Recommended videos
This year, we had representatives at several of OSGeo’s FOSS4G:UK events as well as people watching remotely. With almost 20 hours of footage to choose from, we thought you might appreciate some recommendations!
The Voice of Public Sector GIS: David Renn (Lancaster)
“The highlight was Barry Rowlingson’s talk on mapping Peter Townsend’s 1956-58 circumnavigation (watch the clip here). Employing QGIS, online gazetteers, place references, old map collections, historical information and web tools, this talk was part geography, part history, part geo-politics, part technology and all entertaining.”
The FOSS4G Old Hand: Matt Walker (Swansea)
“I really enjoyed Paul Shapley’s talk on the work he has been doing at Bannau Brycheiniog National Park Authority (watch the clip here). One of several nuts and bolts talks taking us through the technical implementation of their geospatial systems including field capture, storage and analysis. It was clear that Paul has a deep interest in the technology and practice while focusing on user needs.”
The Metadata Guru: Elena Robu (Bristol)
“I really liked Petya Kangalova’s talk on the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team’s approach to building open geospatial technology (watch here). It’s great to see such a big community contributing to mapping defavorised areas and areas affected by natural disasters. I also loved the morning keynote talk from Helen McKenzie, I could really feel her enthusiasm throughout the talk, despite a stressful start due to technical issues (watch here). Her love for mapping and GIS really came through.”
The GIS Newbie: Andrew Smart (Basingstoke)
“I enjoyed a local workshop by Hannah Wright from Ordnance Survey called “Geospatial Data Visualisation”. Hannah discussed different methods of representing geospatial data for non-technical audiences. Explaining why some styles of map are better at representing certain types of information, and the impact that choice may have on how the data could be interpreted.”
The Dyed-in-the-Wool Techie: Andy Bailey (Basingstoke)
“I didn’t catch Dave Barter’s talk on GeoDjango in person but caught up with it later (watch here). Dave provided a charismatic view on why he loves Django and in particular GeoDjango. Other frameworks are available of course but Django provides good database abstraction and model / view separation. In line with the FOSS4G community, there’s a massive community providing support for Django allowing for fast, tidy development.”
The Boss: Mike Saunt (London)
“There was lots to enjoy at FOSS4G this year. Having delivered a ‘retrospective’ myself, I really enjoyed the pre-recorded ‘reflection’ talks by organisers of FOSS4G 2013, including our own Matt Walker. As a techie, I particularly enjoyed the talk by Yogesh Girikumar, a devops for the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team. It was a very interesting and technical look at mindfully modernising infrastructure. An unscheduled five-minute Lightning Talk by Mark Varley, the CEO of Addresscloud, was also a cracker. He explained how he and his teenage son built a weather monitoring station with a Raspberry Pi and other kit.
“As for the comment that’ll rattle around my head for months to come, Barry Rowlingson’s declaration that “we’ve got to move away from a capitalistic society” really hit home for me. As a company, Astun is founded on the principle that open source software has the same value – or greater – as proprietary software. FOSS4G:UK 2023 was a great day spent with others who share our belief.”
Where to watch!
You can see a list of all FOSS4G:UK 2023 presentations here. Many of these presentations can now be found on the OSGeo:UK YouTube channel.
Other FOSS4G blogs
Three Astuners were given speaking opportunities at FOSS4G:UK 2023. Find out what Mike Saunt, Matt Walker and Elena Robu contributed in this blog.