General information

One slot has a total of 30 minutes: 20 minutes for the talk; 5 minutes for questions and answers; 5 minutes for the participants to change rooms. At FOSS4G 2019 Bucharest, we can accommodate 11 parallel tracks, with sessions of 1.5 h – 2 h long. Thus, we are happy to say we can accept an approximate number of 300 talks. 

FOSS4G 2019 Bucharest overarching theme revolves around connecting data and software. Keep this idea in mind as you browse through the main topics envisaged by the Program Committee. 

Submitting your contribution

When submitting a talk, you will be asked to select ONE general topic that best defines your contribution:

• Software development;
• Transition to FOSS4G;
• Use cases & applications;
• Education & research;
• Digital economy;
• Open data.

and ONE general theme that best defines your contribution: 

• Software status, new project development;
• Standards, interoperability, SDIs, INSPIRE implementations;
• FOSS4G implementations in strategic application domains (land management, crisis/disaster response, smart cities, population mapping, climate change, ocean and marine monitoring etc.);
• Analysis, manipulation and visualization of geospatial data;
• Data collection, data sharing, big data, data exploitation platforms;
• Sensors, remote sensing, laser-scanning, structure from motion;
• New trends: IoT, Indoor mapping, machine learning, drones;
• Community & participatory FOSS4G;
• FOSS4G in education;
• Business products powered by FOSS4G.

Next, you will need to assign between 1 to 4 indicating the level of technical complexity of your contribution. 1 means that your audience can have minimal technical knowledge related to your submission’s subject to understand it, 4 means that your audience must be highly technical to get the most out of your talk. Furthermore, you are encouraged to give indication of resources (video, papers etc.) to read in advance, that will help get up to speed on advanced topics. 

Guidelines for submitters

OSGeo is an open, grassroots, dynamic community and its flagship event has inherited its profound characteristics. There are no formal indications when preparing your contribution for FOSS4G, yet please consider the following suggestions: 

• FOSS4G’s backbone is open source, so make sure you clearly indicate what is (are) the open source project(s) essential in your talk;
• If you talk of new developments or a completely new open source project, please make sure you point to its repository(ies). You’ll be speaking in a room full of geeks with computers and high-speed internet.
• The more suitable the selections of topic, theme and level of technical complexity are, the better shaped the final program will be. So, please, help us optimize your time at FOSS4G 2019.
• We believe in equality, so all presenters have the same exact amount of time to present their work – 20 minutes for the talk, 5 for Q&A and 5 for changing rooms. Please consider that when preparing your slides.
• And last, but not least, the success of this event lies in the responsable actions of all participants and organizers alike. If after you have confirmed participation, you or the co-authors are no longer able to present, please let us know as soon as possible.

Contribution selection process

For submitted talks, the selection timeline is as follows: 

FOSS4G is the international geospatial community’s event, thus the main selection of talks will be done through the open community voting process. The highest-scored ones will automatically be included in the program, while the others will be reviewed by the FOSS4G 2019 Bucharest volunteer Program Committee. Its members will make sure that the conference program will be well-balanced, diverse and they will make sure that every OSGeo project will have a “State of ” kind of presentation.