OGC Newsletters

November 2008

CONTENTS
President's Message: Gardels Award and Lifetime Achievement Award Given
OGC Survey
News and Opinion From The Blogosphere
Website of the Month
News Items

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PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE: GARDELS AWARD AND LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD GIVEN

Gardels Award & Lifetime Achievement Award Given

At our September meetings, it was an honor to play a role in presenting the 2008 Gardels Award to Mike Botts (Figure 1). In our process, the Board selects Gardels recipients from nominees recommended by the previous recipients of the Gardels Award.

October 2008

CONTENTS
President's Message: If We are Serious About Avoiding Silos ...
CTO's Report on September 2008 TC and PC Meetings
News and Opinion From The Blogosphere
Website of the Month
News Items

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PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE: IF WE ARE SERIOUS ABOUT AVOIDING SILOS ...

Every Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Standards Development Organization (SDO) -- and its members -- ought to do everything in its power to make sure that its standards fit with and are complementary to other standards in the ICT world.

July 2008

CONTENTS
Chief Technology Officer's Message: The Cloud
CTO's Report on June 2008 TC and PC Meetings
News and Opinion From The Blogosphere
Website of the Month
News Items

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CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER'S MESSAGE: THE CLOUD

One of the latest IT "buzz" concepts is the "cloud" and "cloud computing." What exactly is "the cloud" and what does such a computing platform mean in terms of OGC standards? Hundreds of articles and analyses have been published and most major data center providers are actively marketing cloud computing.

June 2008

CONTENTS
Business Development Director's Message: AECOO Testbed Off to a Good Start
CTO'S Report on March 2008 TC and PC Meetings
News and Opinion From The Blogosphere
Website of the Month
News Items

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BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR'S MESSAGE: AECOO TESTBED OFF TO A GOOD START

Effective and efficient design, construction, ownership, management and use of buildings and other capital facilities increasingly requires information exchange among all disciplines and professions that have a stake in those facilities. Like other industries, the AECOO (Architecture, Engineering, Construction, Owner and Operator) industry has embarked on "business transformation" enabled by the latest information and communication technologies.

March 2008

CONTENTS
President's Message - Ocean Scientists Embrace OGC Standards
News and Opinion From The Blogosphere
Website of the Month
News Items

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PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE - OCEAN SCIENTISTS EMBRACE OGC STANDARDS

The Earth's largest ecosystem, the ocean, is studied by specialists from a range of scientific disciplines. Despite the ocean's apparent vastness, human activities have had a profound effect on ocean systems, and in turn changes in the ocean system have comparably profound effects on the weather and climate. The ocean system indirectly determines human impacts from a growing list of societal activities - land development, agriculture, coastal development, sewage outflow, energy production and fishing, to name a few. Additionally, natural Earth processes such as earthquakes use the ocean to unleash tremendous energy, threatening populations, wildlife and property in coastal areas worldwide. These are just a few of the ocean and coastal zone management issues that require coordinated solutions through cooperation and sharing among researchers, government agencies, NGOs, businesses and citizens. Of course, none of this is new news, but our cumulative impact on the oceans and other earth ecosystems is an extremely sobering reality and problem set for this generation and our children who will inherit that legacy.

January 2008

CONTENTS
Chairman's Message - The OGC's Role in the International Marketplace
CTO's Report on December 2007 TC and PC Meetings
News and Opinion From The Blogosphere
Website of the Month
News Items

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CHAIRMAN'S MESSAGE - THE OGC'S ROLE IN THE INTERNATIONAL MARKETPLACE

We are fortunate that the OGC is widely recognized by the international community as having a key standards role in mainstream Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Major emerging markets as well as the technology communities of North America and Europe rely on OGC standards and best practices as an integral component of SDI (spatial data infrastructure) development.

