Ed Parsons has spent his career working where technology, geography, and real-world decision-making intersect, often behind the scenes of systems that operate on a global scale. Best known for his work across digital mapping platforms and for his long engagement with open geospatial standards, he brings a rare mix of platform experience and standards governance to his role as Chair of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Board of Directors. At a moment when geospatial data is increasingly entwined with AI, real-time systems, and climate risk, Parsons reflects on what it takes to build technology that works across cultures, institutions, and everyday life.
Most people use digital maps and location-based services every day without giving a second thought to the systems running behind them. Through your work, you have helped shape how billions of people navigate the world. When did you first recognize the significance of influencing something so essential, yet largely invisible?
I am not sure I agree with the idea of responsibility in that sense. Throughout my career, I have mostly been doing things I enjoyed or found interesting. I was always a keen geographer from school onwards, and I often say, somewhat tongue in cheek, that geography is the one true science because it tries to explain the world around us, both physically and socially.
I was fortunate to study geography at a time when computers were coming to the fore and digital geography, including GIS and remote sensing, was beginning to take shape. Like many people of my generation in this industry, the first half of our careers was quite frustrating. We had powerful tools, but we lacked data. Capturing data on a global scale was complex, expensive, and difficult.
That changed with the arrival of Google Maps and Google Earth around 2007. Suddenly, data became widely available on a single platform, and it became possible to roll this technology out to the mainstream. It really felt like a “before Google” and “after Google” moment for the industry.
Today, we all use this technology day-to-day on our phones and through the services we rely on. That’s wonderful, and it’s delivering on the promise that was always there. We may not always be recognized as an industry, but I am comfortable with that. We play a small but important role in many different activities. I don’t feel a burden of responsibility so much as pride that we finally got to where we wanted to be.
Working at a global scale brings constant trade-offs: speed versus accuracy, innovation versus stability, openness versus control. How does operating at that scale shape the way you make decisions as a technologist and leader?
That’s where experience really matters. You often begin with an optimistic view that you will be able to roll something out globally and that it will work everywhere in the same way. A good example is Street View. When Street View was first launched in North America, it was very well received. We thought we’d worked out how to capture the data economically and that we could roll it out everywhere. But when we introduced it in Europe, particularly in Germany, we ran into serious issues around privacy, reflecting the fact that expectations of privacy differ across cultures.
That was a real learning moment. Despite having an obvious technical solution, once it hits people, you have to adapt. Technology that impacts people isn’t really a technology problem. It is a sociology problem. Users always have a vote, and you have to accept that and change accordingly.
Standards often fade into the background when everything works smoothly. Can you recall a moment in your career when the value of interoperability, or the cost of its absence, became impossible to ignore?
I have always recognized the importance of interoperability, but yes, one early experience stands out. At the time, I was working at Autodesk on one of the early web-mapping tools, Autodesk MapGuide. From a technical perspective, it was a very good product, allowing interactive vector mapping in early web browsers through a plug-in.
However, we realized that the real challenge was adoption, especially by governments. They were concerned about the reliance on browser plug-ins and the additional complexity this introduced. Around the same time, the Open GIS Consortium was developing the Web Map Service standard. From a purely technical standpoint, it wasn’t the best solution. It was slower and less capable, but it offered interoperability.
We decided to adopt it, and that decision significantly expanded our market. It taught me a fundamental lesson: interoperability often involves compromise. You may give up technical elegance, but in return you reach more people and achieve broader adoption. That commercial reality is a powerful driver for interoperability.
You describe yourself as a “lapsed aviator,” having learned to fly before English weather and the price of Avgas intervened. You now spend your time photographing aircraft. Does that way of observing from a distance influence how you think about maps, geography, or geospatial systems?
That’s a very perceptive question. Becoming a pilot was my midlife crisis. Many people buy a motorcycle, but I learned to fly. I have always loved aviation. In fact, one of my earliest memories is seeing the prototype Concorde fly over our house in South London.
