The OGC is pleased to announce that Ordnance Survey (OS) has raised its Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) membership level to become the first Strategic Member outside of the USA.

OS joins the US Department of Homeland Security, US Geological Survey, US National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and NASA as strategic members, reinforcing the company’s vision to be at the forefront of open standards development.

As a strategic member OS will use their skill and expertise to drive a collective and unified approach to promoting interoperability for the geospatial industry. The new membership will also allow OS to represent Europe, at a strategic level, to improve the quality of standards globally and to enable the industry to continue to innovate and grow.

“We are very pleased to have Ordnance Survey as a Strategic Member, OGC’s highest level of membership,” said Mark Reichardt, President and CEO of the OGC. “OS’s continuing commitment to OGC – they have been a member since 1998 and a Principal Member since 2014 – reflects their strong commitment to the benefits of open standards. As a Strategic Member of the Consortium and as a leader in the international geospatial community, OS is positioned to play an even greater role in the development and implementation of OGC standards and in the international coordination of geospatial technology initiatives.”

An important area of focus for OS will be the development of standards in the fast growing fields of Smart Cities, BIM (Building Information Models) and the Internet of Things. Geospatial data has an important role to play in these developing areas and the need for interoperability and common standards is critical to their long-term success. In addition to these emerging areas, OS will also continue to support development of global standards around the more traditional geospatial themes including web map services and 3D mapping, with a specific focus on day-to-day usability.

Neil Ackroyd, Acting OS CEO, added: “Open Standards are key part of achieving our business goals, but we also understand that they are vital to the industry as a whole. We expect the new level of strategic membership to deliver significant opportunities to OS and allow us to use our skills and expertise to influence and drive new standards in the ongoing and future geospatial trends. I am particularly keen to see greater interoperability in the smart cities space.”

The new OS OGC Strategic Membership was officially announced at the World Geospatial Forum on 27 May 2015.

OS, Britain’s mapping agency, makes the most up-to-date and accurate maps of Britain. OS data and services help governments, companies and individuals be more effective both in Britain and around the world.

The OGC® is an international geospatial standards consortium of more than 500 companies, government agencies, research organisations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available standards. OGC standards support interoperable solutions that “geo-enable” the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org/.

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