{"id":17242,"date":"2023-04-06T12:34:57","date_gmt":"2023-04-06T16:34:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ogc.org\/?p=6852"},"modified":"2025-11-15T14:09:43","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T14:09:43","slug":"a-recap-of-the-125th-ogc-member-meeting-frascati-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fm-connect1.fortmindz.in\/wp-ogc\/blog-article\/a-recap-of-the-125th-ogc-member-meeting-frascati-italy\/","title":{"rendered":"A recap of the 125th OGC Member Meeting, Frascati, Italy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From February 20-24, 2023, more than 200 geospatial experts from industry, government, and academia traveled to Frascati, just outside of Rome, Italy, for OGC\u2019s 125th Member Meeting \u2013 with over a hundred more attending virtually. Hosted and sponsored by the European Space Agency (ESA)<\/a>, the meeting had the theme of \u201cSpace and Geospatial.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The week saw the usual abundance of Standards Working Group and Domain Working Group meetings, networking & social events, the annual Gardels Award presentation, and an abundance of special sessions, including a Climate Resilience Pilot demonstration; a Marine Special Session; an Intelligent Transportation Systems ad hoc; a Space Standards ad hoc; a Health Summit; a GeoDatacube ad hoc; a Geotech Interoperability Experiment (IE) session; an OGC Startups and Scaleups session, and the OGC Europe Forum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two areas of focus during the meeting included Space Standards and Connected Systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Space Standards:<\/strong> OGC members are discussing the requirements for standardization of space data and environments of operation. Such Standards could represent location reference systems beyond the Earth, help track and locate space debris, and provide a reference for space weather data. Expect to see refinement of work from Testbed-18 in the coming year as reflected in both experimentation and standardization. See below for a brief overview of the Space Standards ad hoc, as well as a link to presentations and a recording.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Connected Systems:<\/strong> OGC has long published Standards and Best Practices associated with sensors and sensor networks. Some of these Standards have long been used in government and private sector systems, but may be less responsive to current trends in IT. OGC\u2019s SensorThings API<\/a> \u2013 developed as a lightweight interface to Internet of Things devices and the OGC APIs \u2013 shows a pattern for RESTful integration of geospatial data. The SensorML SWG has been recharted as the Connected Systems SWG<\/a> and will be working with legacy and emerging OGC sensor Standards and concepts to create a framework for modern sensor integration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The full agenda for the 125th OGC Member Meeting is available here<\/a>. Read on for an overview of the best bits, below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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OGC CEO Dr. Nadine Alameh presenting her CEO update<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It Begins<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Monday morning Kick-off Session welcomed attendees and provided an overview of what\u2019s been happening at OGC since the previous the 124th OGC Member Meeting<\/a>, as well as an insightful presentation by Dr. Rune Floberghagen from meeting hosts, ESA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Rune Floberghagen, Head of the Science, Applications and Climate Department in the Directorate for Earth Observation Programmes, ESA, provided an overview of ESA programs, with a heavy focus on the use of and contribution to OGC Standards and activities as well as highlighting numerous cases of the practical application of OGC Standards and practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dr. Rune Floberghagen, Head of the Science, Applications and Climate Department in the Directorate for Earth Observation Programmes, ESA<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

OGC\u2019s Dr. Nadine Alameh then provided her CEO Update, which included the announcement of the former OGC\u2019s Innovation Program renaming to a name that better describes its activities: the OGC Collaborative Solutions and Innovation (COSI) Program<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nadine then held her regular fireside chat, this time chatting with Amanda Morgan, Technical Executive for GEOINT and IT Standards, US NGA<\/a>. The two discussed the need to highlight the value of Standards and provided some guidance and insight to young professionals looking to progress their careers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I, Scott Simmons, Chief Standards Officer of OGC, then took to the stage to provide some logistics information for the week and welcomed the delegation from the State Service of Ukraine for Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre<\/a>, whose membership has been sponsored by Strategic Member Natural Resources Canada<\/a> and travel to this Member Meeting offset by Strategic Members UK Hydrographic Office<\/a> and Ordnance Survey<\/a>. Many thanks go out to these members for their generosity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trevor Taylor, Senior Director, Member Success and Development at OGC, welcomed new members and detailed the new OGC membership model<\/a> now in place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, Jonathan Fath, OGC\u2019s Director, Marketing and Promotions, revealed the new OGC public website, which, as you\u2019re here reading this, I\u2019m going to guess you\u2019re aware of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Networking, Dinner, and the Gardels Award<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

