Taking advantage of this year's topic "Building a business with FOSS4G" I would like to invite you to a 45 min panel to discuss together ideas about building a different narrative about the use and benefits of Open Source with members of the FOSS4G community who are doing business in the Private and Public sector.

The idea of this panel came while attending several Geospatial industry events, after mentioning that I am an Open Source advocate the comments of people from different organizations were mainly around the costs, one of the very recurrent comments I hear is ” it is great that Open Source exists because it can help students who can't afford licenses”, other comment I hear frequently is that “Open Source is for companies very limited financially or have no money at all”.

More than a talk I would like to organize a panel with 3-4 Open Source Entrepreneurs in the one we have an open discussion about how we can change that mindset and impulse more business opportunities together.

Let’s discuss together how the community can find a way to communicate better the values and benefits of Open Source so we can change this mindset that still exists today.

Panel Participants:
Codrina Ilie - Terrasigna
Ariel Aanthieni - Kan Territory
Matthias Kuhn - OPENGIS.ch

There is so much happening on Earth but also in Space, New Space, new constellations of Satelltes with Optical and SAR capabilities, Earth Observation Open Data Programs, Platforms facilitating access to petabytes of data, ESA Network of Resources, ESABIC, Europe's future Space ports preparing to launching rockets and so much more.

In this talk, I want to share what is happening today in the New Space Industry, which companies are launching Satellites and developing new sensors, how "space buses" are supporting reducing Satellite costs and making Space Data costs even more accessible, how Platforms are a way to facilitate the access of all this Data available and also how these sensors have a variety of applications of EO. In the last five years, I have collaborated doing Partnerships with more than 80 Satellite and Geospatial organizations and I would like to share some things I have learned.

Last year in the talk I gave in FOSS4G Kosovo, "Unlocking the potential of Earth Observation combining Optical and SAR data" I realized how useful it could be a talk about the current state of Earth Observation, most of the FOSS4G attendees were very knowledgeable about the Copernicus and Landsat programs but there is so much more happening in the New Space Industry where several commercial companies are also committed with Open Data programs so they can help organizations to build more solutions and keep supporting startups, research and education in this brilliant field.

Working in space has been a dream since my childhood when I was living in the middle of the rainforest in Veracruz, Mexico I fell in love with Space by watching Carl Sagan's Cosmos TV series and a local kids' TV show with a Planetary rocket named "Popotito 22" which traveled through time and Space. Several decades later I still remember Carl Sagan's words speaking in Mexican Spanish and explaining the wonders of our Pale Blue Dot, this love took me to the Earth Observation field which I am grateful to be part of every day.