State Of The Map 2010

As proven on previous SOTM’s mappers can actually be pretty creative. This year we decided to put up a song contest and we have received quite a few submissions. Ranging from own work to general ideas to Tenacious D. covers we can be sure this contest will ROCK!

Some songs need a bit of work and/or performers so please check out the the wiki.

Talking about business models, Steven Feldman is chairing a panel discussion entitled “Cocktails on the Titanic”. If you can’t work out the relevance of the title you might want to think about businesses that do not adapt their business models to rapidly changing circumstances. The core of this panel discussion comes from a session he ran at wherecamp.eu “We are all FCUK’d without a Business Model”

The second half of the panel at SotM will be an opportunity for startups and small geobusinesses to do a one minute elevator pitch to the audience about their business. You need to pitch the Who? What? Why? and How Much? of your business model. Have a look at this old post if you need some background on the questions. No slides, just a mike and 60 seconds not a single second longer followed by some challenging questions from the panel and the audience. At the end the community will get to vote for their favourite pitch and a small prize will be awarded. The big opportunity for a startup is exposure and possibly even an investor!

If you or someone you know want to grab a slot for an elevator pitch mail Steven through this link or mail henk@stateofthemap.org

image: (C)(C) Terence Faircloth http://www.flickr.com/people/atelier_tee/

With less than 2 weeks to go, it’s time to make travel arrangements to get to Girona. Good to know that we’ve arranged a 30% discount on train travel within Spain! Ideal when you’re flying to Barcelona: travel comfortably to Girona by train. Or … add a day visit to Barcelona right before or after the conference.

What to do: download this discount voucher. Print it and show it at the ticket counter when buying your train ticket.

This discount voucher is valid from wednesday July 7th until tuesday July 13th for RENFE tickets from/to Girona within Spain.

(image: CC-BY-NC by “NASA Videographer” via Flickr)

LWN.net has kindly offered to promote the State Of The Map 2010 on their website.

LWN.net is the premier source for news from the Linux and free software worlds. Each week, LWN provides in-depth coverage of a variety of topics of interest to developers and users of free software. During the rest of the week, LWN has information about breaking news in the community, including a daily summary of Linux distribution security alerts. The weekly contains unparalleled Linux kernel coverage and software reviews by the Grumpy Editor, as well as stories on distribution news, security vulnerabilities, development projects and more.

The long awaited agenda for State of the Map 2010 is now available!

The successful Pro Users’ Day  will also kick off  the first day of State of the Map in Girona. Like SOTM 2009 in Amsterdam, it will primarily focus on emerging professional users of OpenStreetMap.  We have seen a huge increase in the professional adoption of OpenStreetMap.  The State of the Map will feature presentations from Skobbler, 1 Spatial Nutiteq and CloudMade – some of the most innovative companies who are pioneering the commercial use of OpenStreetMap data.

Saturday and Sunday will be more OSM community oriented. Saturday launches the 4th Annual SOTM conference we all know and love and it’s all about our community. The day is split into two tracks, featuring Community, Technical, Quality and Validation and back by popular demand, the OSI Scholarship Lightning talks!

Register Now!

Want to be sotm-famous? Are you hungry for status at this year’s conference? Then get your creative juices percolating! The design for our 2010 T-shirts is open and you could be our ‘it’ genius.

Follow these simple guidelines:

1. Talk to the face: design for the front of the shirt. Something within 10″ x 6″ or A5 size is a good working space.
2. You can be Picasso, Dali or Andy Warhol, but try to keep it to four colours.
3. Quite possibly we’re a soccer fan club with a mapping problem, even so: T-shirt must tell us why we were in Girona, Spain on July 9-11, 2010… in case we had too many beers at the social.
4. Please submit works by Friday June 4th midnight to team@stateofthemap.org, in the highest resolution possible. JPEG or TIFF format preferred.

Your reward? 2 minutes of fame at SOTM and a ‘surprise’ gift.

Good luck!

Thank you all for the overwhelming response that you have given us in the past few weeks!

We have received 48 complete applications for a SOTM 2010 scholarship, which is 13 more than last year! Unfortunately, there are still only 15 places to give…

At the moment, we are very busy with reviewing all the applications, in order to create the list of 15 happy applicants, that will receive a travel scholarship for attending the SOTM 2010.
This list will be available before the 21st of May, and will also be posted on this site.
Each of the nominees will receive an email with the verdict before the list is published.

Thank you for your patience, and good luck to you all!!!

Kind Regards,

Bojan & the State of the Map 2010 organizers

The OpenStreetMap Foundation is excited to announce that, like last year, the full travel and accomodations costs for 15 mappers to attend State of the Map 2010,  will be provided.

We are looking for people from places where costs would prohibit attendance, especially developing countries and places that are “interesting” geopolitically. The scholarships will provide an opportunity for these leaders of nascent OSM communities to network, learn, and find the inspirations and support to take OSM to the next level.

Read more about this on the Scholarship page.

In the two weeks before State of the Map, the SIGTE (Geographical Information Systems and Remote Sensing Centre) will hold the GIS OPEN SOURCE Summer School at their facilities in the Girona University. This Summer School is jointly organized by 4 European universities, and aims to provide GIS training to postgraduate and doctorate students.

OpenStreetMap will fit into the Summer School in two ways: On one hand, the OpenStreetMap community will be teaching basic OSM skills during the Summer Scholars, confirming that OSM is part of a solid GIS curriculum.

On the other hand, SIGTE has kindly offered one of the University of Girona computer labs for holding OSM workshops and tutorials alongside the Summer School. To be precise, OSM workshops will be held from the 5th to the 9th of july if all slots are filled up.

SIGTE computer labs (photo courtesy @jsgisdev)

No matter if you’re a GIS newbie or an OSM hardcore enthusiast, the summer school is the perfect opportunity to either learn how to use a wide array of open source GIS software, or hone your OSM hacking skills. The SIGTE facilities will count with the expertise, the technologies, and the equipment to make these two tracks a remarkable learning opportunity.

If you are an OpenStreetMap developer, we need your help for the OSM workshops! If you want to discuss new cool OSM technologies, hold a purely technical panel, or teach during the Summer School, fill in the Call for Papers form and select “Summerschool” as theme of your paper.

If you want to attend the workshop, you need to wait just a little bit longer. When the schedule of the workshops is finished, we’ll start with the registration. If you have already registered for SotM you’ll get an email when the registration for the workshops is starting. Due to the size of the computer lab, there will only be 25 tickets per workshop.

This year two major Geo conferences (SotM and FOSS4G) will be held in Spain. State of the Map in Girona and FOSS4G in nearby Barcelona.
Given that the two conferences are held in close proximity, both organising teams are of the opinion that people attending both should have a perk!
Therefore, we are proud to announce a discount to people who sign up for both events!

Forget about complicated options for different combos. This mix ticket discount will allow people attending one conference to enjoy a discount on the other. To put it in another way: if you register for the FOSS4G, you get a discount for SotM10. If you are hesitant to go to the FOSS4G but have already registered for SotM10, you’ll have the early bird price no matter how late you sign up.

Already signed up for FOSS4G? No worries. Those who have already registered for the FOSS4G, will be sent an e-mail detailing how to apply for a SotM ticket with 10% discount.

To get the best deal, register with FOSS4G first; while their early bird is still available. You’ll then get a discount-voucher with which you can get 10% discount on SotM tickets.

If you’re into geo, Spain is definitely the place to be this year!