However, in the UK, flying privately is difficult. The weather is unreliable, fuel is expensive, and unless you fly under instruments, which isn’t much fun, it’s hard to do regularly. Eventually, I decided that instead of spending money on flying, I would buy cameras and photograph aircraft.
There is an artistic element to photography, especially now with digital processing. But there is also something deeper: seeing things from a distance and capturing a specific moment in time and space. I store my photos geographically, not chronologically. That connection between place, time, and memory really matters to me. Photography will not disappear, even with generative AI, because it is about remembering being there, that exact moment, in that exact place.
You have been part of the OGC community for many years. What made this feel like the right moment to step into the role of Chair, and what felt personally important about taking it on?
Well, in many ways, it felt natural. OGC has been a hugely important part of my career and my life, and I see this role as a way of giving something back.
The Board’s role is to ensure the organization is healthy, financially sustainable, and relevant. The real work is done by the community, which includes the Technical Committee, Planning Committee, and volunteers who contribute their time and expertise. My role is to make sure that this ecosystem continues to thrive.
OGC brings people together in a way that is quite special. People leave their employers at the door and work toward what is best for the industry. Compromise is central to that process, and while it takes time, it is also what makes standards meaningful.
OGC brings together governments, industry, researchers, and developers from very different contexts. From your experience, what makes collaboration across those differences genuinely work, and where does it most often struggle?
The biggest struggle lies in developing a shared understanding of the problem. Governments, software vendors, and academics often see the same issue very differently. OGC’s domain working groups exist to explore those problem spaces by helping participants understand the scope of an issue, agree on terminology, and assess feasibility before solutions are proposed.
Sometimes things fail. We may misunderstand the problem, or a solution might not work in practice. That’s not a weakness. It is part of learning. We could probably do a better job documenting those failures so future efforts can learn from them.
This kind of iterative process where problems are understood, solutions are tested, and approaches are revised, is fundamental. And it only works if the community is broad and inclusive, with perspectives from different regions and contexts.
AI is rapidly reshaping many fields, including geospatial technology. Where do you see the most significant challenges and opportunities emerging as AI becomes more deeply embedded in geospatial systems?
AI presents enormous opportunities, but also challenges. In geospatial, we have used machine learning for decades, particularly in Earth observation. Recently, we have seen global building datasets created using satellite imagery. That’s an incredible achievement.
Where it becomes harder is inference and insight. Geospatial data is not yet well structured for AI training in the way text data is. We need better semantic richness and better data models. Geography also matters since models trained in one region don’t necessarily work elsewhere.
We must not forget geography when applying AI. Things closer together are more similar than things farther apart, and that principle is not well represented in many AI models today.
Looking ahead, when you reflect on your time as Chair, what would meaningful success look like, not just for OGC, but for how geospatial information shows up in everyday life?
From an OGC perspective, success means growing the community and bringing in people beyond the technical domain, including those focused on ethics and data policy.
More broadly, success means geospatial technology continuing to embed itself into solutions that improve everyday life. A good example is ride-sharing, an industry that was fundamentally changed by real-time location. Similar impacts are possible in healthcare, forestry, agriculture, and public safety.
Geospatial technology does not need to be the headline. It’s often most successful as a contributing component that makes systems work better. Our role is to make it simple, accessible, and easy to integrate.
Is there a particular global challenge where you feel geospatial technology can make the most tangible difference for individuals?
For me, that would be public safety, as it is very close to my heart. I was involved in developing standards that allow a mobile phone’s precise location to be shared automatically with emergency services when you make an emergency call, and that has a direct impact on individuals.
I am also involved with a startup working on safer pedestrian routing at night, prioritizing well-lit routes and avoiding known risk areas. These are examples where geospatial technology operates behind the scenes but has a very real, personal impact.
That has always been the most appealing aspect for me: technology that quietly helps people when it matters most.
