Conferences | The University of Vermont

VERSO strives to be engaged with the broader community, this is all the events where VERSO has either presented or attended events or conferences.

2026

Open Data Summit 2026 (October 9, 2026)

Hosted by the Vermont Research Open Source Program Office (VERSO) and the UVM Libraries, the Open Data Summit brings together researchers, students, data practitioners, government staff, and community members to share, learn, and build around open data. This free, single-track conference supports UVM's and Vermont's commitment to transparent, accessible, and community-driven research and public data. Held 10:00am to 4:00pm in Innovation Hall, Room E105, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT.

Kendall Fortney is the organizer along with the UVM Libraries.

Open Science 101 Training (September 18, 2026)

Open Science 101 is a curriculum originally developed by NASA's Transform to Open Science (TOPS) initiative to train researchers in the principles and day-to-day practices of open, transparent, and reproducible research. VERSO adapted the course for the UVM community as a free, three-hour, hands-on workshop for anyone at UVM who produces, manages, or publishes research, with a focus on meeting federal funder expectations for data sharing, public access, and reproducibility. Held in the Innovation Hall E100 conference room.

Kendall Fortney led and organized this training.

Vermont Leadership Institute (April 24, 2026)

Created by the Snelling Center for Government in 1995, the Vermont Leadership Institute (VLI) is a ten-month leadership development program for civic leaders from Vermont's private, public, and nonprofit sectors, with seminar sessions held in different regions of the state.

Kendall Fortney participated in a panel for the VLI Class of 2026 about AI and data

Vermont Capital Planning Forum (April 9, 2026)

The Vermont Capital Planning Forum is an annual in-person event, hosted by the Vermont Bond Bank, that helps governmental units of all sizes and capacity explore Vermont-specific best practices in capital planning.

Kendall Fortney presented "Learning from UVM's Data Dogs."

Vermont Bond Bank Rural Water Supply Meeting (January 13, 2026)

A meeting convened by the Vermont Bond Bank on rural water supply in Vermont.

Kendall Fortney presented on the Wastewater Infrastructure Mapping project.

2025

2025 Northern New England Planning Conference (November 3-5, 2025)

The annual conference of the Northern New England Chapter of the American Planning Association (NNECAPA), which serves planners in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, held at the Holiday Inn by the Bay in Portland, Maine. The chapter works to raise the quality of planning across the three states and encourage the exchange of ideas among planners in the region.

Kendall Fortney presented on the Vermont Zoning Atlas.

11th Annual Vermont Development Conference (October 30, 2025)

Hosted by White + Burke Real Estate Advisors at Hotel Champlain in Burlington, the Vermont Development Conference convenes more than 300 leaders in real estate, planning, finance, energy, construction, engineering, law, and government. The 2025 program focused on Vermont's housing shortage, financing tools for housing and infrastructure, and debate over the state's growth path.

Kendall Fortney presented on a panel

PyData Vermont 2025 (October 21-22, 2025)

PyData Vermont 2025 is an in-person gathering for the international community of data scientists, data engineers, and developers of data analysis tools to share ideas and learn from each other, held at the UVM Alumni House Silver Pavilion in Burlington. PyData is an educational program of NumFOCUS, a nonprofit promoting open practices in research, data, and scientific computing.

Kendall Fortney organized and ran this event.

Resilient Vermont 2025: Securing Resilient Communities (September 12, 2025)

Held at Norwich University in Northfield, Resilient Vermont brings together community leaders and groups working to strengthen Vermont's resilience. The 2025 conference was organized around climate, health, and technological resilience, including sessions on using data for informed decision-making. The event is organized by the Resilient Vermont Network, coordinated by Norwich University's Center for Global Resilience and Security.

Kendall Fortney attended.

Vermont Community Leadership Summit (August 11, 2025)

Hosted by the Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD) at Vermont State University in Randolph, the Summit gathers hundreds of community builders from across the state for workshops, panels, and networking on supporting neighbors, improving rural services, strengthening leadership, and growing local economies.

Kendall Fortney attended and supported a session on wastewater data.

