During the Inter-Geo 2018 in Frankfurt Germany, two major organizations working in geospatial space – World Geospatial Industry Council (WGIC) and Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) came together to create greater awareness, understanding, and adoption of geospatial technologies across industries and the government sector.
As a part of the association, both the organizations will be working together to build a conducive environment for promoting, leveraging and sharing location-based technologies with the aim to provide better and detailed insights to the government and to the industry. A joint working committee will be created to address the related interoperability challenges that currently exist between the geospatial and Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) markets.
Both organizations will proactively participate in and cross-promote each other’s industry events to facilitate the sharing of information, ideas, and knowledge. WGIC & OGC will also collaborate on the development of joint studies, market analysis, reports, and events to advance understanding of the benefits of geospatial information, technology, interoperability, and associated policies.
OGC, an international not for profit organization, makes quality open standards for the global geospatial community. These standards are freely available for anyone to use to improve the sharing of the world’s geospatial data. These standards are used across domains and across industries as diverse as Geosciences and Environment, Defense & Intelligence, Smart Cities including IoT & Sensor Webs, Mobile tech, and the 3D & Built environment, Emergency Response & Disaster Management, Aviation, Energy & Utilities.
On the occasion of the signing of the MOU, Mark Reichardt, President & CEO of OGC explained, “There’s an incredible infrastructure of geospatial tools, information, and analytics that are ready to be tapped, but that many markets aren’t yet aware of. OGC has worked with industry to advance a framework of open international standards that allows these tools to be rapidly mobilized via a framework of open international standards. The WGIC is creating a common voice among the geospatial industry to engage in policy discussions, and to promote the amazing value of this work to the broader government and industry communities.”
The World Geospatial Industry Council, an association of companies representing the entire ecosystem of the geospatial industry, aims to enhance the role of the geospatial industry and also strengthen its contribution in global economy and society, to facilitate the exchange of knowledge within the geospatial industry and co-creation of larger business opportunities for the geospatial industry, to represent business interests, share perspectives of the geospatial industry and undertake policy advocacy and dialogue with public authorities, multilateral agencies and other relevant bodies.
Sanjay Kumar, Secretary General & CEO of WGIC, shared his vision and remarked “WGIC aims to engage and collaborate with major economic industries worldwide in order to integrate geospatial knowledge within the business processes of those industries. OGC is the leading geospatial standards development organization and has built a credible process of engagement with major industries. WGIC finds it natural to collaborate and work together with OGC to pursue its common vision of enhancing the value of geospatial knowledge in the world economy and across society.”
With this MOU signed, the path is set for a highly productive collaboration that will not just explore current possibilities in the field of geospatial technologies but also expand future opportunities for the entire industry.