2026-09-03 –, Phoenix Hall
Large companies often have established processes, dedicated roles, and structured ways of working. Small open source companies operate differently, with deep expertise, flexibility, and a close connection to their communities and customers. After more than 12 years at HERE Technologies, I spent 5 months at GeoCat exploring this other side of the industry. In this session, I’ll share what I learned from working with a small, open source-focused team: how priorities are set, how community contributions and commercial needs are balanced, what challenged my assumptions, and why some lessons from open source teams can be valuable for organizations of all sizes.
Patrícia Iribarrem (GeoCat)
Level of technical complexity: 1 - beginner Give indication of resources (video, web pages, papers, etc.) to read in advance, that will help get up to speed on advanced topics.:none
Indicate what is (are) the open source project(s) essential in your talk:GeoServer, GeoNetwork, OSGeo Org
I make my conference contribution available under the CC BY 4.0 license. The conference contribution comprises the abstract, the text contribution for the conference proceedings, the presentation materials as well as the video recording and live transmission of the presentation:
I'm a Brazilian geographer with over a decade of experience in the location industry, where I've worked as a teacher, data analyst, people lead, and project manager, driven by a continued curiosity about how people, technology, and open collaboration come together to map the world and build the foundations that enable others to solve real-world problems.