Chris Holmes, President of OpenGeo is scheduled to present the keynote address at the seventh annualInternational Symposium on Digital Earth (ISDE7). Mr. Holmes’ presentation, entitled “Building the Same Digital Earth – Spatial Data Infrastructure and Architectures of Participation,” will discuss how the sharing of geospatial information can be improved through the incorporation of open source software and modern web technologies. The presentation will be given in Perth, Western Australia at the commencement of ISDE7, on Tuesday, August 23, 2011.
Mr. Holmes brings a unique perspective on the topic. As president of OpenGeo, he has overseen the development of a number of leading open source geospatial technologies. Mr. Holmes led OpenGeo’s efforts to develop collaborative web mapping software tools in support of the World Bank’s disaster reduction goals. This project led to the formation of GeoNode.org, promoting open source geospatial collaboration and SDI building efforts worldwide. When speaking about the benefits that open source technologies bring to ISDE7 delegates, Mr. Holmes noted: “The OpenGeo platform allows anyone – citizen scientist, commercial enterprise, or NGO and governmental users – to contribute, collect, view, and analyze geographic data.”
The 7th annual ISDE conference will feature over 100 speakers and 1,000 delegates from around the world. Previous years have built ISDE’s strong reputation as the preeminent event exploring how technologies are bridging the divide between the physical and Digital Earth. The conference addressed a diverse set of topics such as economic and social sustainable development, environmental protection, disaster mitigation, natural resource conservation and the improvement of human being’s living standard.
About OpenGeo
OpenGeo is a social enterprise working to build the best web-based geospatial technology. The company brings the best practices of open source software to geospatial organizations around the world by providing enterprises with supported, tested, and integrated open source solutions to build the Geospatial Web. OpenGeo also supports open source communities by employing key developers of PostGIS, GeoServer, and OpenLayers. Since 2002, the company has provided successful consulting services and products to clients like the World Bank, Google, the UK Ordnance Survey, Portland TriMet, MassGIS, Landgate, and the Federal Communications Commission. OpenGeo is the geospatial division of OpenPlans, a New York-based 501(c)(3) non-profit that informs and engages communities through journalism and open source software. All of OpenGeo’s revenue has been and will continue to be re-invested into innovative and useful software in support of the OpenPlans mission.
