Call for presentations and workshops

Calls for presentations and workshops are now closed! Thanks for your submissions.

 

We are inviting Oceania's open source geospatial, open data, and OpenStreetMap communities to submit talks & workshops for the upcoming regional FOSS4G & State of the Map event, planned for 20-23 November, Melbourne. This Call for Presentations & Workshops is open as of 18 June, and closes 31 July for workshops, and 31 August 4 September for presentations.

On the day before the conference (20 Nov), we'll run a workshop program consisting of up to 10 half-day workshops.

At the conference itself, we'll have several different types of presentations:

  • General track: 20 minute long presentations in streams throughout the conference

  • Academic track: also 20 minutes long, but peer reviewed and published

  • Lightning talks: 5 minute presentations in a dedicated session

To make this event a success, we need to gather some of the fascinating stories from around our region, and this means we need your help.

Who should submit

You may be an experienced presenter, or perhaps this is the first time you've ever considered presenting at a conference... or maybe you're somewhere in between. In any case, if you have a relevant story to tell, we want to hear from you!

We would love to have a diverse array of speakers, with strong representation from women, different ethnic backgrounds, young & old, and urban & rural. We can only do this if we get the submissions, so please, be brave and do it!

If this is new to you, we are here to reach out and help you to develop or hone the skills you need to deliver a great presentation.

  • We are happy to brainstorm your interests to see if a great topic is hiding.

  • We are happy to connect you with experienced speakers to help prepare your submission.

  • We are happy to review and advise on how to produce a slide deck.

  • Again, whatever else you might need, we’re here to help.

Get in touch via email: admin@foss4g-oceania.org (just don’t use this to submit a proposal).

Topics

Generally, we want to hear stories about what's happening in open source geospatial, open data, and OpenStreetMap, from around Oceania. What are you working on? What's the state of your art? Do you have a success (or failure!) story, are you developing something new that you want to share, or do you have an interesting perspective on the state of our community?

We'd like to cast a fairly wide net, and want a variety of content from a diverse array of speakers. We're open-minded about what this looks like, but to help get the juices flowing, here are some general themes we'd expect to see:

  • New tools you're developing

  • Usage of open data

  • Community building projects

  • Your perspective on our community

  • Case studies from your company, community, or region

  • Advanced usage of open source tools

  • Success stories

  • Challenges you're facing

  • Whatever's on your mind! This is your conference...

Open source geospatial: think QGIS, PostGIS, Leaflet, Python, R, Geoserver, and the usual suspects, but also, think outside that box. What's the future?

OpenStreetMap & open data: what are you building, what are you using, and what are the obstacles to opening up your data?

For workshops, this might look a little different. What hands-on knowledge do you have that you can impart to a captive audience in a half day session?

Selection Process

Once we've closed the call for submissions, we'll select presentations based on this process:

  • Community vote: open to the public, everyone gets a chance to pick what they want to see at the conference. Submissions will be anonymised.

  • Blind review: using the results of the community vote as a guide, our selection committee will comb through the anonymised submissions, and select presentations, ensuring a diverse and interesting program.

Key Dates

Workshops

  • 18 Jun: Call for workshops opens

  • 31 Jul: Workshop submission deadline

  • 1-8 Aug: Community voting on workshops

  • 17 Aug: Workshops selected

  • 20 Nov: Workshop day

Presentations

  • 18 Jun: Call for presentations opens

  • 31 Aug 4 Sep: Submission deadline for general stream & academic presentations

  • 5-15 Sep: Community voting on general stream & academic presentations

  • 21 Sep: General stream presentations selected

  • 2 Oct: Academic presentations selected

  • 18 Oct: Academic track camera-ready papers due

  • 21-22 Nov: General, academic, and lightning talk presentations

How to submit

Submission deadline is 31 July for workshops, and 31 August 4 September for presentations, at midnight (Melbourne time). We may not accept submissions after the deadline.

General stream

Submit a 20 minute presentation, or a 5 minute lightning talk for the general stream Presentation submissions are now closed

Academic stream

More information on the academic stream, and instructions on how to submit Presentation submissions are now closed

Workshops

Submit a workshop proposal Workshop submissions are now closed