Seoul, Korea, August 24, 2009: The Korea Forum of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) is a Korean organization chartered to provide government, academic, research and industry organizations in Korea with opportunities to learn about and discuss issues related to interoperability of geographic information involving OGC standards. The Forum seeks to promote interoperability and create synergy between the various producers and users of geographic information and geomatics products and services in Korea. The Forum also provides a way for Korean organizations to coordinate their efforts to ensure that Korean requirements are addressed by the international standards of the OGC.

Jinsoo You, Chair of OGC Korea, said, “This national forum will be the foundation for the development of GeoWeb Services Network – a Paradigm of Mutual Prosperity in Korea. Korea is ready to become a testbed for large-scale, interoperable GeoWeb services and intelligent cities with ubiquitous geospatial information services, based on widely available broadband network, numerous early adaptors, and strong demands in NSDI developments in the government sectors.”

The OGC Korea Forum will hold a national geospatial interoperability event on November 18 in Seoul to introduce OGC standards and activities to Korean geospatial industry and government sectors.

The current membership of the OGC Korea Forum includes: Korea Land Corporation, TopQuadrant Korea, National Geographic Information Institute, Electronics & Telecommunications Research Institute, Pusan National University, Sejong University, Dept. of Geoinformation Engineering, Yonsei University – The u-City Research Institute.

The OGC® is an international consortium of more than 385 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OpenGIS® Standards support interoperable solutions that “geo-enable” the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. OGC Standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org.