State Of The Map 2016/Call for venues/Brussels

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State Of The Map in Brussels?

Welcome to the bid proposal page to host State of the Map 2016, in Brussels, Belgium. We are OpenStreetMap Belgium and we believe it is time to have a SOTM in Brussels.

Brussels is the de facto capital of the European Union and unofficial heart of Europe, conveniently located, with excellent venues and easy to reach by public transport. It has direct connections by high speed train to London, Paris, Amsterdam and Germany. The national airport is a short trainride away and the airport at Charleroi, with cheap flights from various destinations, has a direct shuttle service to Brussels.

Apart from that Brussels is a great city with a lot of leisure options and a great place to spend a few days, before or after. There are also direct rail connections to Bruges (50mins), Ghent (30mins), Antwerp (40mins) and Liège (1 hour) if you plan on visiting.

Who's on the team?

Most of us are members of the OpenStreetMap Belgium working group at Open Knowledge Belgium

Our team members are:

  • Nicolas Pettiaux (OSM-BE)
  • Ben Abelshausen (OSM-BE)
  • Joost Schouppe (OSM-BE)
  • Pieter-Jan Pauwels (OK-BE)
  • Julien Fastré (OSM-BE)
  • Marc Ducobu (OSM-BE)

Our team has experience organizing conferences. See References

Transport

Brussels has very good transit connections and air travel options.

Train

  • London: eurostar train: +/- 2 hours, price from €88 (eurostar.com)
  • Paris: thalys train: +/- 1h 30, price from €22 (thalys.com)
  • Amsterdam: thalys train: +/- 2 hours, price form €40 (thalys.com)

Airtravel

Best option is Brussels Aiport and mostly low-budget options are possible via Brussels South Charleroi Airport.

  • Africa: A lot of direct flights with Brussels Airlines.
  • US/Canada: Montréal, Canada (Air Canada, Air Transat), Toronto, Canada (Jet Airways), New York (Brussels Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Jet Airways, United Airlines), Washington (United Airlines, Brussels Airlines), Chicago (United Airlines), Newark (United Airlines), Philadelphia(US Airways), Atlanta (Delta Air Lines),
  • Europe: A lot of connections going from/to Brussels Airport.
  • Asia: Direct connections to Thailand, India, Singapore, ...
  • Russia: Aeroflot to/from Moscow.
  • ... and a lot more, Brussels is very well connected to the rest of the world.

Where?

We have a semi-confirmed option at the free university of brussels (ULB). The same location as FOSDEM every year since 2000. And also for Rencontres mondiales des logiciels libres (RMLL) 2013. It has proven to be suitable to host a conference of a size similar to SOTM with a lot of open options on how to make the details work. See references here under.

There are also other options available in Brussels.

When?

We are not sure about a date just yet. We should take into account other events and most of the event related to SOTM do not have a fixed date yet. We have been leaning towards the end of the year, september probably.

References

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