Regions

OGC World Region Organizations

OGC is an international standards setting organization whose core mission is to deliver spatial interoperability specifications that are openly and freely available for use by the world's software developers. To develop international standards, OGC actively solicits the membership of technology providers and technology users from around the world.

But standards setting involves more than standards development. On behalf of its members, OGC also seeks to ensure that the standards become widely used. Recognizing that different countries and different regions of the world have different market dynamics, and recognizing the barriers of long distances, language differences and cultural differences, OGC has started two regional subsidiaries, Open Geospatial Consortium (Europe) Limited (OGCE) and Open Geospatial Consortium (AustralAsia) Limited (OGCA). Others may be organized in the future.

The mission of OGCA and OGCE is to:

1. Promote the development and use of advanced, open-system standards and techniques to enable the full integration of geospatial data and geoprocessing resources into mainstream computing.
2. Promote the widespread use of interoperable, commercial geoprocessing software throughout the global information infrastructure.
3. Represent the regions OGC membership in regional membership organizations or associations with a similar vision and mission to that of OGC, including local, sub-national and national agencies and associations of private persons and organizations.
4. Promote collaborative development of interoperable geoprocessing specifications and prototypes, and work to promote the worldwide distribution, acceptance and use of interoperable products based on such technology.
5. Provide an industry forum that promotes co-operative business development initiatives related to distributed geoprocessing.

The goals and objectives of OGC's regional organizations differ as necessary to meet the particular needs and circumstances in their regions.

If you work in the region served by OGCA or OGCE, we invite you to take advantage of the services offered. Whether your organization uses or provides spatial technologies, there is no better way to stay at the forefront of global progress in this dynamic industry sector. If you work in another world region not served by an OGC subsidiary, and if you see a need for an organization like this in your region, please contact:

Mark E. Reichardt
President,
Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc
Phone: (301) 840-1361
mreichardt@opengeospatial.org