[ckan-discuss] introduction from Italy

[andrea giacomelli]

Hello -

I'm popping in to introduce myself, following the invitation by Jonathan
Gray to join the list, and following some time (a couple of years?) on the
OKFN list.

some notes:

a) Historically (since 1993) I have been involved in geographic information
systems and free/open source "stuff".

b) In late 2006 I was part of the melting pot which generated GFOSS.it, the
Italian OSGEO chapter.
I have been quite active over the past three years with this association,
mainly in communication/marketing/social engineering activities, and as Vice
President from 2008 until a few weeks ago, when the new board was elected.

c) Interesting achievements under the GFOSS.it/OSGEO aegis have been

- bringing blind people to map (i.e. the M(')appare Milano project)
- creating peculiar awareness raising videos  -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZOQSn5tyqQ
- eventually catalysing the creation of paid job opportunities related to
open geodata in Italy, and surely contributing to maintaining a debate on
the loss of value in considering "making free maps" a leisure activity
leading to data of questionable quality, associated to unexplained
externalities... (we recently presented a talk on this, at the 11th GRASS
USER meeting in Lugano, Switzerland, and are developing more of this
topic)....apologies for the extra-long sentence... ;)

d) The other element is that the "open knowledge" angle of my activities
falls within a broader string of projects and initiatives, which can be
found here:

http://www.pibinko.org/projects.php?l=en&pmode=list

e) more on the geodata side:   I have recently started composing songs about
neogeography and paleogeography... given that I was finding some difficulty
in communicating with some of my peers in the Italian mailing lists, I
considered that I might try with music.

f) In the meantime, I have taken 2010 as a "pseudo-sabbatical" phase: I have
unsubscribed from GFOSS.it and will be taking time to better cover other
activities.

While we still needs to see where the geo-musical drift will bring us, I'll
be glad to be more in touch with communities where I have been mainly
lurking to date, and OKFN/CKAN can be one of these.

g) OpenGeodata is an active front, but I am not neglecting other areas...I
liked a lot the weaving history project...

So much for the introduction --- I'll be looking forward to developments on
this list.

Best regards!

Andrea Giacomelli - info at pibinko.org -
http://www.pibinko.org

p.s. unfortunately the default time for the IRC meetings tends to fall in a
bad moment of my week....I'll try to do my best at being there.
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