On top of the conversations in the hallways, over lunch, and during meetings, no OGC Member Meeting is complete without the Monday evening networking drinks, nor Wednesday night\u2019s Networking Dinner. Held at Ristorante Cacciani in Frascati<\/a>, the Networking Dinner also included the presentation to Steve Liang of the 2022 Gardels Award<\/a>. Steve was chosen for the award for his work in sensor technologies for geospatial and pioneering web standards for publishing spatial data. Congratulations, Steve!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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OGC 2022 Gardels Award winner, Steve Liang (L), OGC CEO Dr. Nadine Alameh (C), and OGC Chief Standards Officer, Scott Simmons (R)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Meeting Special Sessions<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Special sessions at this Member Meeting included a Climate Resilience Pilot demonstration; Marine Special Session; Intelligent Transportation Systems ad hoc; Space Standards ad hoc; Health Summit; GeoDatacube ad hoc; Geotech Interoperability Experiment (IE) session; OGC Startups and Scaleups session, and the OGC Europe Forum. Read on for an overview of each \u2013 as well as a link for members to access the recording and slides for each.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Climate Resilience Pilot Demo:<\/strong> A demonstration session was held by the participants in the OGC Climate Resilience Pilot<\/a> to highlight the topics that will be addressed in the newly started Pilot. OGC Members can access the presentations and a recording on this page in the OGC Portal<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marine Special Session:<\/strong> Marine topics continue to be of high interest to OGC members. A half-day special session was held to discuss \u201cConnecting Land and Sea.\u201d The first half of the session focused on past Innovation projects such as the Phases I & II of the Federated Marine Spatial Data Infrastructure (FMSDI) Pilot<\/a> and marine matters addressed in OGC Testbed-18<\/a>. The second half summarized the work of Phase III of the FMSDI Pilot<\/a> and presented an Engineering Report documenting the work. OGC Members can access the presentations and a recording on this page in the OGC Portal<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Intelligent Transportation Systems ad hoc:<\/strong> Discussions about intelligent infrastructure have occurred at several past OGC Member Meetings, mostly concerning road networks. This effort continued in Frascati with an Intelligent Transportation Systems session that focused on the ISO \/ TC 204 Geographic Data Files Standard and how OGC might become more involved in working on that Standard in the future. OGC Members can access the presentations and a recording on this page in the OGC Portal<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Space Standards ad hoc:<\/strong> OGC\u2019s Testbed-18<\/a> included work on \u201cSpace Standards.\u201d As might seem obvious, the scope and nature of Standards that apply to space beyond the Earth is open to quite broad interpretation. A special session was held to identify the landscape of likely standardization activities in the space domain from US NGA, ESA, European Community Defence, and supporting researchers in Europe and North America. The outputs of this session will be documented to help identify priorities for further investigation. OGC Members can access the presentations and a recording on this page in the OGC Portal<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Health Summit:<\/strong> Wednesday saw a day-long Health Summit. Organized by the OGC Health DWG<\/a>, the summit sought to \u201cprovide a forum for geo\/location experts to learn what clinicians need in order to advance the practice of healthcare, and for clinicians to explore the possibilities unleashed when location\/geo data is incorporated as part of solutions.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also included in the summit was a \u201cStartup, space, and geospatial panel\u201d consisting of Pablo Fuentes from MakePath<\/a>, Ugo Celestino from the European Commission<\/a>, Gianluigi Baldesi, PhD from ESA, Steve Liang from SensorUp<\/a>, and moderated by Anilkumar Dave, VC Fund Partner & Space Economy Advisor. OGC Members can access the presentations and a recording on this page in the OGC Portal<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Startup, Space and Geospatial panel, consisting of: Pablo Fuentes, MakePath (not shown), Ugo Celestino, EC (L), Gianluigi Baldesi, PhD, ESA (M), Steve Liang, SensorUp (R), and moderated by Anilkumar Dave, VC Fund Partner & Space Economy Advisor (R)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

GeoDatacube ad hoc:<\/strong> Multidimensional data associated with geospatial information (referred here as GeoDatacubes) can be encoded and utilized in a number of formats, including existing OGC Standards such as NetCDF, HDF5, Coverage Implementation Schema, Zarr, and more. A GeoDatacube SWG has been proposed to identify a possible API for accessing such data and Standards and Metadata required to bridge across encodings. OGC Members can access the presentations and a recording on this page in the OGC Portal<\/a>. You may also want to read a blog post outlining the 2021 Towards Data Cube Interoperability Workshop on the OGC Blog here: A User-centric Approach to Data Cubes<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Geotech Interoperability Experiment (IE) session:<\/strong> OGC members have organized the GeoTech Interoperability Experiment (IE)<\/a> to develop a common model for describing geotechnical engineering data that is spatially-referenced. This experiment is also intended to link the information communities from the OGC with those from buildingSMART International<\/a> and a variety of geotechnical engineering organizations. A special session of the Geoscience DWG<\/a> was held to discuss the results to date of this IE. OGC Members can access the presentations and a recording on this page in the OGC Portal<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OGC Startups and Scaleups session:<\/strong> OGC Member Meetings include a session that allows Startup members to highlight their capabilities. The \u201cStartups and Scaleups\u201d session in Frascati included presentations from SpaceSense<\/a>, Prom\u00e9th\u00e9e<\/a>, Duality Robotics<\/a>, and Terrsigna<\/a>. OGC Members can access the presentations and a recording on this page in the OGC Portal<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OGC Europe Forum:<\/strong> Most OGC Member Meetings include a session dedicated to the local regional forum. The OGC Europe Forum met on Friday with a wide variety of presentation topics from throughout the region. Keep your eyes out for an upcoming blog post dedicated to this session and OGC\u2019s work in Europe more broadly. In the meantime, OGC Members can access the presentations and a recording on this page in the OGC Portal<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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OGC’s regular “Fireside Chat” with Amanda Morgan, Technical Executive for GEOINT and IT Standards, US NGA (L), and OGC CEO Dr. Nadine Alameh (R)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s Innovation\/Tomorrow\u2019s Tech and Future Directions<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

