Board Member Nominations 2015

The Board Member nomination (part of the Election 2015) will be open from 2015-09-07 to 2015-09-20. The list of nominees for the 2015 Board Member Election is maintained by the Chief Returning Officer (cro at osgeo.org). This page is write protected and can only be edited by SysOps. 
The following nominations have been received for the OSGeo Board in 2015 through the Election 2015 process.
* The nomination period ends on 20 September 2015.
* This list is presented in the order nominations were received. 
* Candidate statements and support by OSGeo participants or members, if they have been provided, are linked to immediately after the candidate name as a bulleted list.
== Helena Mitasova ==
; Nomination by: Venkatesh Raghavan
It is a great honor for me to nominate Prof. Helena Mitasova [1]
for the 2015 OSGeo Board Elections.
- Prof. Helena Mitasova
- USA
Prof. Helena Mitasova hardly needs any introduction. Her activities
that encompass the entire gamut of the OSGeo Foundation goals, speak for
themselves. She was awarded the Sol Katz Award in 2010 for her long
standing contribution to the OSGeo Foundation and FOSS4G communities.
Recently, she has been one of the driving forces behind the Geo4All
initiative. Her invaluable experience in area of Education and Research will
be a great asset to the OSGeo Foundation Board.
I thank her for agreeing to be nominated for the 2015 OSGeo Board elections.
# http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Helena
# http://www.geo4all.org/
Endorsements and discussion
* Nomination by Venkatesh Raghavan
* Support by Suchith Anand
* Support by Ravi Kumar
* Support by Maria Antonia Brovelli
* Support by Dirk Frigne
* Support by Massimiliano Cannata
* Support by Alexander Bruy
* Support by Doug Newcomb
* Support by Hirofumi Hayashi
* Support by Daria Svidzinska
* Support by Angelos Tzotsos
== Anita Graser ==
; Nomination by: Lene Fischer and Jeff McKenna 
It is our pleasure to nominate Anita Graser, from Austria, for the
OSGeo Board. Anita needs no introduction to the community, as she is
very visible through her work on the QGIS Steering Committee, as a core
contributor, and working very hard to promote Open Source geo through
workshops, tutorials, mailing lists, FOSS4G events, and just about every
possible way. She has a lot of experience managing and building
communities, and she is actually quite honoured to be considered for the
OSGeo Board.
Anita's presence on the Board would be a great addition to the foundation.
We excitingly nominate Anita for the OSGeo Board of Directors.
# http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:AnitaGraser
Endorsements and discussion
* Nomination by Lene Fischer and Jeff McKenna 
* Support by Ko Nagase
* Support by Alexander Bruy
* Support by Hirofumi Hayashi
* Support by Daria Svidzinska
* Support by Maria Antonia Brovelli
* Support by Venkatesh Raghavan
* Support by Nimalika Fernando
* Support by Alexandre Neto
== Venkatesh Raghavan ==
; Nomination by: Sanghee Shin, Markus Neteler and Jeff McKenna
It is our pleasure to nominate Venka Raghavan, from Japan, for the
OSGeo Board. It is hard to put into (few) words, Venka's influence on
FOSS and geo. The 2012 winner of the Sol Katz Award, he created the
term “FOSS4G” back in 2004, using it as the name of an international
event in Thailand, and since then he has promoted FOSS4G all over the
globe. He was also one of the organizers of the recent FOSS4G-Asia
event this past December.
Venka has also been directly involved in OSGeo since its inception, in
fact he was on the first OSGeo Board of Directors from 2006 to 2007. He
is also a long-time board member of the OSGeo Japan chapter.
A professor at Osaka City University in Japan, Venka constantly
encourages his students to leverage FOSS4G in all of their research.
His influence in Asia wide reaching, being easily the most influential
FOSS4G leader there. Venka also helps organize the GIS-IDEAS Symposium
every 2 years in Vietnam, which is always FOSS4G-based.
Venka is enthused to be a part of the OSGeo Board again, helping a
foundation that he helped form at the beginning. We could not be more
please and honoured to nominate Venka for the Board of Directors. 
