Request Open: April 30, 2025 3:25 pm — June 2, 2025 12:00 am (15 days left) (AoE)
The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) invites interested organizations and
individuals to respond to the Call for Contributions (CFC) for OGC’s Spatial Data
Infrastructure Modernization Project 2025. The goal is to consolidate operational SDI
exemplars, as well as proof-of-concept applications, for the SDI of the future, to be
detailed on the National Spatial Data Infrastructure Hub currently in development by
OGC. The Hub will be an online SDI knowledge database that provides information
about SDI and catalogs successful demonstrators for users’ experience, learning, and
experimentation.
This Call for Contributions seeks to identify challenges and concerns with existing SDIs,
along with challenges anticipated as SDIs evolve due to advances in technology and
governance. This call provides a unique opportunity to demonstrate what works and
can serve as a model, providing a vision of the future of SDI.
We ask that our members propose demonstrative SDI examples, either currently in
production or in development, that represent the best available SDI capabilities in the
world today and that indicate where SDIs are headed. New technologies in data
collection and processing, along with the use of machine learning, are creating
opportunities for SDIs to provide more holistic and actionable insights. As the approach
to SDI shifts toward the need for machine-readable and exchangeable data, with
localized and fragmented data collection becoming standard, automation will increase,
but data must be authenticated and reliable. The abundance of data from new sensors
necessitates clear standards and policies to ensure data integrity. At the same time,
there is a proliferation of community efforts that resemble SDIs, such as
OpenStreetMap, ArcGIS Living Atlas, state and local SDIs, as well as industry ambitions
to create high-quality, open map data that can be used by developers, businesses, and
organizations to build mapping and location-based applications such as Overture Maps.
Submissions should be centered on one or more of three themes: Governance, Data &
Technology, and People. As there is no funding associated with this CFC, submitters
should draw from their existing body of work or provide new developments on an in-kind
basis. We encourage creativity in submissions. After an open review process,
submitters who are asked to make contributions will then work with the OGC team, the
project sponsors, and an advisory committee to refine them.
The Sponsors of this initiative include the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and
the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC), with support from the Group on Earth
Observations (GEO) and the Americas Group on Earth Observations (AmeriGEO).
The work from this Call for Contributions will play a pivotal role in advancing thinking
around the U.S. National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) in alignment with the
strategic vision of “Empowering a geo-enabled Nation and world for place-based
decision-making.” With input from a newly created SDI Advisory Committee
supporting OGC, including decision-makers with national mapping agencies from
around the world, this activity will support a broader effort to advance national and
global SDI architecture, data and technical standards, and public-private participation in
governance, data sharing, standards development, financial investment, and the
establishment of sustainable services.
Applications to participate close June 2nd, 2025. Questions will be accepted through May 23rd at nsdi-modernization-initiative@ogc.org.