OGC Celebrates Decade of Cooperation in the Geospatial Industry

June 28, 2004, Wayland, Massachusetts. Earlier this month, the Open GISConsortium (OGC) held its 50th Technical Committee Meeting, hosted by theOrdnance Survey (OS) in Southampton, UK. This milestone event marks adecade of cooperation among industry, universities and the public andprivate sector organizations that use geospatial technology. Theseorganizations have collaborated to develop and deploy open, publiclyavailable standards for use by the geospatial and IT communities.In addition to the regularly scheduled OGC meetings, a number of specialmeetings were held during the week. The OpenGIS UK Industry Day, an all-dayevent on Monday 14 June, sponsored by the OGC, the OS and the Associationfor Geographic Information (AGI), was attended by 120 invited members ofthe UK government and business executive community. UK Industry Daypresentations and dialog focused on how open geoprocessing environmentsenable agencies to foster better inter-departmental use of geographicinformation and mapping, and how such interoperability is important fordelivering citizen-based services and meeting the UK's 2005 “ModernisingGovernment” targets.Also during the week, an executive briefing was provided for OS SeniorManagers. Training sessions were provided for new OGC members and OS Staffto learn about OpenGIS technologies. An “Enterprise Architects' WhiteboardShowdown” provided a practicum in creating open geospatial architecturesbased on OpenGIS Specifications. And an “OS in a Nutshell” session providedan historic and informative tour of the OS. All meetings took place at theOrdnance Survey Business Centre, Southampton, United Kingdom.On Wednesday, an “Interoperability Plugfest” gave software developers achance to test their products' interoperability with other products.Plugfest Participants were Cadcorp, ESRI, Galdos Systems, Intergraph, IonicSoftware, lat/lon, Ordnance Survey and the University of Delft. By ensuringinteroperation between specific product pairs available from differentvendors, OGC “plugfests” like this one help technology developers delivermore robust and interoperable products to the market.The OGC is an international voluntary consensus standards organization ofmore than 250 companies, government agencies and universities participatingin a consensus process to develop publicly available geoprocessinginterface specifications. OGC's OpenGIS® Specifications supportinteroperable solutions that “geo-enable” the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT.– end –“