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OpenCage ๐Ÿ‘‰๐ŸŒ

September is going to a very big month for Geomob, the geospatial event series and podcast we organize, so we thought we'd make it the topic of this week's geothread.

In the next four weeks there will be Geomob events in London ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง, Barcelona ๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡ธ, Berlin ๐Ÿ‡ฉ๐Ÿ‡ช, and Lisbon ๐Ÿ‡ต๐Ÿ‡น

So what is Geomob?

1/n

#geomob

Screenshot of the Geomob website
11 comments
OpenCage ๐Ÿ‘‰๐ŸŒ

2/ The goal of Geomob is to provide a relaxed, informal forum for anyone doing anything interesting related to geospatial to share their project.

Could be start-ups, hobbyists, academics, big cos, govt bodies, museums, anyone. ๐ŸŒ๐Ÿฅณ๐Ÿ’ฐ

Our motto: โ€œGeoinnovation - for fun or profitโ€œ

OpenCage ๐Ÿ‘‰๐ŸŒ

3/ The format of the events is very simple:

โ€ข 4-5 speakers
โ€ข Each gets only 10-15 minutes โฑ๏ธ

No long, boring talks. Just a sampler of different geo topics. Some talks turn out great, some less great, but the mix is what makes it fun.

Speaker at Geomob Berlin
Speaker at Geomob Tel Aviv
Speaker at Geomb London
OpenCage ๐Ÿ‘‰๐ŸŒ

4/ The second half of the event is as important as the first: after the talks we head to a nearby pub for ๐Ÿป #geobeers paid for by our sponsors ๐Ÿ™.

This is where the networking and deeper discussion happens. No stuffy panels, just hanging out with other geogeeks.

The crowd at Geomob London
The crowd at Geomob London
Sharing Geospatial war stories at Geomob Barcelona
OpenCage ๐Ÿ‘‰๐ŸŒ

5/ So who gets to speak at Geomob? Anyone! - with only ONE IMPORTANT CAVEAT: the speaker should be a "doer": someone who actually worked on the project described.

When we first started many years ago we made the mistake of trying to get big "names" and invited someone from London office of a big company. The speaker just read us the press release of what had been built in California. BORING. ๐Ÿ˜’ Since then doers only.

Want to speak - please volunteer!
thegeomob.com/volunteer-to-spe

5/ So who gets to speak at Geomob? Anyone! - with only ONE IMPORTANT CAVEAT: the speaker should be a "doer": someone who actually worked on the project described.

When we first started many years ago we made the mistake of trying to get big "names" and invited someone from London office of a big company. The speaker just read us the press release of what had been built in California. BORING. ๐Ÿ˜’ Since then doers only.

Speaker at Geomob London
Speaker at Geomob Berlin
Speaker at Geomob London
Speaker at Geomob Finland
OpenCage ๐Ÿ‘‰๐ŸŒ

6/ Over the years the list of Geomob speakers has grown and grown, and now includes many well know people from the geospatial world: thegeomob.com/past-speakers

Screenshot of the list of past Geomob speakers
OpenCage ๐Ÿ‘‰๐ŸŒ

7/ One fun Geomob tradition is that after the event we vote for the best speaker prize, the winner gets a prize, traditionally a SplashMap splash-maps.com/

SplashMaps themselves first presented at Geomob London back in 2013.

Gary wins the Geomob best speaker prize
Steven and Nina win the Geomob best speaker prize
Tim wins the Geomob best speaker prize
Chris wins the Geomob best speaker prize
OpenCage ๐Ÿ‘‰๐ŸŒ

8/ Some history - Geomob was started all the way back in 2008 by Chris Osborne, we took it over a few years later when Chris left London.

Over time Geomob grew to quarterly events thanks to generous venue hosts like Geovation and UCL's geography dept and the endless flow of interesting geo projects happening in London.

John Snow cholera map
OpenCage ๐Ÿ‘‰๐ŸŒ

9/ A few years ago we expanded Geomob to include events in Barcelona ๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡ธ, Tel Aviv ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ฑ, Berlin ๐Ÿ‡ฉ๐Ÿ‡ช, Lisbon ๐Ÿ‡ต๐Ÿ‡น and Finland ๐Ÿ‡ซ๐Ÿ‡ฎ.

Thanks you to all of the local organizers, speakers, and sponsors who make it possible!

Want to add your city? Please get in touch.

Geomob Tel Aviv
OpenCage ๐Ÿ‘‰๐ŸŒ

10/ Geomob is a fun, in-person event ๐Ÿป But not everyone can travel and attend.

So in 2020 we started the Geomob podcast ๐ŸŒ๐Ÿ—ฃ๏ธ๐ŸŽง

Co-hosts @freyfogle or @stevenfeldman interview people from the community or discuss whats new in geospatial.

Later this month we will publish episode 200!

Here are topic pages full of episodes about
โ€ข OpenStreetMap: thegeomob.com/podcast/tags/ope
โ€ข Geo start-ups: thegeomob.com/podcast/tags/sta
โ€ข Open Source geo: thegeomob.com/podcast/tags/osg
โ€ข Cartography/mappping thegeomob.com/podcast/tags/map

10/ Geomob is a fun, in-person event ๐Ÿป But not everyone can travel and attend.

So in 2020 we started the Geomob podcast ๐ŸŒ๐Ÿ—ฃ๏ธ๐ŸŽง

Co-hosts @freyfogle or @stevenfeldman interview people from the community or discuss whats new in geospatial.

Later this month we will publish episode 200!

Here are topic pages full of episodes about
โ€ข OpenStreetMap: thegeomob.com/podcast/tags/ope
โ€ข Geo start-ups: thegeomob.com/podcast/tags/sta
โ€ข Open Source geo: thegeomob.com/podcast/tags/osg

Screenshot of the Geomob podcast episode list
Ed and Steven recording a podcast
OpenCage ๐Ÿ‘‰๐ŸŒ

11/ Hopefully all of this has piqued your interest.

Want to join the Geomob community? Sign up for the monthly newsletter โœ‰๏ธ (the Sept edition will go out in a few days).

Here in the fediverse you can follow @geomob where we post event summary threads and announcements

Here's our most recent Berlin event back in June:
mapstodon.space/@geomob/110479

#geomob

OpenCage ๐Ÿ‘‰๐ŸŒ replied to OpenCage

12/ We hope you can join us at one of the upcoming Geomob events

That's it for this week's geothread. Thanks for reading and boosting.

We have more threads about the #geoweirdness of specific countries, border disputes, geocoding, etc on our blog. Enjoy: blog.opencagedata.com/geothrea

List of upcoming Geomob events
Screenshot of the OpenCage geothreads page
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