Community-Driven Sessions on Open Source and Digital Collaboration (June 20, 2025)

A community-led side event of UN Open Source Week 2025, hosted by PwC at its New York office and organized with Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE) and OpenForum Europe (OFE). The event brought together experts from more than 40 international organizations across business, NGOs, and government.

Kendall Fortney presented on open source in academia as part of a panel.

UN Open Source Week 2025 and CURIOSS Members Meeting (June 16-20, 2025)

UN Open Source Week, held at United Nations Headquarters in New York, is a week of panels, hackathons, and breakout sessions on open source, digital public infrastructure, and digital cooperation. The 2025 program included the UN Tech Over hackathon, OSPOs for Good, Digital Public Infrastructure Day, and community side events. CURIOSS, the Community for University and Research Institution OSPOs, convened its members alongside the week.

VERSO Director Kendall Fortney attended UN Open Source Week and the CURIOSS Members Meeting.

Intro to GitHub and Project Management (May 29, 2025)

A hands-on workshop for summer interns in SOCKS (Data REvolution for Vermont: The Science of Online Corpora, Knowledge and Stories), introducing GitHub and project management practices for collaborative research software work.

Kendall Fortney led this workshop.

Economic Development Professionals Meeting (May 1, 2025)

A community gathering of Vermont economic development professionals.

Kendall Fortney and Gabe Christensen presented on the datasets being created by VERSO and the ORCA program.

Vermont Leadership Institute (April 25, 2025)

Kendall Fortney and Fitzwilliam Keenan-Koch led a session on AI and data.

Research Week: Building Better UX for Science (April 23, 2025)

This workshop is for domain scientists and research software engineers interested in user research and user experience (UX) design. Participants learned how to use UX research methods for design decisions in scientific software development, including identifying high-priority usability issues, conducting a user study, and analyzing user research data. Held in Billings-Ira Allen Lecture Hall I101.

VERSO hosted this workshop.

Research Week: STRUDEL Kit UX Clinic (April 23, 2025)

STRUDEL is an open source science project building resources that help teams plan, design, and build user-centered software for their scientific communities. Research software engineers, developers, UX researchers, and students brought their projects to 15 to 25 minute work sessions with STRUDEL usability designers. Held in the Davis Center Jost Foundation Room.

VERSO hosted this clinic.

Leahy Grants – Cycle 1 Celebration and Pitch Event (March 25, 2025)

The Cycle 1 Celebration showcases all the projects support by the Leahy Institute for Rural Partnerships.

Kendall Fortney and Chris Campany (Windham Regional Planning Commission) presented on the Wastewater Infrastructure Mapping project.

Ithaka S+R Webinar – University Open Source Program Offices (OSPOs) in Action (March 20, 2025)

This event is an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding about the role of OSPOs in academia and to learn from institutions that are pioneering efforts to institutionalize open source engagement. The panel includes Robin Delaloye, Associate Dean, Student Success and Scholarly Technology, George Washington University, Kendall Fortney, Program Director, Vermont Research Open Source Program Office, University of Vermont and Francesca Vera, Technical Community Manager for OpenSource@Stanford, Stanford University.

VERSO Director Kendall Fortney participated in the panel

Regional Planning Commission (VAPDA) Meeting (March 6, 2025)

The Vermont Association of Planning and Development Agencies (VAPDA) is the statewide association for the State of Vermont’s 11 regional planning commissions.

Chris Campany (Windham Regional Planning Commission) and Emma Spett (Leahy Institute for Rural Partnerships) presented about the Wastewater Infrastructure Mapping project.

Vermont Works for Women – Rosie Girls Coding (February 28, 2025)

Rosie’s Girls is a STEAM, trades, and career exploration summer day camp for middle school girls offered in communities across Vermont. At Rosie’s Girls, youth are introduced to skills and career fields through hands-on learning in a supportive and empowering environment.

Kendall Fortney presented how to code Arduino single-board microcontrollers in multiple coding languages at the Community Technical Center, South Burlington VT.

