New Member Nominations 2020

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The Charter Member nomination (part of the Election 2020) will be open from 2020-10-05 to 2020-10-18 (2 weeks). This list of nominees is maintained by the Chief Returning Officer (cro@osgeo.org). This page is write protected and can only be edited by SysOps.

# Nominee Name Country Positive attributes Nominated by
1 Ujaval Gandhi India Mr. Ujaval Gandhi has been an active Open Source contributor and has inspired a lot of budding geospatial researchers with his famous QGIS Tutorials (http://www.qgistutorials.com) and SpatialThoughts courses (https://courses.spatialthoughts.com/). It is my honor that I am getting an opportunity to nominate him as I have been following his blogs for a long time. He provides training services for QGIS, Python and related geospatial technologies. His company, Spatial Thoughts, is the only QGIS.org certified training provider in India. Mr. Gandhi holds a Masters degree in Geospatial Information Engineering from University of Wisconsin-Madison and has 15+ years of industry experience leading large GIS teams. Also, he was one of the early employees at Google India and Part of the team that launched Google Maps in India. He advocated and transitioned the mapping operations team to open-source tools and developed and published Google Maps Engine Connector for QGIS plugin for Google Inc. Moreover, he is lead trainer for Google Earth Engine in India for Google Earth Outreach program at Google Inc. and has trained 1000+ scientists and researchers at top Indian universities on Applied Remote Sensing techniques using cloud computing. He is also a visiting faculty/researcher at the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of Johannesburg. I sincerely respect Ujaval for his true spirit of open source geospatial awareness. Rajat Shinde
2 Jonah Sullivan Australia Jonah has been heavily involved in organising the Oceania FOSS4G event since it began in 2018, and has stepped up as the 2020 chair. In an extremely difficult year, he's calmly kept the event on track, spearheading an initiative to convert it from a traditional conference into a major hybrid in-person/online event across the region, activating local communities. Through his professional and volunteer work, he's demonstrated his commitment to empowering people in the Pacific and elsewhere, and is a great asset to the OSGeo community. John Bryant
3 Nora Lucioni Argentina Nora is an active advocate for OSGeo products. She does it as a professor of Geography at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters (FFyL) of the University of Buenos Aires (UBA): http://geografia.filo.uba.ar/asignaturas, as well as from her position as a tenured professor at the Master of Environmental and Territorial Policies of the, FFyL, UBA (http://posgrado.filo.uba.ar/plandeestudios-218). She works supporting OSGeo principles in her rol as Coordinator of the Working Group "Geospatial Information" of the Spatial Data Infrastructure of the Argentine Republic (IDERA) from 2014 to the present (See references and objectives: https://www.idera.gob.ar/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=470&Itemid=33). She also promotes Free and Open Source Geographic Information Technologies through her rol as Director of the Study Group on Geospatial Information Technologies belonging to the Institute of Geography of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters (FFyL) of the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) (See references at: http://geografia.institutos.filo.uba.ar/grupo-de-estudios-sobre-tecnolog%C3%Adas-de-informaci%C3%B3n-geoespacial-getig). Nora coordinates the area of ​​GIS and SDI of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries of the Argentine Nation, also promoting the use of free software among the areas. Sergio Acosta y Lara
4 Paulo Coronado Colombia Paulo has made important contributions to the use, appropriation, dissemination and teaching of FLOSS initiatives in the field of geosciences. For more than 10 years he has worked on the creation of educational material for the integration of free software and open source tools to Territorial Management Processes, especially the cadastre, appraisals and Territorial Analytical Intelligence. With the help of the GeoForAll initiative, he has implemented a laboratory specialized in the appropriation of FOSS4G tools at the Francisco José de Caldas District University (Bogotá, Colombia). He periodically organizes seminars, workshops, courses, and conferences that introduce the use of geographic information systems, spatial databases, map servers, and specialized libraries using OSGeo tools. Currently, in the framework of a doctoral research, he is proposing the development of a territorial analytical management system that acts as an abstraction layer for OSGeo tools to support multipurpose cadastre processes. With the support of GeoForAll Iberoamérica he publishes the Spanish version of the GeoForall Bulletin. Sergio Acosta y Lara
