Three of the greatest geographic and mapping meetings are taking place in the UK this month and it is excellent that that two of them will be at Nottingham. For the first time ever the global Free and Open Source Geospatial conference http://2013.foss4g.org will take place in the UK. Co-located with the huge annual UK GI gathering, the AGI GeoCommunity, these two events will turn Nottingham University campus into the focus of the geospatial world. Details at http://www.maptember.org

It is very appropriate that Nottingham  is the venue for FOSS4G 2013  as it was here according to legend that many centuries ago, Professor R Hood and colleagues established a research centre to pioneer innovative research methodologies for developing positive income redistribution models to help the poor. He would have been surprised to see the ridiculously high annual licensing fees that some of the proprietary software companies and vendors charge!  This is limiting education opportunities in GIS for poor students worldwide.

But there is good news for everyone who wish to learn  GIS  as the latest version of OSGeo Live will be officially launched at FOSS4G 2013 in  Nottingham. Thanks to the selfless efforts and dedication of hundreds of volunteers worldwide that help make this possible. OSGeo Live 7.0 features more than fifty open source, standards compliant geospatial desktop applications, web applications and frameworks. A complete installation kit and high-quality sample data in multiple industry standard formats are included. It is composed entirely of free software, allowing it to be freely distributed, duplicated and passed around. You are very  welcome to visit http://live.osgeo.org/en/index.html

Happy Maptember to all and looking forward to seeing you in Nottingham.