VECAP Data and Evaluation Committee (January 30, 2025)

Vermont’s Early Childhood Action Plan (VECAP) is building a comprehensive and integrated early childhood system that promotes healthy child development and family stability.

Kendall Fortney presented on Utilizing Private Partners to Build State Capacity. It included a brief overview of the Vermont Zoning Atlas and the Wastewater Infrastructure Mapping projects at VERSO and exploration of opportunities to leverage the open source ecosystem across the early childhood system

Economic Development Professionals Gathering (January 28, 2025)

The Economic Development Professionals Gathering at the Colchester Town Offices brings together a wide spectrum of city professionals.

Kendall Fortney presented along with student Zach Winigrad on the Vermont Zoning Atlas and the Vermont Liveabiltiy Map

Innovation Improv: Open Source Resources (January 9, 2025)

The first Innovation Improv of the year at the Patrick Leahy Building.

Kendall Fortney presented about open-source resources here at UVM and how they can be used to help innovation make an impact.

Data + Open Science Summit (January 7-9, 2025)

The Data + Open Science Summit at UVM, hosted by the UVM Library, Vermont Research Open Source Program Office (VERSO), the Graduate College and the Office of the Provost with instructional support from NASA and the Software Carpentries, supports UVM’s commitment to transparent, collaborative, and accessible research. This free event offers faculty, graduate students, postdocs, and staff the opportunity to engage with trainings and workshops on data management planning, empowering researchers to maximize the impact of their work.

Kendall Fortney was the organizer along the UVM Library

2024

Vermont Statewide Housing Conference (November 14, 2024)

For over 20 years, the Vermont Statewide Housing Conference in Burlington, VT has drawn hundreds of Vermonters interested in affordable housing together. This is the only conference that brings together housing professionals from across the state to cover a comprehensive range of topics like housing development, single family financing, affordable housing, housing policy, local planning for housing, homelessness, and other special topics.

Kendall Fortney presented on the Vermont Zoning Atlas Project along with Yoshi Bird.

Green Mountain Water Fall Trade Show (November 7, 2024)

GMWEA’s Fall Tradeshow is Vermont’s largest and longest-running water quality conference, presented each year at the state’s premiere venue, the DoubleTree Hotel in South Burlington. Each fall, over 400 water, wastewater, and stormwater professionals, water quality technology and service providers, DPW administrators, staff from nonprofit organizations, and State agency administrators convene to attend the conference.

Kendall Fortney, Chris Campany (Windham Regional Planning Commission) and Emma Spett (Leahy Institute for Rural Partnerships) presented about the Wastewater Infrastructure Mapping project.

FSRC Sustainability Metrics Open Data Discussion (October 18, 2024)

FSRC is hosting on open data for the Sustainability Metrics projects.

Kendall Fortney presented on a more in-depth conversation about the logistics of open data for these projects.

Innova802 Podcast Recording : Activate with UVM’s Open Source(September 12, 2025)

This podcase by Vermont tech leaders Will Jeffries, Ryan Munn and Scott Graves as they discover the best in technology-driven entrepreneurship.

Kendall Fortney spoke on the power of the open-source community in shaping a society that delivers human-scaled, beneficial solutions in technology.

PyData Vermont 2024 (July 29 to July 30, 2024)

PyData Vermont 2024 is a two day in-person event at Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center in Burlington Vermont for the international community of data scientists, data engineers, and developers of data analysis tools to share ideas and learn from each other. PyData provides a forum for the international community of users and developers of data analysis tools to share ideas and learn from each other. The global PyData network promotes discussion of best practices, new approaches, and emerging technologies for data management, processing, analytics, and visualization. PyData communities approach data science using many languages, including (but not limited to) Python, Julia, and R. PyData is an educational program of NumFOCUS, a nonprofit charity promoting open practices in research, data, and scientific computing.

Kendall Fortney was the organizer along with NumFocus and facilitator for this event and ran an interactive session on the “Future of PyData Vermont”

Linux Foundation – What’s Next for Open Source? (July 11, 2025)

The Linux Foundation’s What’s Next for Open Source? event is a workshop that explores the future of open source and its impact on global cooperation. The event includes discussions and hands-on activities which allow participants to share insights. The 2024 event will take place on July 11, immediately following the OSPOs for Good 2024 symposium. The event will feature a panel and speakers, including Omkhar Arasaratnam, General Manager for the OpenSSF, and Arun Gupta, OpenSSF Governing Board Chairperson.

