OGC Interoperability Day to Feature Role of OGC in EU Funded Projects

To efficiently deal with societal, environmental and economic challenges in our increasingly complex world, current and accurate information is the single most important aspect. The key that enables such information access in the first place is standardisation. It is the definition of common interfaces and terminology between heterogeneous systems that enables interoperability. A decision maker who needs to to retrieve information shouldn't need to know about the underlying nuts and bolts of distributed and often proprietary IT solutions.

Geospatial information is playing an increasingly integrated role in mainstream IT. On regional, national and pan-European levels, Spatial Data Infrastructure projects have been implemented to guarantee an efficient and effective use of geographical information to face these challenges. The OGC's international standards enable interoperabilty
between geospatial systems and facilitates the seamless integration of these systems into mainstream IT solutions.

The European Commission long ago anticipated the relevance of geospatial information as a core building block for a well informed information society and funded a great number of related projects in the framework programmes. Through direct as well as indirect involvement in several of these projects, many European agencies and companies have introduced geospatial interoperability into the standardisation process. Likewise, many project partners have learned about the benefits of actively engaging in the standardisation process and becoming OGC members.

But what role will standards play in future ICT, environmental and research programs of the European Commission? And how is the OGC participating in this process? What are the experiences and results of some of the projects funded by the European Commission? And what might be the benefits of using standards while participating in such projects?

On Wednesday 30 September 2009 you will have a chance to get first hand answers to such questions at the "EU funded Projects and the OGC: Standards, Benefits and Implementations" OGC Interoperability Day in Darmstadt, Germany.

A representative from the European Commission will open the day's events with an insightful view of the Commission's future programs, their relation to other organisations like GEO and how OGC standards are taken into account by the funding programs.

OGC is actively involved in a number of high profile projects. OGC's Director of European Services, Athina Trakas, and European Programs Director Martin Klopfer will explain how OGC Membership can help organizations and companies build successful proposals and support R&D work in EC-funded projects.

Leaders of selected projects will describe their use of OGC standards and talk about their experience in using OGC as a communication platform to advance European research & development objectives. Projects featured will included ESDIN, HUMBOLDT, EuroGEOSS, SANY and the GIGAS project.

In addition to the main presentation sessions during the Interoperability Day event, attendees will view selected company and project presentations in the catering area and break-out room.

The event is free but registration is required. The language for this event is English. The detailed program and registration are available at: http://www.opengeospatial.org/event/090930interop.

This OGC Interoperability Day event is being held at the same location as the September 2009 OGC Technical Committee and Planning Committee meetings. These meetings convene four times a year in countries around the world.

The OGC® is an international consortium of more than 380 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC Standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org.