Board Member Nominations 2024

#	Nominee Name	Country	Statement	Nominated by
1	Angelos Tzotsos	Greece	Angelos has been a charter member since 2012. He has participated on the OSGeoLive project in the PSC and acts as project the officer. He is also a member of the PSC of the following projects: pycsw, pyogcapi and ZOO-project. Member of the Incubator Committee has mentored the pgRouting project. He participates representing OSGeo in many conferences. His involvement and commitment in OSGeo is undeniable During his participation in the Board, he has shown dedication and respect. Keeping Angelos on the Board of Directors would mean a continuation without disruption on the work within the organization and with other entities like OGC. Profile: Angelos Tzotsos	Vicky Vergara & Rajat Shinde
2	Tom Kralidis	Canada	Tom has been an OSGeo charter member since 2007 and has served on the Board since 2018. He has contributed to numerous OSGeo software packages, such as MapServer, GeoNode, QGIS, PyWPS and OWSLib. He is the creator of pycsw and pygeoapi. He is also on several Project Steering Committees (PSCs) Tom is a longtime contributor to the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), where he has been involved in the development of several specifications. More recently you may have heard him talk about the new OGC API, or even used his latest contribution to our ecosystem: the pygeoapi project, a Python implementation of the OGC API suite of standards which is also an OGC Reference Implementation. Tom is a lead architect of the UN World Meteorological Organization Information System (WIS2), WMO's new platform for weather/climate/water data exchange, which leverages open source software and open standards. He has recently been appointed as the Chair of the WMO Task Team on Open Source Software, to help shape and define the role and use of open source software for WMO activities. Tom currently works at the Meteorological Service of Canada where he and his team leverage the power of OSGeo software and OGC standards for mission critical applications. Tom is a people person, he understands the need to have an active community around a software project, so he puts considerable effort in community building and activation. I appreciate that very much, for that reason I nominate him for OSGeo board Profile: Tom Kralidis Wiki: Tom Kralidis	Paul van Genuchten
3	Ariel Anthieni	Argentina	Ariel is an entrepreneur and a passionate advocate for the transformative potential of geospatial technologies as key enablers of sustainable development, particularly in emerging economies. He has held key roles in numerous geospatial events, including chairing FOSS4G Argentina 2016 and organizing subsequent editions in 2017 and 2019, as well as SOTM Argentina 2017 and SOTM LATAM 2018. In 2018, Ariel co-founded the Geolibres Association, which supports geospatial communities in Argentina, and he currently serves as its President. As one of the main organizers of FOSS4G 2021 Buenos Aires and FOSS4G 2024 Belém, Ariel has played a pivotal role in expanding OSGeo’s integration with global regions. Beyond organizing events, Ariel is an active speaker at international conferences such as FOSS4G Bucharest, Firenze, and Kosovo, where he focuses on bringing Open Source geospatial technologies closer to Spanish-speaking audiences. He also manages local OpenStreetMap (OSM) and QGIS chapters in Argentina and actively promotes open-source applications in areas such as cadastre, urban management, Smart Cities, and Digital Twins technology. Ariel’s continued presence on the Board is essential for strengthening the connection between Latin American communities and the global ecosystem. He is deeply committed to fostering opportunities that drive the adoption of technologies to enhance regional integration. By challenging the prevailing belief that proprietary software is the only solution for specific needs, Ariel advocates for the inclusion of open-source alternatives as viable options supported by communities and businesses—an approach already widely adopted in other parts of the world. Profile: Ariel Anthieni	Marco Bernasocchi
4	Joana Simões	Portugal	Joana completed a PhD in Geographic Information Systems at the University Colleage of London in 2007. Following her studies she engaged in real-problems, collaborating with, and helping set up various SMEs. She become a OSGeo charter member in 2017, and was later vice-president of the Portuguese chapter of OSGeo. Also in 2017she also took a leading role at the board of the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Association (GSDI), as a board director of the Industry Advisory Council. More recently she has been a Developer Relations officer with the OGC, fostering early standard implementation and community lead standard development. In this role she became a relevant contributor to the GeoPython community. She is also a champion of gender equality in Geo-Informatics and Computer Science at large, sharing experiences and educating young programmers. Profile: Joana Simões	Luís de Sousa
5	Michael Smith	United States Of America	Marco Bernasocchi says: Michael has done a fantastic job as treasurer and deserves recognition for his contributions. His diligent management of financial matters has been instrumental in maintaining the organization's stability and enabling its continued growth. I believe his expertise and commitment would be invaluable assets to the Board. Daniel Morissette says: Mike works for the US Army Corps of Engineers Remote Sensing GIS Center of Expertise and has been a long time power user, supporter and contributor of MapServer, GDAL/OGR, PDAL and other OSGeo projects. He is a member of the MapServer and PDAL project PSC's and was actually one of the instigators behind the PDAL project, the GDAL of Point Clouds. Mike has been active on the OSGeo Board since 2014 as treasurer. The great job that he does behind the scene as treasurer doesn't get noticed publicly by the members, but it includes several tasks and responsibilities which are instrumental to keeping OSGeo running smoothly. In addition to his experience within OSGeo projects and its community, he also brings to the board the perspective of government organizations, which is a very important group of users and contributors of OSGeo software. Plus, the voice of reason that he brings to the day to day operation of the board is also of great value. All this makes him a perfect candidate to continue serving on the board. Profile: Michael Smith	Marco BernasocchiDaniel Morissette