5 Neftalí Sillero Portugal Neftalí is a long time supporter of Open Geospatial principles. He is Principal Researcher at CICGE-Research Centre on Geo-Spatial Sciences (Porto, Portugal) and Group Leader of the Spatial Biology Lab (https://sites.google.com/view/sblab/home). He has published more than 100 papers on spatial ecology and biogegraphy always using open source software on GIS, Remote Sensing, and spatial statistics. He coordinates the Atlas of Europe of amphibians and reptiles and its webGIS: http://na2re.ismai.pt/. I'm sure that having Neftalí as a Charter Member will be very beneficial for OSGeo. Sergio Acosta y Lara
6 Joonho Lee South Korea I believe Joonho is one of typical grassroot activists in our community. As a GIS analyst in LH Corp (Korea Land & Housing Corporation), a partner organization of OSGeo in Korea since 2015, he has put much of his efforts & time to disseminate the open source spirits and technologies to/around his organization. He's organized local QGIS group in his city and has led the group. Local policemen, students, professors, and other people regularly gathered there together to learn how to use QGIS for their own jobs. As a result of this kind of passionate grassroot activities, he recently wrote and published a book called ‘QGIS Cookbook for Big Data Analysis’ in Korean. You can see and even download the book here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_v1KiMk8SWiavp7kcj1pq26uGlTxUzWU/view , https://www.dropbox.com/s/x9kt4bnc5670gb5/QGIS_1_QGIS%20%EA%B8%B0%EC%B4%88_3.10.pdf He’s shared much of his knowledge and experiences with other community members at OSGeo Korean Chapter’s regular workshops and meetups. He is not a software developer. However this kind of grassroot activities will strengthen OSGeo’s foundation as a community organization. That’s why I nominate Dr. Joonho Lee as a new OSGeo Charter Member. Sanghee Shin
7 Raul Nanclares da Veiga México Mr. Nanclares is a member of the Mexico QGIS Users Group, he has been part of the organization team of the QGIS users Annual Meeting, an Open Source advocate. His willingness to spread out the knowledge has been shown as a speaker on the annual meeting and also during this Covid-19 times as an organizer and presenter of a QGIS webinar. I admire his knowledge, his communication skills, his willingness to share the knowledge, not only on QGIS but on other geospatial open source projects. During the three years that I have observed him, he has grown and made the open source community in Mexico larger. Born in Spain, but with a Mexican heart, I thank Raúl for his efforts in my homeland, his adoptive land. Vicky Vergara


8 Cameron Green South Africa Cameron has been an advocate for geospatial open source and open data in South Africa. Over the last four years, Cameron has not only served as a mentor and administrator for the OSGeo Google Code-in initiative but also served as a tutor for the UN Open GIS QGIS course and the upcoming PostGIS course. He has also been assisting with GeoForAll administration and has been invaluable in this role. Lastly at his university, Cameron is always assisting students with learning open source software and works not only with geoinformatics students but also students from other degrees. Cameron is a leader amongst his peers in South Africa and I am excited to see what the future in the open source community holds for him. Victoria Rautenbach
9 Andrew Jeffrey Australia Andrew has taken a lead on organising the QGIS Australia user group over the last several years, and was a key organiser of a major QGIS event in Sydney in 2017 that catalysed a lot of new community activity in the region. He is committed to openness and transparency, and has been working hard on ways to help the regional community contribute to the QGIS project. His warm & welcoming attitude makes it easy for new community members to feel comfortable, and he often takes time to answer questions on the mailing list. I think Andrew would be a great addition to the OSGeo charter membership. John Bryant
10 Stefano Campus Italy Stefano is a long time QGIS contributor for italian translation. He also is a translator of other projects like GRASS and OSGeo Live. He has been president of GFOSS.it association, Italian OSGeo local chapter, and he is still on the board. Luca Delucchi
11 Ricardo Silva Portugal It is my great pleasure to nominate Ricardo Garcia Silva for OSGeo charter membership. Ricardo is an experienced software engineer with a strong GIS background. His main area of expertise is in building backend solutions for web-based systems that deal with spatial data. Ricardo has contributed to several Open Source Geospatial projects: He is core developer of pycsw and currently serving at the GeoNode PSC. I believe Ricardo would make a great OSGeo charter member. Angelos Tzotsos
