The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) announce the WhereCon 2012 [http://wherecon.opengeospatial.org/]  conference, to be held April 10-12 2012 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC. Online  registration [http://wherecon.com/register] for WhereCon 2012 is open and seating is limited. Visit www.wherecon.com [http://www.wherecon.com]  for more information.

WhereCon is the event for public and private sector decision makers to gather and begin a new dialogue on the synergies that location-enabled and place-based streams of information activity bring to every sphere of our lives. The question of “Where?” is increasingly becoming the organizing principal for how public and private sector enterprises get their jobs done.

"New location technologies are fundamentally changing the way business and government organize and make decisions.  At the same time, such technologies and the spatially-enabled data they produce are posing profound and vexing public policy challenges that society must tackle," said Mark Reichardt, president and CEO of the OGC. "We've organized WhereCon so people can hear the stories of public and private sector leaders who are showing us what the place-based future will look like."

USGIF President Keith J. Masback added to that, “The ’power of place’ has never been more evident, and its relevance to the whole of the US government in terms of increased efficiency and effectiveness is unquestioned. The explosive growth in interest in the geospatial dimension of our national security is increasingly shared by decision makers in civilian government and in private sector industry. That is why the USGIF is partnering with the OGC to bring the promise and challenges of place-based decision-making to this larger national and global community. This is a critically important discussion, right now, for the future of the Nation."

For a comprehensive list of topic areas and an up-to-date list of speakers, please visit   www.WhereCon.com [http://www.WhereCon.com] .

You can also keep up to date with the latest news and offers on Twitter via   @WhereCon2012 [http://twitter.com/#!/WhereCon2012] ,

Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=214817745232784]  and LinkedIn [http://events.linkedin.com/WhereCon/pub/848428] . We'll look for you there!

About the Organizers:

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) (www.opengeospatial.org) is an international consortium of more than 430 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards.

OGC 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 that needs to be geospatially enabled.

The United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF)

(www.usgif.org) is an educational non-profit established to promote the geospatial intelligence tradecraft and to develop a stronger community of interest between government, industry, academia, professional organizations and individuals who share a mission focused on the development and application of geospatial intelligence to address national security objectives.