OGCE a Partner in Major European Geographic Information Effort.Business/Technology Editors LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 1, 2002 The Open GIS Consortium, Inc. (OGC OGC Office of Government Commerce (UK government) OGC Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. OGC Office of the General Counsel OGC Open GIS Consortium, Inc. ) announced that its subsidiary, Open GIS Consortium (Europe), Limited (OGCE) is a partner with the European Umbrella Organisation for Geographic Information (EUROGI EUROGI European Umbrella Organisation for Geographic Information ), the European Commission European Commission, branch of the governing body of the European Union (EU) invested with executive and some legislative powers. Located in Brussels, Belgium, it was founded in 1967 when the three treaty organizations comprising what was then the European Community - Joint Research Centre (JRC JRC abbr. Junior Red Cross ), and the University of Sheffield The University of Sheffield is a research university, located in Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England. Reputation Sheffield was the Sunday Times University of the Year in 2001 and has consistently appeared as their top 20 institutions. in a far-reaching European geographic information (GI) project entitled Geographic Information Network in Europe (GINIE GINIE Global Information Networks in Education ). The GINIE project brings together three crucial sets of players: the national and pan-European GI associations represented by EUROGI, the European Commission, represented by its Joint Research Centre, and industry through the European arm of OGC. The project is coordinated by the University of Sheffield, one of the OGC members, also strongly linked to the European GI research community. In addition to raising awareness Raising awareness is a common phrase advocacy groups use to justify a particular event, brochure or even the entire organization. Raising awareness refers to alerting the general public that a certain issue exists and should be approached the way the group desires. , GINIE work packages provide for establishing a common European approach for engaging with regional and global geographic information forums regarding European geographic information strategies and capacity building. To learn more about the objectives and work programme of the GINIE project, see http://www.ec-gis.org/ginie/. GINIE began on the 1st November 2001 for a two year period during which it will establish a permanent European Advisory Board for Geographic Information (ABGI ABGI American Biomedical Group Inc. ABGI Addington-Barker Group International ABGI Africa's Brain Gain, Inc. ). GINIE is an Information Society Technologies Programme (IST) programme "Accompanying Measure" focused on developing the European Geographic Information Strategy. IST is a major research programme managed by the Information Society Directorate General of the European Commission. Countries around the world have been developing GI strategies in recent years as governments have become aware of the benefits and challenges of providing agencies, citizens, and businesses with shared, easily discoverable, readily accessible, well-integrated spatial information. GINIE will work on policy and coordination issues related to GI capacity building and will promote wider understanding of the technical and institutional issues that major stakeholders must address. The GINIE project will provide strategic input to the new European Commission initiative developing an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe (INSPIRE), organize the 8th EC GIS Workshop in Dublin in July 2002, and contribute to the international debate taking place at the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure A Spatial Data Infrastructure or SDI is a framework of spatial data, metadata, users and tools that are interactively connected in order to use spatial data in an efficient and flexible way. Conference in Budapest in September 2002. Ian Masser, president of EUROGI, said, "We are very pleased that the EC is supporting our work with OGCE in the GINIE project. It represents a major step forward for everyone in Europe, really, because spatial information potentially has such universal value for citizens, businesses, and government. Realizing this potential requires exactly the kind of concerted effort that is embodied in GINIE." Alessandro Annoni of the JRC, heading the Technical Coordination and Secretariat group of the INSPIRE initiative, said, "IST and the European Commission are fortunate to have EUROGI and OGCE working together in GINIE. Each does an excellent job of representing their constituencies, and these are the two constituencies that must work together to build the European spatial data infrastructure." OGC an international industry consortium of over 230 companies, government agencies and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geoprocessing interface specifications. OpenGIS(R) Specifications support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services See mobile positioning. , and mainstream IT, and empower technology developers to make complex spatial information and services accessible and useful with all kinds of applications. Visit the OGC web site at www.opengis.org. |
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