12 Laurențiu Nicola Romania It is my great pleasure to nominate Laurențiu Nicola for OSGeo charter membership. Laurențiu has a M.Sc. in Software Engineering, and joined the field of GIS by working on open source projects and specifically the Sen2Agri and Sen4CAP EU projects which apply Remote Sensing to agriculture. He also contributed to Orfeo Toolbox and some Rust crates, including the GDAL bindings and the t-rex Vector Tile server. He's always been a strong advocate of open-source software and is a native code and Rust programming language enthusiast. I believe Laurențiu would make a great OSGeo charter member. Angelos Tzotsos
13 Edwin Liava'a Tonga Edwin has been a passionate advocate for OSGeo in the Pacific for many years, starting the Pacific Islands Chapter in 2012. Since then, he has tirelessly promoted the adoption of FOSS, and played a leading role in building community in the region, operating in the open so that people may learn from his example. Edwin's work has helped to lay the foundation for the growth of FOSS4G in the Pacific, and I believe that, as a charter member, he will provide an example of openness that reflects well on OSGeo's values and mission. John Bryant
16 Marino Carhuapoma Peru Marino has made huge contributions to the Peruvian OSGeo community. As a leader in IdeasG Lab https://www.osgeo.org/geo-for-all-labs/ideasg-lab/ he makes a big effort in spreading OSGeo principles. He had presented the Cadastral Information System with open source software, for the Peruvian Municipal Cadastre at the Geospatial World Forum 2014 event, Geneva-Switzerland and also OpenStreetMaps Integration with GIS for Cadastre in the State of Map Latam 2017 event Lima- Peru. As an active member of the gvSIG Community in Peru he had organized several Free Geomatics Conferences and gvSIG in Peru. He will be a great addition to our community as a charter member of OSGeo. Sergio Acosta y Lara
17 Laura Mugeha Kenya I would like to nominate Laura Mugeha as OSGeo Charter Member. I first met Laura at FOSS4G 2018 in Dar es Salaam in Tansania and it was a pleasure to get to know her and hear about all her activities. Laura is a Geospatial engineer located in Nairobi, Kenya. She is working with various organizations and is enthusiastic about open data (for sure OSM) and free and open-source software f.e. QGIS. She also strongly advocates for women in STEM and continuously works with organizations pushing for diversity and inclusion within the various tech and engineering communities. She organizes technical workshops and events across Africa and support the implementation of similar projects globally that are aimed at empowering women in STEM. Is is working on building a local chapter for Kenya. She is active in the YouthMappers project. Laura loves sharing about advances in the Geospatial space. She is involved in many conferences like SotM, FOSS4G and GeoWeek since many years. She is active in our community already and it would be a pleasure to see Laura as OSGeo Charter Member. Astrid Emde
19 Paolo Dabove Italy Paolo is an advocate of our principles and the current president of GFOSS.it, the Italian OSGeo Local Chapter. He works at the Politecnico di Torino as a researcher, uses and teaches free software for the analysis, processing and use of geographical data. Luca Delucchi


24 Mark Varley France Mark is a fervent supporter of OSGEO. He has worked in the geospatial sector for more than 20 years and founded Addresscloud in 2015. Addresscloud is pushing the envelope by transferring OSGEO techniques and products into the cloud. For many years Addresscloud and Mark have directly contributed to many OSGEO events, whether by sponsorship or by presenting in person as well as remotely. In addition to OSGEO, Mark is also invested in GeoMob events and works as a partner with the Ordnance Survey UK. With Addresscloud, Mark provides opportunities for some of the brightest spatial developers to contribute through their work. Mark has promoted OSGEO in his multiple appearances on the MapScaping podcast. Dennis Bauszus
25 David Garcia Aotearoa (New Zealand) & Philippines David was a major contributor to FOSS4G SotM Oceania 2019, as a member of the LOC and the Travel Grant Program committee, and has also been involved in organising the open geospatial community in the Philippines. As a passionate advocate for Indigenous and Pasifika peoples, he is dedicated to raising the consciousness of the mapping community. He also advocates for OSGeo and OpenStreetMap via his considerable social media presence. I believe he brings a very important perspective to our community, and I look forward to working with him in future to support OSGeo. John Bryant
26 Rahul Chauhan India Mr. Rahul Chauhan has been an active OSGeo Open Source contributor. He contributed to the istSOS3 project under OSGeo umbrella as a Student Developer during Google Summer of Code 2017, 2018 and also as OSGeo Google Code-in Mentor during 2019. He was a fellow OSGeo GSoC 2020 Org Admin and contributed in coordinating between the Students and Project Mentors. I find it a great pleasure in nominating Rahul as an upcoming OSGeo Charter Member. Rajat Shinde
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