[kwlug-disc] Toronto OpenStreetMap Hack Weekend

[Richard Weait]

OpenStreetMap has a tradition of awesome weekend developer events,
called Hack Weekends.  Many of the improvements to OpenStreetMap,
large and small, saw first light at previous Hack Weekends, including
editors, API improvements, adding internationalization to the web
site, and many more.  If you are an OSM developer, want to be an OSM
developer, or just want to know more about OSM, we have something for
you this weekend.  Read on.

All Hack Weekends prior to 2012 have been held in Europe, but things
are changing[1].  The first Canadian OSM Hack Weekend is being held in
Toronto, this week.  Join us Friday through Sunday, 16 - 18 March 2012
for social and technical events involving the international OSM
community.

Introductory event

An Introduction to OpenStreetMap presentation, and extended Q&A expert
panel will be held Friday afternoon at Ryerson University[2].  You
should attend this if you want to learn more about OpenStreetMap as a
user, F/LOSS advocate, or as a developer.

What's all the fuss?  Why does the UN think OSM is so cool?  Why have
GeoCaching.com, Foursquare.com, Apple and many others all moved to
OSM, recently?  How do I get involved in OpenStreetMap and why would
I?

The introductory presentation and Q&A is Friday afternoon, 2pm - 4pm
at Ryerson University[2]

Social event

You should attend the social event if you want to know more about
OpenStreetMap and the people involved in it.  The goal of the social
event is for the developers to get to know each other.  Developers
from three countries are already registered.  Now you can get to know
some of the developers too.  The social event is hosted by members of
the Toronto OpenStreetMap community.  Join us Friday night from 7pm -
9pm [3].  These social meetings happen every month so keep an eye on
the calendar.

Technical event

You should attend the technical event if you are already committing
code to one or more of the tools in the OSM stack.  You should attend
if you are user of the OSM stack, and have an idea of what you want to
improve, and how to make that improvement.

The main goal of the hack is to put developers in a room to improve
OSM code.  Saturday and Sunday will see collaborative and individual
projects advancing at breakneck speeds.

Register to attend the Hack Weekend on the OSM wiki. [4]

Thanks to the good folks at The Ryerson University Department of
Geography, Master of Spatial Analysis (MSA) program, and the Student
Association of Geographic Analysis for providing the awesome venue
where our developers will meet.

[1] The first North American Hack Weekend was held in Washington DC,
in February.
[2] 380 Victoria Street, room POD-348, Map http://osm.org/go/ZX6Bt0sGI--?m
[3] http://www.meetup.com/OpenStreetMap-Toronto/
[4] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Toronto_Hack_Weekend_March_2012