What to expect at FOSS4G North America 2026
FOSS4G North America 2026, taking place in Sacramento, California, from November 2–4, 2026, will continue the conference’s tradition of practical, community-driven learning and collaboration around open geospatial technology.
The program is being developed to support a wide range of attendees across the open geospatial ecosystem, including developers, analysts, researchers, educators, government staff, students, nonprofits, and community organizations. As with previous FOSS4G North America events, the conference will focus on sharing real-world workflows, open-source innovation, and collaborative problem solving.
Attendees can expect a mix of presentations, workshops, panels, demos, and community discussions that highlight practical applications of open geospatial tools and open data. Sessions are expected to span technical development, applied geospatial workflows, policy and governance, research, education, and community-driven mapping initiatives. Submit your talks related to open data, water policy and implementation, wildfire and hazard applications, and environmental resilience, or your proposal for a hands-on learning workshop today!
2026 Conference Themes
The key themes for FOSS4G North America 2026 are Resilience and Innovation. The conference program is being shaped around the ways open geospatial technologies support communities, public infrastructure, environmental stewardship, scientific research, and collaborative problem solving. The 2026 conference will highlight practical applications of open-source geospatial tools while also creating space for experimentation, emerging technologies, and new approaches to open collaboration.
Some of the key topic areas include:
Water, Agriculture, and Natural Resources
California’s relationship with water infrastructure, agriculture, land management, and natural resources creates opportunities for presentations and workshops focused on hydrology, irrigation, watershed analysis, groundwater monitoring, and environmental data systems.
Community Mapping and Environmental Justice
Community-led mapping, participatory GIS, Indigenous mapping initiatives, public-interest technology, and environmental justice projects remain central to the FOSS4G North America community. We hope to highlight projects that improve accessibility, transparency, and community decision-making. The conference will also encourage exploration of newly available public-interest datasets, including California environmental and equity resources such as CalEnviroScreen 4.0 and related open data initiatives. These datasets create opportunities for open-source workflows focused on environmental justice analysis, public health, climate vulnerability, community planning, and equitable access to geospatial information.
Disaster Mapping and Wildfire Response
As California and many regions across North America continue to face increasing wildfire and climate-related hazards, the conference will highlight the role of open geospatial technologies in disaster preparedness, emergency response, situational awareness, recovery, and resilience planning. We welcome sessions focused on wildfire mapping, real-time data integration, remote sensing, damage assessment, evacuation planning, humanitarian mapping, and community response workflows using open-source tools and open data.
Open Source Development and Interoperability
Technical sessions focused on open standards, APIs, reproducible workflows, cloud-native geospatial systems, vector tiles, GeoParquet, spatial databases, and collaborative software development will continue to be a core part of the conference.
The Business of Open Source
The conference will also explore the business side of open geospatial technology, including sustainable funding models, consulting and services, public-private partnerships, governance, long-term project stewardship, and strategies for maintaining healthy open-source ecosystems. Sessions may highlight how organizations successfully adopt, support, and contribute to open geospatial software while balancing innovation, sustainability, and community collaboration.
Join the Conversation
FOSS4G North America 2026 is being shaped by the community, and we encourage participants from across the geospatial ecosystem to contribute ideas, submit proposals, and help build an engaging and inclusive program. Submit your talks related to open data, water policy and implementation, wildfire and hazard applications, and environmental resilience, or your proposal for a hands-on learning workshop today!