Conference-Europe-2017

Call for venue

FOSS4G-Europe conference committee invites all interested groups from Europe to Call for venue

The proposals shall be submitted by 2016-08-22 to Conference-europe mailing list.

Parameters of the propsal

• Expect around 400-500 attendees (numbers are growing from 100+ at FOSS4G-CEE 2012, Prague, to 400 people FOSS4G-Europe, Como). We do not set any upper limit to attendees number - this lies solely at LOC.
• The growing number of participants is not the main scope of the event. We rather prefer modest costs for attendees, therefore co-organising the event with universities might be of good way, how to keep the costs lower.
• Cooperation with universities of course implies careful selection of conference date, wich is usually, but not necessary, in the holiday season.
• Communication language is English
• Last FOSS4G-Europe was 3 days conference, with 5 parallel sessions, each talk was arranged for 25 minutes (including discussions)
• Please consider also, that workshops are part of the conference, you shall organise rooms, ideally with computers. There were 12 workshops during last FOSS4G-Europe, 4 hours each
• You should provide also several rooms during the conference, for BOF meetings
• Usually Code Sprint events are part of the conference - it is preferred, if you could arrange rooms at least after or before the conference itself (about 1-2 days), if you could cover both time frames, it would be appreciated.
• Please, refer FOSS4G-Europe Manifesto for further details
• There also is FOSS4G Handbook you might see useful
• We believe, students are our future - please take significant discount for students into your budget proposal

Position of the Local organisation committee to OSGeo and Conference committee Europe

• The FOSS4G-Europe Conference committee will, after the selection process, "kindly ask" the best venue offer, to host FOSS4G-Europe on behalf of OSGeo
• There is possibility to negotiate with OSGeo.org for the seeding money for necessary spending under the condition, that the LOC will guarantee at least balanced budget during the final countings. The seeding money shall be negotiated with OSGeo Board of directors
• Program committee shall be delegated from nominees from LOC as well as OSGeo on mutual understanding manner.

Dates

(might be adjusted during the time)

Item	Date
Start and end of proposal submission. Proposals shall be sent to Conference-Europe mailing list	2016-08-07 - 2016-08-22
Selection period. Proposals will be evaluated by FOSS4G-Europe Conference committee	2016-08-22 - 2016-08-26
Venue announcement (At FOSS4G-Europe)	2016-08-26
Call for papers and workshops	2016-12 - 2017-04
Papers and workshops selection period	2017-04 - 2017-05
Conference and accompanying events	?2017-06?

Note on Seeding money

• OSGeo Conference Committee along with OSGeo Board can provide LOC with seeding money necessary for the start
• LOC needs to guarantee, that after final books closing, the seeding money will be returned back to OSGeo
• It is fair to ask for the seeding money and we encourage LOC to do so - with proper reasoning and proposed budget. But the final decision lies solely at the Board.