Sowing Kumoy Seeds at FOSS4G Hiroshima

Introduction

Hello, everyone.

I am Lay, a QGIS engineer at MIERUNE, originally from France. Sorry if my Japanese sounds unnatural in places.

I took part in FOSS4G Hiroshima 2026 as a presenter and workshop instructor, and introduced Kumoy, the cloud service for QGIS released in April 2026.

A report on FOSS4G as a whole is available in this article.

This was my second time at a global FOSS4G, after FOSS4G Prizren (Kosovo) in 2023. What stood out most from that event was the keynote by QGIS Chair Marco Bernasocchi, “The Importance of Seeding.”

Looking back at FOSS4G Hiroshima, Kumoy spread in exactly that way, as if seeds were being sown. Here is how it went.

Sowing Kumoy seeds at the workshop

Kumoy launched in April 2026. For details, see the following article.

Kumoy was gradually becoming known in Japan before the event, but it was still barely known overseas. Kumoy is useful enough that I use the free version for hobby projects as well as for work, and I wanted more people to know about it. FOSS4G, which brings people together from all over the world, was a great opportunity.

So I proposed a Kumoy workshop, and it was accepted. However, several people canceled shortly before, and only two participants came on the day. On the tram to the venue, I told someone about the workshop, and they said, “It looks interesting. If I could split myself in two, I would join.” Other workshops ran at the same time, which may be one reason for the small turnout.

On the other hand, the small group meant I could support each participant closely. There was also time to talk things through, like a long Q&A session, and I felt I had truly sown a small Kumoy seed.

Watering the newly sown seeds

The next goal after the workshop was to let more people know about Kumoy at the main conference. The workshop venue offered few chances to mingle, but there were other ways to connect with people.

The Kumoy booth: “Hello, where are you from?”

As a Platinum sponsor of FOSS4G, MIERUNE set up a dedicated Kumoy booth. One of Kumoy's useful features is that you can edit GIS data in the cloud from QGIS in real time. So the booth ran a “Where are you from?” map made in QGIS and published to the cloud, and visitors added their places of origin.

In the end, about 90 people added points to the map, and it also showed that participants had come from every continent.

The data people added appeared in the cloud on the spot. Participants could check the map on their own smartphones or other devices and experience Kumoy's real-time updates firsthand. The simple question “Hello, where are you from?” also makes it easy to start a conversation, whatever the country or region.

Running with fellow FOSS4G participants

Here is a short side story, unrelated to technology. I was invited to “FOSS4Run,” a WhatsApp group for FOSS4G participants interested in running. I thought conversation would come naturally while running and that it would be good practice for speaking English, so I decided to join.

Almost every day, someone called out, “Let's run!” Running together, I got to know friends from more than 10 countries. While talking about each other's presentations on the run, I also introduced Kumoy, and eventually an idea came to me: collect everyone's running GPX files, load them into QGIS, and publish them on the web in the live demo during my presentation.

The seeds sprout at the presentation

The Kumoy presentation was on the last day of the event. Partly because I had talked to many people at the booth and while running, the room was full, with several people standing.

The network caused no problems, and the live demo went smoothly. I published the FOSS4Run map to the web directly from QGIS and shared it with the friends who had run with me.

After the presentation, there were many technical questions about the symbols available in web maps and how raster data is converted for the cloud. It felt like many people were interested in Kumoy.

Conclusion

The small Kumoy seed sown at a workshop with only two participants finally sprouted in a packed room. I want to keep nurturing this seed, remembering Marco's words.

“Keep seeding because, given time and commitment, a seed will turn into a tree.”

Data used

• ©️ OpenStreetMap Contributors