FOSS4G-2026/BirdsOfAFeather
Introduction
Birds of a Feather (BoF) sessions are unstructured timeslots where people can self-organise themselves to discuss topics of interest.
General Information
At the FOSS4G 2026 conference in Hiroshima, a number of spaces have been reserved for people to flock together in Birds of a Feather sessions.
For reference, an overview of the FOSS4G schedule is available at here.
How to organize a BOF
BoF sessions are informal gatherings of people around a specific topic. BoF's can be held in: BoF rooms or taken off-site for breakfast, lunch or dinner!
The FOSS4G conference provides the spaces, but the setup of the bird-of-feather meetup is done informally using this wiki.
Capacities
The BoF sessions rooms used are the ones in which the conference takes place, and are available during the hours listed below:
| Room | Day1 (Sep.1) | Day2 (Sep.2) | Day3（Sep.3） | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phoenix Hall | 17:00~18:00 | - | - | |
| Himawari | 15:30~18:00 (Not available in case of rain) |
- | - | |
| Dahila1 | 13:30~18:00 (Not available in case of rain) |
- | - | |
| Dahila2 | 14:30~18:00 (Not available in case of rain) |
- | - | |
| Room5 | - | 11:00~12:00 | - | |
| Room6 | - | 11:00~12:00 | 11:00~15:00 |
We will also put a BoF organizing board on site for better organization.
Tuesday 1 September
Himawari
Common Space - Humanitarian Satellite
- Time: 17:00-18:00
- Description: Let's get together and review the state of https://www.commonspace.world
- Person to contact: Batuhan Kavlak
Who is coming:
- Batuhan Kavlak
- Edoardo Neerhut
Phoenix Hall
A5 DGGS community biweekly meeting on FOSS4G Hiroshima
- Time: 17:30-18:00
- Description: Open discussion on A5 and Discrete Global Grid Systems (DGGS), with reference to A5 at https://a5geo.org/
- Person to contact: Takashi Nojima
Who is coming:
- Takashi Nojima
- Felix Palmer (Remote)
- Json Singh
Dahila1
Portolan SDI Sprint
- Time: 13:30–14:30
- Description: An open sprint and discussion around Portolan SDI. We will work together on Portolan specifications, catalogs, tooling, examples, and interoperability, and discuss ideas and contributions from the geospatial community. Everyone interested in modern Spatial Data Infrastructure, cloud-native geospatial data and STAC is welcome to join.
- Person to contact: Youssef Harby
Who is coming:
- Youssef Harby
- Anthony Lukach
- Matthias Mohr
Wednesday 2 September
Room 6
Open Discussion on AI
- Time: Day 2, 11:00–12:00
- Description: Anyone curious about AI in open source, open data or generally any opinion, comments on AI. Everyone is welcome, everything is accepted.
Who is coming:
- Dennis Bauszus
- Json Singh
- Joana Simoes
- Luís de Sousa
Thursday 3 September
Room 6
Introduction to Scipy-India
- Time: 11:00-11:15 am
- Description: Learn about Scipy in India
- Person to Contact: Shubham Sharma
- Contact-+91-8347668919
Spatio-Temporal Asset Catalog Meet the PSC
- Time: 12.20 pm - 1.00 pm
- Description: Grab your lunch, and then come along and meet the STAC PSC, find out what STAC is or how you can be involved.
- Person to contact: Alex Leith
Who is coming:
- Pete Gadomski
- Alex Leith
- Michelle Roby
- Matthias Mohr
- Matt Hanson
- Youssef Harby
- ??
QGIS Trainers Network
- Time: 1 pm
- Description: At FOSS4G Europe 2025, a group of QGIS trainers and other open source geospatial educators got together for a Birds of a Feather, and established an informal "QGIS Trainers Network". There are a lot of people at FOSS4G this week who deliver QGIS training in their respective communities. This is a great chance to get together, compare notes, and join the network! Trainers in other open source tools might also be interested - everyone welcome!
- Person to contact: John Bryant
Who is coming:
- John Bryant
- Michał Żugajewicz
- ??