[OSM-talk] SotM 2020 - Move to virtual conference

[Christine Karch]

Hi all,

SotM 2020 will be a virtual conference!

Due to the high infection risk of SARS-COV-2 virus and all its
consequences like travel restrictions, cancellation of physical
meetings, "social distancing", and more, a physical SotM is not possible
this year.

The local team - who have done great work preparing this conference so
far - have suggested to change the physical conference to a virtual one.
This wasn't just an idle talk:  they have already started a cool open
source software project - https://gitlab.com/billowconf/billowconf for
managing this!

So the SotM working group adopted this plan, and agreed to have a
virtual SotM conference this year instead of a physical one.

We know about your disappointment not meeting each other physically this
year (we are disappointed too), but after a few months of lockdown and
"social distancing" we are sure we will all be excited to be reading and
seeing each other in chats and videos. We will share more of the
technical plans as the date comes closer.

The date of the conference will stay the same, but shortened to two
days: 4-5 July 2020. We planned an extended Q&A session after each talk
and plenty of free spaces for discussions. So that the OpenStreetMap
community can have a great week-end together.


Christine

on behalf of State of the Map Working Group