Open UK, a membership organisation dedicated to promoting and supporting the use of free and open source standards and software in the UK, has announced a call for nominations for the UK Open Source Awards 2019.

“The awards have happened five times in the last 10 years, but not since 2015,” explains Open UK’s Amanda Brock. “With the massive move to adoption of open source across businesses and its rightful place as mainstream in our society by being recognised through events like the Red Hat sale to IBM and move of major organisations like Microsoft to defensive patent activity through Open Invention Network, 2019 seemed like a natural time to do it again and for me to offer to help get this back on the road.

“We hope that the awards will become an annual event and maybe in 2020 leave Edinburgh for the first time. Anyone interested in sponsoring this year’s event (there is definitely room for more sponsorship) or wish to help organise, sponsor or speak at next year’s event, should drop me a note, amanda.brock@trustable.io, @amandabrockUK.”

The award categories have been expanded from 2015, now covering: the Individual Award, for outstanding contributions to open source; Company Award, for outstanding contribution to open source either through product development or contributions to projects; Public Sector and Third Sector Award, for an outstanding open source project in the UK public sector; Diversity Award, in recognition of diversity in UK open source; and the Student Award, a cash prize of £1,500 for an outstanding contribution to open source from currently matriculated UK students.

More details are available from Amanda’s announcement and the official event website. Those interested in nominating can do so on the dedicated page until 5pm on Monday the 22nd of April 2019, while the event itself takes place on the 12th of June 2019 at the University of Edinburgh’s Informatics Forum.