Building a cloud-native future at OGC
As I embark on my fourth year at OGC, our mission continues to be that of making geospatial information FAIR at scale! And, in 2022, I can’t think of a more scalable (or impactful!) way to do that than via cloud-native geospatial.
No one can deny that ‘the cloud’ is triggering a fundamental shift in how geospatial data is stored, shared, accessed, integrated, and analyzed. Just imagine what we can achieve if we create an open, interoperable foundation for cloud-native geospatial technologies.
At the Eleventh Session of the United Nations Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM) Committee of Experts, member nations endorsed a key revision of the UN-GGIM Guide to the Role of Standards in Geospatial Information Management. Happening in late August 2021, the goal of the Guide is to “provide detailed insights on the standards and good practices necessary to establish and maintain geospatial information management systems that are compatible and interoperable with other systems within and across organizations. The Guide also underscores the importance of standards in facilitating the application of the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) data principles - promoting improved policymaking, decision making and government effectiveness in addressing key social, economic, and environmental topics, including attainment of Sustainable Development Goals”.
As part of our 116th OGC Member Meeting during the week of September 14, 2020, OGC dedicated a session to discuss the topic of GeoEthics and the role of OGC - as a consortium and as a community of global experts. The session was part of OGC’s regular Future Directions programming, led by Dr. Gobe Hobona, and a panel moderated by OGC’s CEO Dr. Nadine Alameh, with participation from a number of OGC members.
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.
Did you know that OGC standards are incorporated in various elements of the information management workflow in the aviation domain? Indeed, EVERYTHING in the aviation domain is related to location: airport maps, weather forecasts, flight paths, airspace extents, obstacles, and - more recently - drones! Not only is the location aspect of all these elements represented using OGC standards or best practices, but some of our standards have been profiled/extended to accommodate for the unique aviation domain requirements. 
Spreading the word about OGC and growing a more diverse yet connected global community of enthusiasts is one of the reasons I took on my new job as the CEO of OGC. I won’t use this blog to bore you with the details of my educational background and professional experience (you can find those easily on LinkedIn), instead let’s focus on a few things, starting with 'Kicking off the next 25 years of OGC.'
