We are off and running! Josh Livni (Umbrella Consulting), Michael Gerlek (LizardTech) and Aaron Racicot [ME!] (Ecotrust) got together and decided it was time to rally the troops. We have scheduled our first official meeting to take place at the LizardTech office in Seattle on the 21st of March. We hope to see many of the GIS professionals in the Puget Sound region for this great time to meet others in the area who share a passion for Open Source GIS.
See you there!
Environmental Tech, General
A little “trip report” from Whidbey Island!
Yesterday I ventured off the Island in the afternoon for a whirl wind tour of Seattle events.
1) Met with some folks from LizardTech, a GIS shop in Seattle who has been in the imagery/compression business for a long time and is really trying to re-define their business around what is happening in the GIS industry as a whole.
They are now an Associate Sponsor of the OSGeo (Open Source Geospatial Foundation) and very actively engaging parts of their business in the OS paradigm. Very cool office downtown and some great Northwest contacts.
2) Seattle Green Drinks.
A group of us hit this event at the new Seattle Art Museum waterfront sculpture garden and had a great time. Defiantly worth seeing the 60 foot nurse log… on display as a “living” piece of art. Probably one of the largest and most active Enviro social events I have been to. 300+ people all bumping into each other with free beer and wine… great stuff. With my tour guides from Umbrella Consulting I got a very good introduction to many of the organizations based out of Seattle including OneNW (http://www.onenw.org/), Grist (http://www.grist.org/), Cascade Agenda (http://www.cascadeagenda.org/), and many more. Awesome event and will hopefully be a monthly thing for me.
3) Ignite Seattle.
Wow… you have never seen so many hackers, geeks, and crazy people in one room… it was good to feel welcome! 8pm until almost midnight of straight through 5-minute talks… about 22 of them from every topic including new technology out of the Google and Microsoft labs to building a multi-person pogo stick for Burning Man! Crazy stuff, high energy event which is gaining in popularity (now sponsored by Google and O’Reilly). Again, every couple of months and a great connection to the roots of the OS and hacker community in Seattle. I do hope it does not get taken over by the corporate mongers (I hope you are listening O’Reilly!)
2am arrival back home has not done great things for productivity, but all in all one of the most productive days I have spent in the community.
Environmental Tech, GIS Industry
Sean Gillies posted about this talk at the end of November and it just got posted on Slashdot yesterday, but it was only until last night that I woke up and watched it. While Eben Moglen might not be able to bring down the house with his camera presence, his talk on social justice and Open Source software is truly interesting and inspiring.
Well worth it… an hour well spent.
Environmental Tech, General
I had the pleasure of attending a meeting on the WISER commons last Friday (December 1st) in Seattle Washington. It was a great meeting bringing together environmentally minded individuals and organizations that have a common “technology” thread. The event was sponsored by the Interra Project and the Natural Capital Institute. Paul Hawken spoke about the need and relevance of a “commons” and promoted a new project called WISER. The demo shown was an impressive database of socially responsible organizations around the world. I am excited to see this project grow as it is aiming to socially connect the environmental movement.
I am interested to tear into their code as the software being developed is Open Source and should be interesting. They are due to put out a public release in January!
AUDIO
Jon Ramer – Overview of the Day
Paul Hawken – WISER
WISER Earth Overview
WISER Business Overview
WISER Wrapup
Cecile Hansen – Duamish Tribe – Grounding on tribal issues and relevance to the community
ALL AUDIO (ZIP FORMAT – 40 Megs)
Environmental Tech