VERSO Director Kendall Fortney participated in a working group on starting an OSPO in an academic Institutions

United Nations OSPOS for Good 2024 (July 9-10, 2024)

UN Member States are also increasingly interested in ways to better leverage open source technologies for sustainable development. Promoting open source technologies is thus critical to ensuring that technologies’ full benefits are harnessed to achieve the United Nations’ mandates, goals and perspectives. This action symposium at nited Nations Building, New York City, NY aims to address the issue of wasted potential by fostering collaboration among government, academia, and industry through a novel cooperative infrastructure. The goal is to work together towards achieving positive outcomes for society. Connecting OSPOs for Good will help build on the existing model of OSPOs and extend it further to address societal challenges and create positive social, environmental, and humanitarian impact.

VERSO Director Kendall Fortney participated in the panel “Cooperating OSPOs – Across Society”

CURIOSS Members Summer Workshop 2024 (June 27, 2024)

Funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, CURIOSS is a Community for University and Research Institution OSPOs with the goal to facilitate the networking and collaboration between CURIOSS representatives from universities and research institutions worldwide. The Members Summer Workshop 2024 brought together multiple OSPOs in a member’s-only workshop to explore the challenges and opportunities facing open source in academia at Hula in Burlington, VT.

VERSO Director Kendall Fortney was the organizer and facilitator for this event

RISE Summit 2024 (June 24-25, 2024)

Hosted by UVM, the RISE Summit will highlight efforts to utilize research, innovation, sustainability, and entrepreneurship to solve problems through partnership and collaboration. By bringing together researchers, entrepreneurs, problem-solvers, and energized community members the goal is to address a myriad of complex challenges including how to build flood resilience, strengthen food systems, enhance educational opportunities for learners of all ages, amplify technology solutions for our energy and community systems, and converge on ideas for a sustainable future.

VERSO Director Kendall Fortney was part of a panel called “Presentation: Placemaking Tools: Maps, Drones, and Data” along with Holly Morehouse, Vermont Community Foundation, Paige Brochu UVM Spatial Analysis Lab and facilitated by Chris Campany, Executive Director, Windham Regional Planning Commission.

2024 Rural Entrepreneurship Symposium (June 19 – 21, 2024)

The USASBE Rural Entrepreneurship Symposium promotes an integrated approach to better understanding entrepreneurship in rural areas and small towns, by annually convening 40 to 60 researchers, teachers, policymakers, and entrepreneurs to generate more data-driven research, education, policy, and action for the 61% of the U.S. who live in small towns and rural spaces. In collaboration with national and regional supporters, this symposium will be hosted by university partners, and will have an organizing theme that is unique to the region. While these themes are specific to each region, they have also been selected for their global relevance. The host for the inaugural conference is the University of Vermont, with the theme of “High-Tech in Small Towns and Rural Spaces”.

Kendall Fortney presented “Empowering Innovation: The Journey from Academic Research to Open Source Impact”

Leadership Champlain – Energy and Environment Day (April 9, 2024)

Leadership Champlain is a professional development and community engagement program of the Lake Champlain Chamber with a mission to foster growth and leadership in professionals who will serve our community now and in the future. Leadership Champlain consists of retreats, full-day seminars, service projects, discussion groups and community tours from September to June. Participants meet monthly to explore critical community issues, examine themselves as leaders, and build relationships of trust and understanding. For the Energy and Environment day at Burlington Electric there were stations for the cohorts to rotate through to hear about how “mapping” plays into how the state manages conservation, energy, and population growth.

Kendall Fortney presented with Yoshi Bird on the Vermont Zoning Atlas

UVM Day of Data Techniques and Tools (January 9, 2024)

UVM Libraries will host a Day of Data Techniques and Tools to assist you with your data analysis concepts, provide you with opportunities to engage in conversations about best practice in data methods and offer sessions on data storage at UVM, data sharing, data ethics and data visualization.

