Korean Chapter Report 2012

Korean Language Chapter

• Period covered by report: Jan-Dec 2011
• Contact name: Sanghee Shin(endofcap at gmail.com)
• The OSGeo Korean Language Chapter was formed as an unofficial chapter in Feb 2008 and changed its status to an official OSGeo Local Chapter in March 2009. The OSGeo Korean Language Chapter has 194 members as of Dec 31st, 2011.

Key Accomplishments

• Events
  • [FOSS4G Korea 2011]http://www.osgeo.kr/3 : The first annual OSGeo Korean Language Chapter conference.
    • When: October 28th, 2011
    • Where: KINTEX, Goyang City
    • Organized: OSGeo Korean Language Chapter
    • Keynote Speakers : Arnulf Christl, Toru Mori, Daisuke Yoshida, Byungnam Choi, Sanghee Shin
    • The event was highly successful with around 60 ~ 80 participants. 5 keynote speech and 8 presentations were given there followed by Soju Party!!
• Regular Meetings
  • 2 times regular meetings
    • When: February and August, 2011
    • Where: Seoul
    • Our members shared knowledge & experiences around open source GIS in the regular meetings. Also we discussed the future activities of OSGeo Korean Language Chapter.
• Localizations & Translations
  • Korean chapter carried out several localization & translations.
    • QGIS menu & messages were translated in Korean
    • Started to translate QGIS, PostGIS, GeoServer and OpenLayers materials in Korean
• Projects
  • Korean chapter has been involved in several open source related projects
    • KOPSS(Korea Planning Support System) Open API Project funded by KRIHS(Korean Research Institute of Human Settlement)
    • "Strategies on building the platform for geospatial information technology development : based on open source thinking" funded by KRIHS(Korean Research Institute of Human Settlement)
    • Developed open source GIS education program funded by NECGIS(National Education Center for GIS)
• Outreach Activities
  • Korean chapter conducted several outreach activities including lecture, seminar and exchange programs.
    • Outreach Lectures : LH Corp, KRIHS, KCSC(Korea Cadastral Survey Corp) and others
    • Exchange Program : Dispatched 2 delegates to Tokyo, Japan to give keynote speech at FOSS4G 2011 Tokyo/Osaka
• Others
  • Official OSGeo Koran Language Chapter homepage was created to share our activities. http://www.osgeo.kr

Areas for Improvement

• Too much dependency on too small key members. We need to increase active members.
• Korean chapter is still not legal entity, therefore there are several limitations to do our activities. We need to change our status to legal entity in near future.
• Need to expand activities to international scale. Our chapter has very talented members however their activities are somewhat isolated here in Korea.
• We need to seek stable revenue source to run our chapter. Our chapter financial is highly dependent on limited donation sources.

Opportunities to Help

• We definitely need some speakers for FOSS4G 2012.
• We hope more open source GIS related event could be held here in Korea or in Asia region.

Outlook for 2012

• We may see very prosperous year in 2012. As awareness of open source GIS increase here in Korea rapidly, many organizations want to cooperate with our chapter.
• In 2012, we may attract more members to our chapter and could run our chapter in more systematic way.
• We'll explore the possibility of hosing FOSS4G 2015 in Korea with other GIS related society like KSIS(Korean Spatial Information Society).