The Open Source for Geospatial Foundation - in Europe and beyond

OSGeo + Europe = 💚

Abstract

The Open Source for Geospatial Foundation is the software foundation that initiated and anchors the FOSS4G conferences and its side events across the world, be they regional or global, since 2006. The first keynote of FOSS4G Europe 2026 is an introduction in the rationale of OSGeo, its worldwide community and how a 20-years old software foundation driven fully by volunteers navigates the shapeshifting challenges of our world today, from financial sustainability in an increasingly unstable world, to new legislation impacts on the open source communities to AI. In Europe and beyond.

Bio

Jeroen Ticheler is CEO/Owner of GeoCat BV, GeoCat Geospatial S.L. and GeoCat Canada Ltd., chair and founder of GeoNetwork opensource, and OSGeo President of the Board of Directors.

GeoCat was founded by Jeroen in 2007. Jeroen studied Tropical Forestry at Wageningen University, specialising in GIS and Remote Sensing. Following graduation in 1997, he worked for the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in Rome for nine years. Jeroen held various positions for the FAO in GIS/remote sensing and established the GeoNetwork opensource project. The FAO GeoNetwork is the first implementation based on this software, releasing a large quantity of geospatial data to the public.

Today GeoNetwork opensource is widely used as a geospatial catalogue application with implementations from smaller projects to national and international level catalogs including National Geospatial & Open Data Registries and the INSPIRE GeoPortal in the EU.