In 2006, a small group of OpenMRS implementers gathered outside Cape Town, South Africa, to share some of their early work using the platform to improve health care delivery in their respective countries. Since then, groups of implementers have hosted the community in other places around the world, including Rwanda, Philippines, and Kenya. These face-to-face meetings have provided countless opportunities for OpenMRS implementers to learn from each other, forge new relationships, and launch new projects.
As the OpenMRS project enters its second decade, the newly-formed nonprofit OpenMRS Inc. is working hard to scale these meetings into even more opportunities for the people in our community to connect and learn from each other. We’re pleased to announce our new line-up of in-person meetings today.
First and foremost, we will continue our successful local & regional OpenMRS Implementers Meetings. As in the past, these meetings will continue to be hosted by local implementers groups, and may be focused on specific themes like capacity development, mHealth, etc. Initiated and coordinated by our implementing partners with organizational assistance from OpenMRS Inc., the meetings are designed to stimulate interest in the region or country in which they are working. Implementers Meetings will be focused on use cases of OpenMRS, and depending on their location, they may also include “field visits” to sites using OpenMRS in different ways. OpenMRS Inc. will continue to provide resources for implementers to successfully advertise and organize these events, which will be held on an ad-hoc basis at different times throughout the year, and in different locations around the world.
We’re happy to announce today that the next OpenMRS Implementers Meeting will be held 27-30 January 2015 in Maputo, hosted by our colleagues at I-TECH Mozambique. Please visit the event registration site for details.
Starting in 2015, OpenMRS Inc. will host an annual global gathering of community members called OpenMRS Summit, focused on building and growing both the OpenMRS community. This event will occur around the same time each year, and will aim to be held in a consistent, cost-effective location each year that offers easy immigration and travel access. While Implementers Meetings are designed to bring together OpenMRS implementers with health care professionals to focus on how OpenMRS is used, the annual Summit will bring together OpenMRS contributors & customers of all types, and will offer them opportunities to share their work, as well as discuss how software will evolve in the coming year. The first OpenMRS Summit will happen in the second half of 2015. Stay tuned for announcements about the location and date.
Finally, over the next several weeks, you’ll be hearing more about a new model of governance within the OpenMRS community that will provide many new opportunities for volunteer leadership. As part of this model, OpenMRS Inc. will be hosting OpenMRS Camp, a small gathering of project leaders and strategic partners. These Barcamp-style events will bring together people who lead certain aspects of the project together to discuss ways to organize and coordinate work. Attendance to these smaller events will be by invitation/application people in roles of leadership.
The first OpenMRS Camp is scheduled for 20-22 November 2014 in the United States. If you are interested in applying to attend, please see the event information page for details.
We realize how important in-person gatherings are for our community, and we’re very excited to announce these improvements! But most of all, we’re very happy to be able to support the good work all of you are doing around the world. Please share any feedback or questions with us - either by replying to this topic or by email at community@openmrs.org.