# http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Venkatesh_Raghavan
Endorsements and discussion
* Nomination by Sanghee Shin, Markus Neteler and Jeff McKenna
* Support by Suchith Anand
* Support by Massimiliano Cannata
* Support by Dirk Frigne
* Support by Ravi Kumar
* Support by Maria Antonia Brovelli
* Support by Frans Thamura
* Support by Hirofumi Hayashi
* Support by Angelos Tzotsos
* Support by Nicolas Bozon
* Support by Harish Kumar Solanki
== Sanghee Shin ==
; Nomination by: Venkatesh Raghavan, Markus Neteler and Jeff McKenna 
It is our pleasure to nominate Sanghee Shin, from South Korea, for the
OSGeo Board. Most are aware of Sanghee as the passionate chair of the
upcoming FOSS4G-Seoul event (http://2015.foss4g.org/), but Sanghee has
been involved in Open Source geo for a long time. Locally, he is the
founding member of the OSGeo Korean Chapter, which chapter actually
hosts a local FOSS4G-Korea event every year since 2011. Sanghee is also
the C.E.O. and President of Gaia3D in Seoul (http://www.gaia3d.com/).
Sanghee (secretly) commutes often between the UK and Seoul, so he is
well aware of the global geospatial community. His strong business
sense and his focus on Asia gives the Board an interesting perspective,
and a much needed perspective as our local chapters are so active there.
Sanghee is very honoured to accept this nomination, so please welcome
him onto the OSGeo Board of Directors for 2015. 
# http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Sanghee
Endorsements and discussion
* Nomination by Venkatesh Raghavan, Markus Neteler and Jeff McKenna 
* Support by Hirofumi Hayashi
* Support by Maria Antonia Brovelli 
* Support by Suchith Anand 
== Dirk Frigne ==
; Nomination by: Jeff McKenna 
It is my pleasure to nominate Dirk Frigne, from Belgium, for the OSGeo
Board. Dirk has that rare passion and vision for community, and speaks
strongly about building and maintaining a healthy OSGeo 'ecosystem' made
up of both the development community as well as professional service
providers. A "do-er", he has built his company Geosparc
(http://www.geosparc.com/) and the OSGeo project geomajas into strong
and healthy entities.
Dirk also feels strongly about building local OSGeo communities. He
recently helped form the new Belgium local chapter
(http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Belgium), and he is actively trying to
formalize a European representation of OSGeo.
Dirk understands the industry today, our community, the software, and is
willing to help guide the growth of the foundation. I feel strongly that
he would be a wonderful addition to the OSGeo Board of Directors. 
# http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Dirkf
Endorsements and discussion
* Nomination by Jeff McKenna 
* Support by Oliver May
* Support by Venkatesh Raghavan
* Support by Maelle Vercauteren
== Nimalika Fernando ==
; Nomination by: Jeff McKenna and Venkatesh Raghavan
It is our pleasure to nominate Nimalika Fernando, from Sri Lanka, for the
OSGeo Board. Nimalika is very active in FOSS in her local area, giving
training, and in fact launched a local GeoForAll lab at her institution
(Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology - SLIIT). She also
played a large part in organizing the first FOSS4G-Sri Lanka event in
early 2014. More recently she was active at the FOSS4G-Asia event this
past December in Thailand, and she is looking forward to the big FOSS4G
coming to Asia next week.
Actually in messages with Nimalika this week she summarized her
nomination reaction with very thoughtful input: "South Asia is still to
reap the benefits of FOSS GIS and I think passing the message to the
next generation is the most effective way while convincing policy makers
also is a priority. The idea of "openness" is missed much here and may
be due to long lasting social issues our nations have faced. I will
continue my work irrespective of the results, of course."
We strongly feel that Nimalika would be a great asset to the OSGeo
Board, and a strong representation for the South Asia region. Please
welcome Nimalika to the Board of Directors.
# http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Nimalika
Endorsements and discussion
* Nomination by Jeff McKenna and Venkatesh Raghavan
* Support by Suchith Anand
* Support by Maria Antonia Brovelli 
== Jody Garnett ==
; Nomination by: Cameron Shorter
I would like to nominate Jody Garnett to serve on the OSGeo Board.
Jody is a man who has a depth of experience with the OSGeo foundation, right from getting his hands dirty writing code, through to setting up and managing projects, through to evangelising at conferences and workshops, as well as chairing OSGeo committees.
He steps up to tackle the hard problems, provides insightful feedback and advice, as well ask taking on the less exciting tasks to get things done. This depth of can-do practical experience will serve OSGeo well if Jody were voted onto the OSGeo board.
For background: Jody chairs the OSGeo Incubation committee, was on the FOSS4G 2007 and FOSS4G 2009 organising committees, has presented regularly at conferences and workshops, is on the Project Steering Committees for UDig, GeoTools, GeoServer, and is a regular contributor to numerous OSGeo email lists. 
# http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Jody_Garnett
Endorsements and discussion
* Nomination by Cameron Shorter
* Support by Bart van den Eijnden
* Support by Dirk Frigne
* Support by Frank Gasdorf
* Support by Angelos Tzotsos
* Support by Bruce Bannerman
Category:Elections 
Category:Election 2015