Regions - Europe

OGC encourages and supports the formation of regional forums, interest groups and project activities to address standards requirements, issues and challenges unique to a geographic region. In Europe, the Open Geospatial Consortium (Europe) Limited (OGCE) was formed in 2001, organized and operated as a non-stock, not for profit company limited by guarantee under The Companies Act 1985 of England and Wales and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. OGCE's purpose is to conduct business in Europe on behalf of OGC's mission, goals and objectives.

OGC European forums, interest groups and project activities work to:

1. Promote the development and use of advanced open systems standards and techniques to enable the full integration of geospatial data and geoprocessing resources into mainstream computing and widespread use of interoperable, commercial geoprocessing software throughout the global information infrastructure.
2. Represent the European-based membership of OGC in membership organisations/associations in Europe with similar vision and mission to that of the OGC, including agencies, collaborators and affiliates of the European Commission.

OGC's European activities address the following general business objectives:

1. Drive take up & adoption of interoperable geoprocessing in Europe based on user driven requirements that can be addressed with OGC's adopted principles and practices for architecture, OpenGIS Specifications, and standards-based, commercial-off-the-shelf (SCOTS) software engineering development processes.
2. Assist European organisations in supporting, monitoring and managing programs where interoperability is a focus or an inherent requirement.
3. Facilitate enhancement of OpenGIS specifications via the identification of requirements, initiative sponsors and participants from Europe for OGC activities including global test beds and pilots and specification working groups.

OGC European Interoperability Services projects work to assist customers in addressing their interoperability requirements by bringing together technologists, vendors, and customers from throughout Europe to work together and execute fast-paced, collaborative, hands-on projects that focus on particular customer pre-procurement requirements. This approach is one of the preeminent ways to prepare the market for benefiting from interoperability. At the market level, all benefit because:

1. Market players develop a better understanding of the full stream of benefits available from interoperable standards-based geoprocessing products and services.
2. Suppliers are offered a way to quickly determine their value proposition and crystallize their market channel for interoperability.

European Interoperability Services projects will generally follow approaches outlined in OGC's Reference Model and processes and procedures of OGC's Interoperability Programme, which are characterized as repeatable, fast-paced, innovative and results driven. OGCE projects are designed and executed to confirm commercial and financial viability of interoperable products and services in customer settings while offering a level playing field for market performers to position their product and service for procurement consideration. This enables both buyers and sellers to work along known pathways and to institutionalise collaborative processes for procurement and implementation. Altogether this will result in facilitating and demonstrating additional procurement criteria to include:

Best of Breed

Provide customers with capability to define "job appropriate" spatial data and services needed for mission achievement and verify these selections in RUN TIME.

Plug & Play Architecture

Provide customers a ready to go framework for procurement and ultimately deployment of software services and data while providing longer term pathway for plug-in of geoprocessing software components as the organization evolves and needs change.

Costs

Provide customers and vendors with important data and knowledge concerning life cycle costs in applying these best practices.

Return of Investment

Gain the realities about return on investment measures and criteria as they apply to information processing across the organization.

Inquires may be made to Mark Reichardt.  The official address of OGCE is:

ATTN: Frank Hirth
Open Geospatial Consortium (Europe) Limited
1st Floor
236 Gray's Inn Road
London, WC1X 8HL, UK