OGC proactively assesses emerging technologies as they apply to the geospatial community. Some technologies will directly impact geospatial standards and interoperability, others lead to new operational environments that will drive requirements and use cases.  These tech outlooks and assessments are briefed to OGC Members during the Today\u2019s Innovation\/Tomorrow\u2019s Tech and Future Directions session, which runs unopposed on Tuesday morning\u2019s schedule so that all meeting participants can attend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The session focused on \u201cFuture Space Technologies.\u201d OGC\u2019s Dr. Gobe Hobona introduced the session, and was followed by several presentations and a panel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tony San Jos\u00e9 of Satellogic<\/a> described the use of new satellite constellations for monitoring and assisting response to severe flooding in Albania. The use of cloud storage of imagery products allowed for rapid analysis. The presentation also summarized work from the OGC Disaster Pilot \u201821<\/a> where Satellogic performed flood analysis in South America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Samantha Lavender of Pixalytics<\/a> reflected on \u201cthe importance of customer perceptions and expectations.\u201d She noted that a goal is to have people use data without knowing that they are using data. An example was provided on the use of machine learning to detect plastic waste, acknowledging that the algorithm required retraining for each region in which it is used.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OGC\u2019s Rob Atkinson revisited the OGC Reference Model (ORM)<\/a>. He stated that \u201cinteroperability is not a one size fits all\u201d and that it has many aspects. The current form of the ORM is no longer useful, but the concept of such a model is very much needed. A new approach must be adaptive and is planned to include a Knowledge Graph to identify and link concepts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The speakers then joined a panel for open discussion on a broad range of topics related to their presentations and trends in Space. Dr. Lavender and Mr. San Jos\u00e9 discussed the increasing ability to process information on the satellite that is more ready for use than raw content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OGC Members can access the presentations and a recording of the session on this page in the OGC Portal<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Big Hall at the ESA Centre for Earth Observation<\/em> (ESRIN<\/em>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Closing Plenary<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Closing Plenary now runs as two sessions: Important things, and the formal Closing Plenary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Important Things:<\/strong> this session started with my rapid, 15-minute summary of the entire meeting week. Slides and content from a large number of Working Group sessions were included. The presentation is available for OGC Members on this page in the OGC Portal<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Important Things session then featured a discussion on the future of OGC\u2019s \u201cDefinitions Server\u201d suite of registries and linked data capabilities<\/a>. OGC Staff and Members considered the capabilities under development and debated where these capabilities may be more relevant in OGC outputs. OGC Members can access notes from the session recorded in the Etherpad Important-Things-2023-02.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Closing Plenary<\/strong> itself is now focused on presentations and voting. G\u00fcnther Landgraf from ESA provided an inspirational speech on ESA activities that have impacted and been impacted by OGC. The remainder of the session advanced a number of Standards, SWGs, and documents toward vote or publication. Summary slides from the 125th OGC Member Meeting Closing Plenary are available publicly via the OGC Portal<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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OGC Chief Standards Officer, Scott Simmons, addresses the audience<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Thank you to our community<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

All in all, our 125th Member Meeting was a big success. It was wonderful seeing members interacting, collaborating, and driving technology and standards development forward. It\u2019s especially exciting as it comes at a time when geospatial is truly everywhere \u2013 even the far reaches of space. Once again, thank you to our members for their time and energy, as well as their dedication to making OGC the world\u2019s leading and most comprehensive community of location experts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Be sure to join us for the 126th Member Meeting, happening June 5-9, 2023, at GEOHuntsville in the Huntsville Botanical Garden, AL, USA. Registration and further info is available now on <\/em>ogcmeet.org<\/em><\/a>. Sponsorship opportunities are also available see <\/em>this brochure<\/em><\/a> or <\/em>contact OGC<\/em><\/a> for more info. Be sure to subscribe to the <\/em>OGC Update Newsletter<\/em><\/a> to stay up to date on all things OGC, including future OGC Member Meetings, funding opportunities, and how to contribute to our open Standards.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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