Technocation October Presidents Update

Hey folks I just got back from the NEURISA day event here in the Boston area and am pleased to announce that we helped this chapter of URISA become URISA chapter of the year by working with them on a carrier fair earlier this year. I have been running around as usual helping out where I can with the power of Technocation. Please take a chance to read throug this and let me know what you think and if you are interested in helping out with any of these ideas specifically.

Guido Stein
President
Technocation

OSGeo.US

OSGeo.US supports and develops open source geospatial community within the US.

FOSS4G Dar es Salaam 2018

We helped to run this event by supporting the financial activities, collecting money from paypal and paying out to vendors as needed. I feel that this went very well and we played an important role in making this event happen. I am now working to wrap things up with the Mark Iliffe, the chair of the FOSS4G. He is interested in sharing some of the proceeds with us in order to support our efforts with a focus on how what we do in the US may be able to support developing nations.

FedGeoDay

I am working with Eddie Pickle on bringing back an event that focused on open source geospatial in federal agencies. This event would both help get the word out about open source geospatial across federal agencies and also support building a DC community. This week I am going to try to pin down a location for the conference. The date is already set for Jan 31st.

FOSS4G NA 2019

We should be hearing more about this on the OSGeo.US discussion list. But I wanted to give you the heads up that we may be asked to help with this one as well.

Outreach

• AAG: They reached out to me to see if OSGeo is interested in participating in the AAG Annual meeting this year. I am runnning this through the OSGeo discussion list and will let you know if we will have involvement in this soon.
• URISA: I reached out to the past-President about some of the things we are up to in hopes of getting the word out that we exist and see if we can partner up on anything.

PostGIS Day

I really wanted to make a big splash with a PostGIS day event nationally, but with 30 days until the day (Nov 15th) I am feeling a little less inspired that I can get something off the ground. Would anyone like to help pick this thread up? I think that we can do a lot with this and set the stage for something bigger next year.

AvidGeo

AvidGeo is a Boston geospatial meetup that has been around for a decade providing opputunities for the geospatial community to gather

Programming help needed

AvdiGeo has been silent for a while, only popping up for a postGIS day event for the last two years and then a carrier fair lasy spring. I would really like to get some help to make some regular programming going as there are so many people who really benefit from this in Boston. I would also like some help figuring out how to welcome other communities into our group.

General Technocation

Technocation is not just programs, it is also house keeping.

Lawyers, Accountants, and Insurance

Since there has been a big shift in the Technocation board, I want to do some activities that will help support our efforts and make this group sustainable beyond our current tenure. In that vain, I will be hiring the services of a lawyer, accountant, and insurance agent. As these activities get underway I hope the board will be able to meet more regurlaly so we can do this together. Here are my initial tasks:

• review, update and document
  • the mission
  • the vision statement
  • the bylaws
  • the CoC
  • the accounting practices
• purchase liability insurance for the board
• purchase general insurance for the organization
• look into pricing for insurance for events that have alchohol

Other

Information Superhighway

I have shared this event with you folks before as a personal project, but I know feel that it should be one of our programs. The goal of creating connections among tech people is in line with what we do and having an organization support this will be helpful as I get this going. In some ways this is a lot like the creative mornings group, but at night, with tech themed discussions, and without the speaker part. I will be making a request to the board soon for some money to run one of these and I hope that sparks some interest in how this alines with the mission.

Also, here is an invite for the upcoming board meeting https://www.paperlesspost.com/flyer/go/9PVAQW0U68g3XuzX1lp