FOSS4G NA 2024 - B2B Keynote - Jim McKelvey

Once again, welcome to the FOSS for Geospatial North America. This is a B2B session. For those of you who aren't familiar with the objective, it is to have some cocktails, to network, but most importantly to forge networks, partnerships, problem-solving teams, whatever you want to call it, that go well beyond these next few days. In this room, we have technologists, innovators, business leaders, representatives from government who are familiar with problems. We have some of the finest developers who gave workshops today and who will be giving several technical talks throughout the week. So everybody is here, it's not just us. There are a lot of people who are here, they're also part of that community, and we try to iteratively improve upon this event every year. That being said, I'm not sure if we're going to be able to top this one. So with that, none of this happens without a couple of people. One is Brian Monheiser. Thanks Brian. Not only does he have one of the best haircuts in the room, but he's probably one of the hardest charging industry folks that you'll ever meet. So thanks Brian for putting us together. And also, Greater St. Louis Inc., who is our sponsor for this event. It would not happen without Greater St. Louis. So with that, I would like to introduce Maggie Kost. She will say a few words.

Thanks so much. It's an honor to welcome all of you, the FOSS for Geospatial open source community, here to St. Louis. Our team has been so excited about this event and what it represents, what you all are going to be talking about and doing over the next couple of days. We are absolutely enamored with geospatial in St. Louis. If you don't know that already, as Ryan kind of alluded to, I represent Greater St. Louis Inc. We are the business and civic community in St. Louis. We help to grow inclusive growth, to expand inclusive growth in our community across the 15-county metro. And we see geospatial technology as a huge part of that inclusive growth. In fact, you'll see the signs, the banners behind me here. The GeoFutures initiative is one of our core initiatives at GSL, and really it's all about that geospatial ecosystem and how we're going to grow that ecosystem over the next 10 years. Of course, it was founded in large part at the time when the NGA decided to keep their Western headquarters here in St. Louis and made that almost $2 billion investment just a mile north of where we're standing right now. We see that as an incredible anchor in this ecosystem, but we think there's so much more potential beyond NGA. And we're so excited that you're here to see it for yourself in our community this week and be here with us. There are so many great opportunities to engage our geospatial ecosystem this week beyond FOSS for Geospatial, and we hope that you'll stay here for GeoResolution and some of the other things that are going on. Thank you all so much. I know we've got a great speaker lined up here for you, and can't wait to have conversations throughout the week with all of you and have you see what's going on here in St. Louis. Thank you all so much. I'm going to turn it over to Ryan.

Thanks again, Megan. Next, without further ado, it's my honor to introduce our keynote speaker for this event, an extraordinary innovator in St. Louis. Did I say that correctly? St. Louis. Who has left an indelible mark on both the tech world and entrepreneurship. Many of you know him as the co-founder of Square, the groundbreaking financial services company that revolutionized small business payments by turning smartphones into card readers. But he is more than just an entrepreneur. He's also an engineer, artist, and philanthropist with a deep-rooted passion for building solutions that challenge the status quo. Jim is also an author. His book, The Innovation Stack: Building an Unbeatable Business One Crazy Idea at a Time, has some great quotes and themes. Some of those include, 'Every perfect problem has a perfect solution.' One of my favorites, 'Oysters do not choose to make pearls.' And one I think is very fitting to our open source community of innovators and users, 'Copying is part of the innovation process. We can strategically imitate existing ideas or capabilities and build upon them in unique ways.' What makes Jim's story particularly relevant to this audience is his approach to innovation. He didn't just set out to disrupt the payments industry by following the traditional playbook. Instead, he used open, accessible technology to solve a problem for everyday people. With Square, he and his team embraced a spirit of collaboration, simplicity, and transparency, values that resonate deeply with our open source community. His commitment to solving complex problems extends beyond Square. He is a driving force behind LaunchCode, a nonprofit that opens doors for aspiring coders and developers, providing them with the skills and opportunities they need to thrive in the tech world. Another ethos that aligns with the open source movement ideals of accessibility and shared knowledge. Please join me in welcoming the true visionary, Jim McKelvey.