[Osmf-talk] OSGeo Oceania Local Chapter application

[Greg Lauer]

I wanted to support Ed's comments and add the following

The Oceania region is very different to other regions in that it covers a
large area, with a small population, (see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceania) and has a large diaspora community
scattered across AU, NZ and USA. For example, Auckland, NZ is the largest
Polynesian city in the world, and there are large Pacific Island
communities in all major cities across Australia and New Zealand. Many
Pacific Island students are recipients of AU/NZ scholarships and attend
tertiary studies in AU/NZ. Several Pacific Island students active in OSGeo
Oceania are resident in AU/NZ (and we are working to increase this) and
thus provide a valuable context.

Through the OSGeo Oceania Travel Grant program (supported in part by
sponsors, OS Geo,and national aid agencies such as NZAID) we have bought
participants from across the region to our annual conferences. In turn they
have taken the skills (and networks they have formed) back to their home
countries. An excellent example of this is East Timor - look at the
increase in OSM updates over the last 3 years.

I wanted to emphasize Ed's comment regarding local chapters - I would
support 100% a local Pacific Island chapter emerging but really believe a
supernational group would provide the building blocks for this to happen. I
think nothing would make OSGeo Oceania prouder than for a local OSM
community to become a chapter in its own right!

And lastly OSGeo Oceania is a virtual organisation. We have no head office
and all of our business is done online or at an annual conference(s). Due
to Australian law we have to nominate a physical address as 'place of
business', and we have used our accountants office in Hobart. So in reality
our 'office' is anywhere someone has an internet connection.

Greg Lauer



On Wed, Aug 12, 2020 at 12:00 PM Edoardo Neerhut <eneerhut at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Chiming in here to provide a bit more context.
>
> *Regional representation*
> In creating this working group, we've been very mindful of speaking for
> others across the region. One step we took to address this was the form we
> sent out to gauge how many people are supportive of a regional OSM group.
> We've now had 54 responses to date from countries across the region. As
> Joost wrote, 20 of these people attended the first meeting expressing their
> interest in being part of the working group. Ensuring different cultural
> views are represented was stated as a key priority of the working group in
> the very first meeting.
>
> We have also been active across many channels to get input and volunteers
> for these efforts.
>
> *Growing OSM in the region*
> Oceania is a vast geographic region and yet the population is only
> ~42 million. Some of the countries like Nauru have a population of
> only ~11,000. It's all well and good to talk about national chapters, but
> it's not a suitable model for a region like ours. There are definitely
> legal considerations when you start to operate across borders, but OSGeo
> Oceania has already proven that this can be successfully navigated. Our
> first conference was in Melbourne, Australia our second in Wellington, New
> Zealand, and our third would have been in Suva, Fiji had the pandemic not
> forced it online. All of these conferences had legal, financial, and
> cultural considerations that were successfully navigated.
>
> *Future national chapters*
> Speaking for myself here, I would be fully supportive if sustainable
> national chapters were to emerge. In my opinion a supranational body is a
> prerequisite to ever seeing such momentum in the region.
>
> *OSGeo Oceania*
> OSGeo Oceania has demonstrated success as a sustainable, supranational
> organisation. The platform and the the funds generated through conferences
> can go a long way to further increasing interest in OpenStreetMap
> throughout the region, whilst simultaneously learning from local context
> throughout the region.
>
> Prior to these efforts outlined above, OSGeo Oceania has been active
> across the region, with mapping events focused on Papua New Guinea and East
> Timor for example. Both of these efforts had advisors from these countries.
> Additionally, the Travel Grant Program at each of the conferences was
> funding allocated to sponsor attendees from different countries in Oceania.
>
> I can assure you we're 100% committed to diverse representation within
> this group.
>
> *OpenStreetMap focus*
> In regards to whether or not OpenStreetMap plays a significant enough role
> in OSGeo Oceania efforts, this is precisely the reason we have formed and
> OpenStreetMap Working Group. As mentioned, this working group has already
> received significant support and active volunteers. Many of these
> individuals have already been actively mapping, organising mapping events
> over the last few years, active on our local mailing lists, conducting
> academic research in and around OSM, building companies in and around OSM,
> and/or presenting at our local conferences.
>
> I think it's fair to say OpenStreetMap is significant to OSGeo Oceania.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Ed
>
> On Wed, 12 Aug 2020 at 07:42, Yves <ycai at mailbox.org> wrote:
>
>> Frederik, in your example none of this would help New Guinea to build
>> something from the bottom up.
>>
>> Le 11 août 2020 18:30:31 GMT+02:00, Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org>
>> a écrit :
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> On 8/11/20 16:31, Christoph Hormann via osmf-talk wrote:
>>>
>>>> I have thought about this quite a bit and my recommendation is that the
>>>> OSMF not accept local chapters on a supranational level.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Could we perhaps accept "supranational" local chapters with a
>>> contractual extra that goes like:
>>>
>>> "Should the community of an individual country (or smaller group of
>>> countries) within the area claimed by $LOCAL_CHAPTER want to form their
>>> own local chapter in the future, the OSMF and $LOCAL CHAPTER commit to
>>> modifying this agreement to make room for the new regional chapter."
>>>
>>> My thinking is that while being represented by an organisation from
>>> Hobart might not be ideal for the mapper from New Guinea, maybe it is
>>> still a tiny bit better than being represented from Cambridge, UK?
>>>
>>> Another option would be to request that supranational chapters take
>>> active steps to solicit representation from all countries they aim to
>>> represent, and report on these efforts regularly. I.e. in order not to
>>> lose their status of representing New Guinea, OSGeo Oceania would have
>>> to show that they're active there in some form. And that would have to
>>> be more than just saying "well people from New Guinea can join our
>>> mailing list." ;) -- then again, we'd be asking more of the chapter than
>>> we're doing ourselves.
>>>
>>> Bye
>>> Frederik
>>>
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