Build a team, shape your idea, and submit your proposal to host SotM 2026!
Everyone is welcome to submit their bids for next year’s conference. We highly encourage community proposals from regions where the global SotM has not yet been held.
Read the guidelines and selection criteria on the OSM Wiki page to start planning your application for the 2026 conference venue.
This early call gives you the greatest flexibility in choosing dates for 2026. Please take note of other OpenStreetMap-related events (such as FOSS4G and local SotMs) to avoid scheduling conflicts with key community conferences.
how it is interpreted? For example, would that mean that country where global SOTM has not taken place will be preferred?
Or that anything outside Europe will be preferred?
Something else?
When we say “regions where the global SotM has not yet been held,” the intent is to encourage geographic diversity in hosting locations.
This doesn’t mean that only countries or regions that have never hosted before will be considered.
All proposals are welcome, and the final decision is based on many factors: community engagement, accessibility, infrastructure, cost, safety, and more.
it’s an encouragement toward inclusiveness and expanding our global footprint…
When we say “regions where the global SotM has not yet been held,” the intent is to encourage geographic diversity in hosting locations.
This doesn’t mean that only countries or regions that have never hosted before will be considered.
While I agree that geographic diversity for hosting locations is desirable, it is important how these regions are defined, and IMHO the focus should be on cultural diversity rather than physical proximity. To give an example from our past, in 2023 there were three bids, France, Kosovo and Cameroon, France withdrew the bid while Kosovo, despite their proposal was described as a “strong bid”, was dismissed based on the sole fact that it is located in Europe (the continent). But if we defined regions culturally, economically or politically, Kosovo could have been seen as a quite different “region” compared to the UK, France or Italy, as it is not in the EU, is not part of the Schengen agreement, has not a christian tradition, etc.
(Cameroon was then dismissed due to security and safety concerns, in particular for diverse people, so we ended up with no SotM at all in 2023).
So either there were further reasons that were not mentioned (and “strong bid” was misleading/white lie/PR speak). Or anyone proposing location in Europe just wasted all their effort, as no SOTM was preferred to it taking place in Europe.
So the question is whether it makes sense to spend time on making bid if proposed location is in Europe.
I think we have meanwhile covered all continents except Antarctica and Australia/Ocenaia so it is unlikely that a bid would be rejected based on what continent it is in.
As for the more specific question of Europe - as far as I know the OSMF doesn’t have limitless financial means and used to depend partly on some revenue generated by SotM, revenue that used to be somewhat proportional to how wealthy the host country/region were. (I don’t know if this has changed.)
The OSMF has already lost the lucrative US market - nobody will want to ruin OSM-US’s finances by running a SotM there and dropping SotM-US in that year - and unless it at least sporadically hosts an international conference in Europe, there’s a danger of that ship sailing away too with SotM-EU becoming a permanent fixture just like SotM-US is, and OSMF left to organise conferences in regions where it costs money, rather than brings in some revenue to cross-fund other things (like staff, servers, microgrants - or conference location diversity in another year).
These might be things to consider when choosing a venue.
(Edit: Sorry everyone in Australia/Oceania. My initial post said we had covered all contients except Antartica which obviously is untrue.)
