Submit Your Community of Practice Proposal before June 30
FOSS4G North America 2026, taking place November 2–4 in Sacramento, California, is shaping up to be an exciting program. We are already seeing strong interest across a wide range of open source geospatial topics, and the program is beginning to reflect the technical depth, creativity, and practical problem-solving that make this community so valuable.
There is still time to be part of it! We especially want to hear from people working on the human side of open source geospatial, and would love to see more submissions for the Community of Practice track.
Submit your proposal today!
The Community of Practice track is for presentations that explore how people work together, learn, and grow within the open source geospatial ecosystem. While many FOSS4G sessions focus on tools, platforms, data, and technical workflows, the Community of Practice track highlights the people, processes, and shared knowledge that make open source work possible.
Community of Practice submissions might include:
Building and sustaining a regional OpenStreetMap mapping community
Helping new contributors get started with an open source geospatial project
Lessons learned from running a university GIS open lab
Creating welcoming spaces for collaboration and peer learning
Supporting local, regional, or thematic user groups
Developing shared standards, documentation, or training resources
Building partnerships across agencies, nonprofits, universities, companies, and volunteer communities
Reflecting on what worked or did not work in a collaborative geospatial effort
Community of Practice submissions can take many forms. A podium talk might share how a group built momentum around a regional mapping effort. A workshop can introduce participants to the basics of contributing to an open source project. A lightning talk highlights practical lessons from organizing a meetup, training series, or lab. A poster might show how practitioners are adopting emerging standards or building shared workflows across organizations.
Submit your proposal today!