OGC announce creation of regional Canada Forum on Geospatial Standards

31 May 2018: The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) announces that the geomatics community in Canada recently chartered a ‘Canada Forum on Geospatial Standards’ to support regional coordination and communication regarding geospatial standardisation activities.

The goal of the Canada Forum is to better serve Canadian needs for geospatial data and services. The Canada Forum will provide a platform for all stakeholders to increase collaboration with a focus on Canada’s requirements for sharing geospatial data and information, capacity building, innovation, outreach, industry business development, and others. The forum is also intended to provide a venue for the community to improve the level of Canadian influence in the OGC geospatial standards process and related standards partners (e.g. ISO, IHO, GEO, UN-GGIM, W3C, CGSB).

Members of the Canadian geomatics community, including OGC members and non-members alike, have expressed a desire for a Canadian Forum as a collaborative environment for all Canadian Stakeholders. The Forum is intended to act as a mechanism to respond to the stated need for all Canadian stakeholders to collaborate on issues related to Geospatial Standards, since no formal venue has historically existed.

Through working collaboratively, the Forum will address a set of identified problems, such as the lack of sufficient awareness of the benefits of OGC and other standards outside of the traditional market segments, as well as the need to Increase CGDI Capacity and end-user engagement for traditional and non-traditional stakeholders for Canadian innovation and the digital economy.

The charter members of the Canadian Forum on Geospatial Standards include:

• AE Inc.
• Computer Research Institute of Montreal (CRIM)
• Compusult Ltd.
• Cubewerx Inc.
• Ecere Corp.
• Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC)
• Esri Canada Ltd.
• Fisheries and Marine Institute (Memorial University of Newfoundland)
• Mount Royal University
• Natural Resources Canada (NRCan)
• Internal Services Department - Geographic Information Services (Province of Nova Scotia)
• NewfoundView
• Global Grid Systems (formerly PYXIS Innovation)
• SensorUP
• Tesera Systems Inc.
• University of Calgary

More information on the OGC Canada Forum, including a link to its draft charter and how to receive updates on its events and happenings, can be found on the OGC Canada Forum webpage.

The first meeting of the Canada Forum on Geospatial Standards is scheduled for June 6 at the upcoming OGC TC Meetings held in Ft. Collins, Colorado, USA. Attendance is possible both in-person and via the web.