Manchester: 14th & 15th July 2007

The first international OpenStreetMap conference took place in Manchester, UK on Saturday and Sunday 14th & 15th July 2007. The presentations and audio recordings of the two-day event have been published. The speakers at the Conference originate from Europe and Australia and presented a range of developments related to the global movement on Open Geographic Data.

The conference demonstrated that the public sector is not the only provider of geographic data sets as Civil Society using open source software and affordable technology combined with a vast network of skilled volunteers across the world are now bringing on stream alternative geographic data sets that are in many cases more current than those provided by the public sector as they are driven by local communities. Private companies that have a need for up to-date topographic data are now beginning to join forces with these civil society initiatives.

The titles of a number of the sessions provide a flavour of the Conference.

Liberating GIS from the OS The Cathedral and the GPS - a Personal View The State of Spain 20 Years of Web Mapping OpenStreetMap. A Disaster Waiting to Happen