FOSS4G2020 Q&A Halifax

Questions Mark I.:

• What is the mission of your respective FOSS4G?
• In terms of our mission for FOSS4G-HFX 2020, it is essentially “community” or more specifically “the world is one family”; to engage all of the OSGeo family of its local chapters, OSGeo sponsors & partners, service providers, projects, users, developers, students, young professionals, teachers, researchers, decision makers, and bring that world community together in Halifax, and help plant that seed locally in Atlantic Canada, to share the FOSS4G spirit to new potential users, developers, and leaders at the event. We have strategically assembled a local committee with vast OSGeo experience, who have boots-on-the-ground experience at the OSGeo community level, both locally, across North and South America, and internationally. We also hopefully plan on expanding the mission more thoroughly in the full proposal stage.

• What is your commitment to inclusivity, diversity, and ensuring that FOSS4G 2020 is as inclusive and as diverse as possible?
• In terms of inclusivity, diversity, and ensuring that FOSS4G 2020 is as inclusive and as diverse as possible, the FOSS4G-HFX team realizes the importance of this, and realize that there are many parts of a FOSS4G event that must be inclusive and diverse, right from the chairs of the event, the local team, the selected program and keynotes, even to the choice of venue, its prices, the event’s social program, and the local customs in the city/country. Part of the strength of our local committee team is that several of our team attended your FOSS4G-Dar es Salaam event in person to experience your & Msilikale’s wonderful diverse event, and have travelled to diverse FOSS4G global & regional events all over the world since year 2004. We are working very hard as a team to make sure that all aspects of FOSS4G-HFX 2020 are truly open and welcome to all in the geospatial community. We plan on expanding this for the full proposal stage hopefully as well.

Questions Steven F.:

• your proposed dates are 14-19 September. These dates overlap with the start of the jewish festivals on the evening of the 18th which may prevent some potential delegates from attending. Is there any potential to change?
• Thank you for mentioning that Jewish festivals for Rosh Hashana begin on the evening of the 18th. We have a backup date reserved with the Nova Centre venue for 31 August to 5 September, so it is possible to change our dates. When we were looking at possible venues about 6 months ago, our vision was to leverage a mid-September date to additionally allow for university students and pre-university students to be involved, but also because the local weather is best in mid-September (a lot less rain, bringing beautiful fall/autumn colours and sunshine to the Atlantic Canada region). We the FOSS4G-HFX team will continue to analyze our dates closely. For the record, using our initially proposed dates, the 19th (Saturday) would be the community sprint. We will try to be accommodating as possible.

Questions Till A.:

• I would like to stress the point about costs. In the call we say "We hope to keep cost per participant under $650 USD for the conference (plus workshops).". As former chair I know about the difficulties FOSS4G teams have finding the right price for the conference. But can you tell something on how you are planning to enable people, who can not afford the conference fee and/or accommodation costs, to attend to your conference?