Evidence of this trend is the maturation of major Asian markets as represented by significant NSDI (national SDI) development activity in both India and China. The OGC has taken a strong interest in the use of OGC standards in emerging markets and has strategically responded to requests to explore stronger and more productive institutional and membership relations in both India and China.

October 2007

CONTENTS
President's Message - Strengthening OGC's Focus on User Requirements
CTO's Report on September 2007 TC and PC Meetings
News and Opinion From The Blogosphere
Website of the Month
News Items
Announcement

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PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE - STRENGTHENING OGC'S FOCUS ON USER REQUIREMENTS

The OGC's whole purpose is to meet geospatial technology users' requirements for interoperability. We have a diverse membership encompassing industry, government, NGOs, academic and research organizations. However, we'd like to improve the representation of user organizations. To do this, the OGC Board has approved two new membership categories to encourage and facilitate such improvement and bring an even broader base of experience into our process.

First, we are instituting a new Aggregate Voting Membership for government organizations below the national level. State, local and provincial agencies represent a large portion of technology consumption, however there are currently only 28 such organizations holding membership in the OGC. Agencies below the national level just don't have sufficient resources to commit staff to participate in standards activities. But an increasing number of people working in government at this level recognize the money-saving and service-enhancing benefits of using and helping to shape standards. To meet the needs of these organizations, The OGC Board of Directors recently approved an Aggregate Voting (Technical Level or Principal Level) Membership in the OGC.

August 2007

CONTENTS
President's Message: 2007 Kenneth D. Gardels Award
CTO's Report on the July 2007 TC and PC Meetings in Paris
News and Opinion From The Blogosphere
Website of the Month
News Item
Announcement

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PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE: 2007 KENNETH D. GARDELS AWARD

At the July OGC meetings in Paris, Clemens Portele of interactive instruments GmbH was awarded the OGC's ninth Kenneth D. Gardels Award.

Clemens has been deeply involved in a range of important OGC programs. The success of OGC's cooperative endeavor with ISO owes much to Clemens' diplomacy, patience and persistence. His leadership role in the INSPIRE (Infrastructure for Spatial InfoRmation in Europe) Data Specifications Drafting Team contributes to a process that influences the progress of European policy with respect to OGC standards. He has also provided important support to a range of OGC documents including the GML application schema for use by OASIS, a GML version of the Aeronautical Information Exchange Model (AIXM), and the GML Simple Features Profile, to name a few. I ask that you visit the OGC website to read his award citation and the citations of previous award winners at http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/awards

August 2007

CONTENTS
President's Message: 2007 Kenneth D. Gardels Award
CTO's Report on the July 2007 TC and PC Meetings in Paris
News and Opinion From The Blogosphere
Website of the Month
News Item
Announcement

DEPARTMENTS:
New Members, OGC In The News, Events, Contact, Subscribe/Unsubscribe


Back issues of OGC News are available.

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE: 2007 KENNETH D. GARDELS AWARD

At the July OGC meetings in Paris, Clemens Portele of interactive instruments GmbH was awarded the OGC's ninth Kenneth D. Gardels Award.

Clemens has been deeply involved in a range of important OGC programs. The success of OGC's cooperative endeavor with ISO owes much to Clemens' diplomacy, patience and persistence. His leadership role in the INSPIRE (Infrastructure for Spatial InfoRmation in Europe) Data Specifications Drafting Team contributes to a process that influences the progress of European policy with respect to OGC standards. He has also provided important support to a range of OGC documents including the GML application schema for use by OASIS, a GML version of the Aeronautical Information Exchange Model (AIXM), and the GML Simple Features Profile, to name a few. I ask that you visit the OGC website to read his award citation and the citations of previous award winners at http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/awards

May 2007

CONTENTS
President's Message
CTO's Report on the April TC and PC Meetings in Ottawa
News and Opinion From The Blogosphere
Website of the Month

DEPARTMENTS:
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Back issues of OGC News are available.

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

OGC in Biodiversity Science & Education