional conference will consolidate with the international conference when the OSGeo/foss4g conference is scheduled within North America.
A secondary objective will be to closely coordinate with other events and organizations within the region. The regional chapter will also act as an interface to promote open source geospatial business models as well as adoption of OSGeo software in government, environmental, social, and academic settings.
The chapter intends to collaborate with local chapters as needed, but no organizational hierarchy or oversight of local chapters is implied.
Meetings will be held on an annual basis at a minimum. Current plans are to schedule quarterly online meetings using the OSGeo online resources for wiki, mailing list, and trac project management. Several key members of the OSGeo including past and present board members have joined the effort. The lead and initial point of contact and OSGeo liaison will be Mark Lucas.
The North America Regional chapter will operate as a separate financial entity from the OSGeo foundation. No financial support is required or implied.
We motion that the OSGeo Board formally establish the North America Region chapter.