FOSS4G Europe 2026, Timișoara, Romania

It's always a joy to arrive at FOSS4G Europe and immediately be surrounded by familiar faces: people you've worked with, collaborated with, debated with, or shared a drink with over the years. But what makes this community truly special is that every edition also brings new people, new ideas, and new energy. This year in Timișoara, Romania, was no exception.

And yes, I travelled by train again. Together with Joram van der Vlist (Geo‑ICT Training Center), Dirk Voets, and Laura Agudelo Mayorga (IHE Delft alumna and beneficiary of the QGISHydro Book Fund), we made it a proper geo‑rail adventure: Nightjet to Vienna, Railjet to Budapest, a hot (literally) evening in Budapest, and then onward to Timișoara. The extra challenge this year was the heat wave that followed us all the way from the Netherlands and stayed with us during the first days of the conference. On the way back, temperatures finally dropped, and I enjoyed a beautiful stopover in Prague.

I then joined the presentation "From Tile-Based Processing to Distributed Execution: Extending the mapchete stack", which dove into large‑scale geospatial data processing pipelines.

After lunch, Evelyn Uuemaa presented "Teaching geoinformatics when tools are no longer the challenge". We discussed how lecturers are navigating AI, LLMs, vibe coding, and the shifting balance between teaching tools and teaching thinking. A very timely conversation.

Then Dirk Voets stepped in to present our work: "Making cities more liveable in a FOSS way: open data to the rescue", highlighting the Friedenau Society's efforts to produce open, transparent datasets for greener cities.

The last talk I attended that day was from IGN France: "Boosting QGIS: What France's Mapping Agency Adds to the Toolbox". Great to see how IGN is building communities around QGIS plugins. I'm looking forward to welcoming them as a sustaining member of QGIS.

In the evening, we joined the guided city tour and learned about the rich history of Timișoara. Afterwards, the ice‑breaker party offered good food, cold drinks, and warm conversations.

30 June – Europe Day

The second day started with a strong keynote by Stefanie Lumnitz: "CONTRIBUTING.md for Europe: Time to fork the policy repo?" A creative metaphor and a compelling call for more open, collaborative policy processes.

IGN followed with "National Map Agency – How to build Digital Commons?", a topic that resonates strongly with current European digital ambitions.

After the coffee break, the Made in Europe session began. It moved from the European level down to communities and companies.

The first talk was by Marco Minghini and Stefanie Lumnitz: "Open Source, Digital Sovereignty and Europe's Geospatial Future".

Next, I presented: "Open Source for Digital Sovereignty: Business Models, Trustmarks, and Procurement Reform", based on the work also shown in this video:

The session concluded with Jeroen Ticheler: "Sustaining Open Source: Real models, Real lessons".

After lunch, I attended Laura Agudelo's presentation: "Evaluating the application of FAO WaPOR data to support Colombia's National Water Study", followed by two more academic presentations.

In the evening, we enjoyed the Gala Dinner with great food, great company, and an amazing band!

1 July – Last Day of Talks

The day started with a keynote by Octavian Iercan: "GIS in the Cloud", sharing his personal journey and experiences at Quarticle.

I then chaired two sessions.

The first began with an entertaining duo presentation by Frank Elsinga and Yuri Astrakhan: "State of the MapLibre Tile Format", followed by Iván Sánchez Ortega with a deep dive into coordinate systems for web maps. I'll never look at a web map the same way again.

The second session started with Yanko Godaert (Geosquare Belgium) presenting brdr and brdrQ, a Python package and QGIS plugin to automatically align polygons. The graphical progress indicator is brillian and the tool is useful for many workflows.

Next, Berit Mohr presented the Systematic Land Regulation Tool (SLRT) developed for Laos, followed by Patrick Mizera with an update on Mergin Maps.

After lunch, I joined Berit Mohr again for "QField goes (e)geniouss", introducing the Egeniouss cloud service that provides 10 cm accuracy on mobile devices without external GPS. Very promising technology.

At the end of the day, I joined the QGIS Trainer Network Birds of a Feather session. We presented the outcomes of our questionnaire and discussed follow‑up actions. Kurt Menke and I had to leave early, because we were invited to a VIP dinner with Mergin Maps, which was a great way to close the day.