Dutch Chapter Report 2012

About the Chapter

The OSGeo Dutch Language Chapter maintains an OSGeo presence within Dutch-speaking countries/areas. Currently it is active within The Netherlands and the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium (Flandres), but has contacts within the Dutch Antilles as well. It organizes at least one annual meeting, the OSGeo.nl Day (see below) plus several other localized events. The Chapter also maintains close ties with the Dutch OpenStreetMap community, organizing joint events such as the annual New Year Party and OSM-tracks on the OSGeo.nl Day. Official OSGeo Local Chapter status was acquired in April 2012. OSGeo.nl (with .nl being the ISO-code for Dutch Language) as the Chapter is known locally, operates from a legal foundation, the OSGeo.nl Foundation, whose mission is to promote the adoption and use of Open Geo-ICT in general.

Contact

The OSGeo.nl Foundation, "Stichting OSGeo.nl", via [http:/osgeo.nl www.osgeo.nl] and the board members: Gert-Jan van der Weijden (director) and Just van den Broecke (secretary).

Activity Report 2012

• Period covered by report: Jan-Dec 2012
• The OSGeo Dutch Language Chapter was formed as an unofficial chapter in 2007, applied for FOSS4G 2010 and then became semi-dormant.
• Revival started at the FOSS4G 2011 in Denver and a subsequent BoF meeting on december 1, 2011 with the support of Arnulf Christl.
• Throughout 2012 there was high activity; summary:
  • public events: Newyear's-party, GWF FOSS Seminar and OSGeo.nl Conference
  • meetings: biweekly IRC with reports and one IRL meeting
  • legal foundation formation and board election preparation (to be finalized in april 2013)
  • OSGeo.nl website
  • OSGeo.nl Wiki
  • OSGeo.nl Agenda via Meetup
  • OSGeo.nl photos on Flickr
  • Shared Dropbox Folder with all OSGeo.nl assets
• Official OSGeo Local Chapter status was acquired in April 2012.
• The OSGeo Dutch Language Chapter had around 100 members (via Wiki+mailing list) as of Dec 31st, 2012
• OSGeo.nl has a close relationship with the Dutch OpenStreetMap community, e.g. organizing events jointly as much as possible

Key Accomplishments

• Events
  • New Year's Party with OpenStreetMap NL Community - about 40-50 people
  • Open Source Seminar at Geospatial World Forum
    • Date: April 25, 2012
    • Venue: RAI, Amsterdam
    • Organizer: OSGeo Dutch Language Chapter
    • Keynote Speakers : Arnulf Christl
    • The event was highly successful with around 40-50 participants. If we had more room we could have seated twice the amount.
  • OSGeo.nl Day 2012 : The first annual OSGeo Dutch Language Chapter conference.
    • Date: June 30, 2012
    • Venue: Hogeschool Larenstein, Velp
    • Organizer: MapWindow Conference/Hogeschool Larenstein with OSGeo Dutch Language Chapter
    • Keynote Speakers : Just van den Broecke
    • The event was highly successful with around 160 participants. (more text needed)

• Localizations & Translations
  • GeoServer translations
  • members working on QGIS plugins and Dutch translations
  • OpenLayers contributions

• Projects
  • Dutch national open SDI built on OSGeo Software: PDOK, http://pdok.nl, many OSGeo.nl members worked in this project
  • NLExtract: ETL for Dutch Open Geodata: http://nlextract.nl
  • http://heron-mc.org, GeoExt-based Web Mapping Client

• Outreach Activities
  • Local Outreach Lectures: several presentations, all available on slideshare:
    • http://www.slideshare.net/justb4/osgeonl-introductie-geo-freedom-day
    • http://www.slideshare.net/justb4/os-geonl-statusjustvandenbroecke1024
    • http://www.slideshare.net/justb4/osgeonl-2012-retrospective

Areas for Improvement

• Still, too much dependency on too small key members. More active members should be involved.
• How to involve the community more
• (possibly many more)

Opportunities to Help

• any help is welcome, especially financially, organizing events and practial things like the website

Outlook for 2013

• We may see very prosperous year in 2013 as we are becoming a legal entity, attracting sponsors and organizing great events
• Legal entity and first board elected
• More outreach in other Dutch Language countries, already in progress with Belgium and the Antilles
• New: GeoStammtisches, small local city events with 5-minute lightning talks, already two organized
• In 2013, we may attract more members to our chapter and could run our chapter in more systematic way. We hope that 2013 is the year that OSGeo Dutch Chapter remains flourishing and expanding.