December 5, 2007 — Wayland, Mass. — The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) will be exhibiting in booth 322 at the conference "Science and Technology for Architecture, Engineering and Construction" in Washington, DC. The exhibition, in the Washington Convention Center, will be open from 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM on Wednesday 13 December, and from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM on Thursday 14 December.

Since a 2004 study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology made clear that improving interoperability can save billions of dollars over the lifecycle of a facility, interest in realizing these savings has intensified.

The OGC is planning an Interoperability Program Initiative, called the AECOO Testbed, to address several priority issues that cross the entire building lifecycle. Visitors to the booth will learn details about the testbed and how they can participate.

The OGC will be presenting an overview of the testbed in the session "Introduction to the buildingSMART alliance" from 8:00 to 9:00 AM on Thursday, 14 December.

The OGC(R) is an international consortium of more than 340 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OpenGIS(R) 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. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org.