Dirk Frigne
Engineer
Geosparc
Belgium

Biography
Visionary GIS entrepreneur. GIS professional with extensive software development experience, as a developer, architect and project manager. Founder of DFC (specialized in eGov and GIS software solutions) and Geosparc NV (the main sponsor of Geomajas, a GIS software framework for SDI solutions). In an IT career of more than 28 years, Dirk understands that leadership and team building are the keys to successful IT and development projects. His key skills are situated in Geo, CAD and ICT related domains. Charter OSGeo member. Dirk is a regular speaker on FOSS4G conferences and other events about doing business with open source.

Abstract
How Open Source and INSPIRE can be used as a Tactical Weapon for Economical Growth in Europe

Co-Authors:
Torsten Friebe, lat/lon GmbH
Giacome Martirano, Epsilon Italia srl

Europe is well known for its broad network of SME's. In fact, more than 99% of all European businesses are SME's. The recognition that SME's are important for the successful deployment of a platform like INSPIRE is proven by projects such as SMESpire (www.smespire.eu) and programs such as ARE3NA. This paper builds on the observation of Torsten Friebe (member of the technical commitee of the deegree project - www.deegree.org) and other OSGeo community members saying that still a lot of inefficiencies exist between the different projects from various administrations in different countries. Often the consequence of a “not invented here" syndrome. Currently there is no OSGeo project which provides a full INSPIRE compliant stack consisting out of INSPIRE View (INSPIRE VS TG WMS Profil und INSPIRE), Download (direct access WFS 2.0.0) and Discovery Service (CSW 2.0.2 ISO AP) implementations. On the other hand we challenge the experience of Giacomo Martirano, the project lead of the SMESpire project, an initiative to create a community of SME's building INSPIRE related solutions. During this presentation, Dirk Frigne (founder and spiritual father of the geomajas project - www.geomajas.org) will combine these observations and lessons learned to point out some ideas and possibilities how to launch an ambitious initiative where Europe and here SME's can form a strong player on the global market to offer solutions for business needs world wide and to support tackling the ever increasing environmental challenges. These ideas are based on Dirk's passion to create a great European software industry and his experience of founding an open source community and contributing to other technology projects with strong impact on the INSPIRE needs. As the hands-on person he is, the idea's presented here will be supported by first hand experience of setting up such an initiative, based on the co-operation of open source communities and a part of the SMESpire network.