VERSO Director Kendall Fortney presented “Empowering Research: Open Data Platforms in Academia”

2023

Earth Science Information Partnership (ESIP) Annual Meeting (July 18-21, 2023)

Burlington, VT

ESIP Meetings are collaborative, community-driven events that bring together the Earth science data community. This year we gather in Burlington, Vermont, and welcome virtual participation from anywhere.

VERSO Director Kendall Fortney participated in the panel “Expanding use of the open-source geospatial analytics ecosystem: perspectives from developers, universities, and data centers”

United Nations OSPOS for Good (June 21, 2023)

NYC, New York

UN Member States are also increasingly interested in ways to better leverage open source technologies for sustainable development. Promoting open source technologies is thus critical to ensuring that technologies’ full benefits are harnessed to achieve the United Nations’ mandates, goals and perspectives. This action symposium aims to address the issue of wasted potential by fostering collaboration among government, academia, and industry through a novel cooperative infrastructure. The goal is to work together towards achieving positive outcomes for society. Connecting OSPOs for Good will help build on the existing model of OSPOs and extend it further to address societal challenges and create positive social, environmental, and humanitarian impact.

VERSO Director Kendall Fortney participated in the panel “Cooperating OSPOs – Across Society”

Open Source Festival 2023 + Sustain (June 15-17, 2023)

Lagos, Nigeria

Open Source Community Africa is a community aimed at creating and supporting the open source movement within Africa. As a community, we intend to help integrate the act of open source contribution to African developers whilst strongly advocating the movement of free and open source software. Open Source Festival is a high profile event that would attract student delegates, developers, designers and corporate organizations on a large scale with series of talks, workshops, and awareness of open-sourced developer tools. VERSO was also a sponsor of this event

Post-Doc John Meluso provided the Keynote Address “Building Thriving Communities: Learning Through Research With African Open Source Communities” with Tamutswa Mahari

Vermont Council on World Affairs (Various 2023)

The Vermont Council on World Affairs, in cooperation with the public and private sectors, promotes an awareness and understanding of the world and its people through public forums, hosting international visitors and working with our educational institutions to develop programs for students, faculty, staff and community.

VERSO Director Kendall Fortney presents to each group as they are visiting the United States

International Visitors Kyrgyzstan Innovation and Entrepreneurship – Jan 31, 2023
International Visitors International Cybersecurity from Industry, Government and NGOs – Apr 5, 2023
International Fellow – May 15, 2023

CNI Annual Meeting Spring 2023 (April 3-4, 2023)

Denver CO

Representatives from CNI member organizations gather twice annually to explore new technologies, content, and applications, to further collaboration, to analyze technology policy issues, and to catalyze the development and deployment of new projects. Each member organization may send two representatives.

VERSO Director Kendall Fortney participated in the panel “Early Lessons from Open Source Program Offices” (CNI video, CNI page)

2022

UC Santa Cruz Open Source Symposium 2022 (Sept 27-29, 2022)

The UC Open Source Research Symposium (successor to the CROSS Research Symposia series) is happy to be able to mix in-person, hybrid and fully remote activities in an effort to provide a larger audience the opportunity to learn about the cutting edge open source research being done throughout the University of California. Participants can interact with UC faculty, graduate students, and affiliated researchers, and discuss future directions and discover areas of collaboration from campuses throughout the UC system. This year’s event is organized by the UC Santa Cruz Open Source Program Office (OSPO) and sponsored by CROSS.

VERSO Director Kendall Fortney participated in the panel “OSPOs in Academia”

RIT Open Symposium 2022 (Sept 7-9, 2022)

This symposium is focused on looking at Open Work across communities to compare, contrast, and cross-pollinate best practices. It explores a wide range of national and international foundations across all disciplines that are also extending their policies on the need for supported work to be released under Open licenses.

VERSO Director Kendall Fortney participated in the panel “OSPOs in Academia: What do they do? What could they do?” (video)