Jeroens blog

Yesterday the Dutch GSoC student meeting took place at Hackerspace Brussels (which appears to be the first, and currently only hackerspace in Belgium). Unfortunately 1/3rd of the attendees forgot to come, resulting in only 2 people being present. Some interesting people where present at HSB though, which who I had some nice conversations about ICT related subjects. I also installed Maps and Semantic Maps on their wiki, as a demonstration of the extension’s usage.

Sunday, 11th of October, I’ll be giving a presentation about Semantic Mapping with MediaWiki. This comes down to presenting the two mapping extensions for the MediaWiki platform I developed, Maps and Semantic Maps. The presentation language will be English, but Dutch questions are acceptable.

Presentation contents

• Introduction to the wiki concept and MediaWiki
• Introduction to the semantic web and Semantic MediaWiki
• Why mapping is useful
• Introduction to Maps
• Usage of Maps
• Introduction to Semantic Maps
• Usage of Semantic Maps
• Future development
• Questions

As you can see, the presentation will focus on the usage of the extensions, and not the technical aspects involved. Therefore no extensive knowledge about any of the involved technologies is required.

Where and when

The presentation will take place October 11th, in the afternoon. The exact moment is not yet determined, although the presentation will probably start around 14:00 and last for about an hour. It will be held at a presentation room at Zebrastraat, 9000 Gent, Belgium. The accommodations are provided and paid for by Alain Liedts.

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Targeted public

This presentation is most interesting for everyone active in the areas of mapping, semantics and wiki’s, but also for those involved with any form of software development, site administration or web publishing.

Attending

If you are interested in attending, you must contact me in advance to ensure there is enough room. There is no entrance fee. See this article for more info.

Future presentations

In November, I’m likely to give another presentation about Maps and Semantic Maps at Semantic MediaWiki Camp 2009. SMWC is a 2 day user meeting by and for the SMW that will take place in Karlsruhe, Germany on November, 7th – 8th 2009. This talk will probably be shorter, since the introductions to MW and SMW will not be required, and the attendees will be better informed about the relevant systems.

I’m also likely to give another presentation in early 2010, again at the Zebrastraat. This presentation will be part of a regular event held every Thursday, and will be publicly announced by the organization running the event. This is still far ahead, and no precise date has been chosen yet, so I’ll post more about this later on.

Me and two fellow Google Summer of Code students, one from the Netherlands, and one from Belgium, have decided to hold a meeting in Brussels. This will be a great opportunity to discuss each others work, and future plans.

There are over 10 other Dutch speaking GSoC students we haven’t heard of, they are of course also welcome. I’d also like to invite people who are interested in GSoC. This includes people who are simply curious and want to know what it is, but also those who are considering to participate as either student or mentor in a future GSoC. Note that non Ducth people are also welcome! Feel free to send me an email, or one on the GSoC student list, if you are interested, or simply comment on this blog post.

The meeting will take place September 29th, at 19:30, in Hacker Space Brussels (HSB). HSB is located at PRINSES ELISABETHLAAN 46, 1030 Schaarbeek, Brussels.