Belgium

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The first FOSS4G Belgium, October 2015


About OSGeo Belgium

Welcome to the wiki page of the Belgium OSGeo chapter.

Mission and objectives

After discussion amongst the active local chapter members we come to the following list of mission objectives:

  • Community-building and networking around specific Belgian themes and within Belgian fora.
  • Organisation of events
These two mission statements are working together. We believe it is important to meet people face2face. To help them to start open source initiatives, to start using open source solutions, to establish an eco-system that benefits from the cooperation, the sharing and the co-creation open source delivers.
  • Lobbying
We think it is important to speak as one voice, and to get involved with other organisations: administrations, industries, user groups, ... OSGeo. Be will actively speak as an organisation to defend the OSGeo open source spirit in the broader Belgium community (government, academic, industry, other open initiatives).
  • Networking with other OSGeos (notably OSGeo-fr and OSGeo.nl)
OSGeo Belgium will focus on local activities (Belgium based). OSGeo Belgium will advertise and promote other OSGeo initiatives and invite members of the other OSGeo chapters on the Belgium events or meetings.
We think that OSGeo Belgium can act as a bridge between several language communities and cultures, because of it's unique composition.
  • Support to higher levels of OSGeo
We believe that OSGeo only can grow if supported from the base. So OSGeo Belgium is willing to help OSGeo where necessary, to leverage idea's or act as an advisor if appreciated.
  • Support to OSGeo in lobbying European Union Institutions (Commission, Parliament, etc) related to specific EU-Themes (INSPIRE, H2020, Procurement policy, ...)

Articles of association

Our official statutes (in french) can be found here.

Members

Becoming an OSGeo Belgium member

Everybody is free to join the Belgian local chapter, all you have to do is add your name to the list of members. It is strongly advised to also subscribe to the mailing list, as announcements about the general assembly and events are made there.

Alternatively you can fill out following form, this will automatically subscribe you to the mailing list, and you will be added to the list of members below:

Word lid van OSGeo.be - Devenez membre de OSGeo.be - Become member of OSGeo.be

Evaluation FOSS4G.be /Evaluatie FOSS4G.be

Board of directors

Members of the board are chosen for a period of 3 years by the general assembly. All voting members are free to apply for a position in the board.

  • Term 2015 - 2018
    • Marc Ducobu (Treasurer)
    • Dirk Frigne
    • Gaël Kruwialis
    • Oliver May
    • Tommy Oozeer (Secretary)
    • Johan Van de Wauw (President)
    • Maëlle Vercauteren Drubbel
  • Term 2017 - 2020
    • Vacant

Voting members

All members can become voting members by being introduced by two other voting members. Voting members are added once per year by the general assembly.

Members

The Belgium OSGeo Chapter has the support of the following initial founding members (alphabetic - first name):

  • Ben Abelhausen - liason with OSM - Belgium community
  • Pieter Colpaert - link with the open knowledge foundation
  • Ruben Capelle

Communication

Discussions are held on the dedicated mailing list. Next to the mailinglist there is a (board) meeting planned monthly, most of them trough digital communication. The meeting minutes can be found on this page.

History of OSGeo Belgium

During the last FOSDEM Geospatial devroom OSGeo was represented. It was a great opportunity for Belgium OSGeo members to meet each other and start talking about organizing ourselves a bit more, so actions in Belgium can be better supported. Belgium is, as a country divided in at least 3 speaking languages and 3 official languages. The active OSGeo community members today are either active in the OSGeo.nl, the OSGeo.fr or in several OSGeo communities.

However, OSGeo-nl and OSGeo-fr are language-oriented communities with their geographical weight centred in respectively the Netherlands and France, and the separation by language has impeded on any specific Belgian activities, notably networking and lobbying with administrations that are bilingual on some levels of governance. Thus the need arose to provide a specific Belgian forum.

In the past there where already some OSGeo local activities:

In 2015 we (OSGeoBE) organised the first Belgium/FOSS4G on 29 October 2015 in Brussels. This event was used to announce the birth of our Chapter.

Activities

2016 September 23-25 State of the Map 2016, Brussels

The international event of OpenStreetmap is organised this year in Belgium. Highly recommended as well!

2016 August 24-26th Foss4G International in Bonn

The most important international Event of OSGeo. Highly recommended! The call for papers is now open (until 31 march)

2016 May 23-26 Geospatial World Forum, Rotterdam

http://geospatialworldforum.org/ OSGeo will participate.

2016 February 29 Open Belgium, Brussels

OSGeo.be will give a presentation at Open Belgium 2016 about "Open in Geo".

1026 February 27 Mapping party for homeless people, Brussels

The « mapping party for homeless people » will take place in Brussels at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, on Saturday,February 27.

More information on wikipage : https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeo-BE-Cartopartie_sans-abri_27.02.2016


2016 January 2016 misssing Maps mapathon in Ghent

On saterday 23 january, Our colleagues of Openstreetmap are organising a missing maps party: http://osm.be/nl/content/missing-maps-mapathon-gent

2016 January 31 FOSDEM Geospatial devroom

FOSDEM is a free and non-commercial event bringing together about 5000 developers in Brussels, Belgium. The goal is to provide open source software developers and communities a place to meet and share thoughts. The participation is free of charge, although donations are welcome. The next edition will take place the last weekend ofJanuary 30 - 31 2016. This year for the second time there will be a Geospatial devroomon Sunday 31/1/2016, organised by members of the OSGeo, Locationtech and OpenStreetMap communities.

2015 October 29th FOSS4G Belgium 2015 - Brussels

2015 February 1st FOSDEM geo track - Brussels

2014 November 6th beOpenGISfr - Brussels

2013 June 13th OSGeo Ghent - Ghent

Meetings

2015

2016

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