OGC’s 115th Member Meeting: Engaging a global location community virtually
Like almost every event in 2020, due to the COVID-19 crisis, OGC’s 115th Member Meeting was completely virtual. Yet despite the change, more than 400 people from across the world logged on between 15–22 June 2020 (with three Working Groups meeting on June 10 & 11) to attend the meeting. Using a combination of GoToMeeting and Gitter, participants joined in on community discussions, presentations, panels, casual ‘lunch break’ chats, and special sessions on health, simulation & gaming, smart roads, insurance, OGC APIs, and more.
Further testing and refinement to the 
The sheer volume of complex 3D data now available has created challenges concerning access, processing, visualization, and dissemination. Challenges that Cesium believes can only be addressed by engaging with and supporting a community of collaboration and a diverse, interoperable software ecosystem powered by consensus-based open standards.
Another step towards the creation of the OGC Environmental Data Retrieval (EDR) API Standard has been completed: the successful testing of some of the API’s capabilities during the OGC Environmental Data Retrieval API Sprint. The virtual event was held from March 18-20, 2020. A final report detailing the EDR API Sprint is now available on GitHub.
To say that these are unusual times is an understatement. One way or another, everyone everywhere is witnessing the global crisis of COVID-19. In many ways, we are united in this fight for our health! I hope each one of you is hanging in there to the best of your ability – personally and professionally.
Diversity, as a topic, has frequently appeared on the agendas of industry events for years now. OGC is conscious that there is still much work to be done to increase diversity and inclusion, but, with last Sunday being International Women’s Day, we’re taking the opportunity to reflect upon and highlight some of the activities that OGC staff have been involved in with regard to the issues that women still face in the spatial and related industries - while also remaining aware that diversity is much more than just gender equality.
To this end, two “Ideathons” were organized to link the national ambitions with the local interest in successfully adapting their urban settings to changing demographics. The first Ideathon was held 3–4 October, 2019, in Chino City, Nagano Prefecture, Japan with more than 20 participants discussing requirements for, and uses of, the Urban Planning ADE.
Friday the 14th February 2020 was my last day with OGC as an employee, completing a transition plan that I initiated in March 2018 when I notified the OGC Board of Directors of my intent to retire. Going forward, I plan to provide my support to the Consortium on occasion as a consultant to address specific OGC mission topics. I will also remain connected with the geospatial community through my involvement in activities such as the US National Geospatial Advisory Committee. I am also looking forward to spending much more time with family and the pursuit of a few new opportunities - including helping build computers for the less forunate, as well as good amount of fishing and time spent enjoying the Atlantic coast.
A joint OGC / ESIP Coverage and Processing Analytics API development sprint was held on January 6-7, 2020. The Sprint was held in conjunction with the ESIP Winter Meeting. This sprint builds on the OGC API Hackathon in June 2019, and the OGC API Features and Catalogues Sprint in November 2019. The ESIP/OGC sprint focused on OGC API-Coverages, API-Processes, and API-Common as part of the overall development of OGC APIs.
On this #GeoPackageDay 2020 - the 6th anniversary of the format - Jeff Yutzler (GeoPackage SWG Chair) discusses some of the benefits of this portable, extensible, efficient, online/offline container format for geospatial information and maps.
