OGC welcomes Chris Holmes as its inaugural Visiting Fellow

Chris Holmes will bring to OGC invaluable insight and perspective to the on-going development of the OGC API family of Standards.

30 March 2021: The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is excited to welcome Chris Holmes as the first of the Consortium’s Visiting Fellows. Chris Holmes brings to OGC a strong background in 'location' coupled with an understanding of the needs and expectations of contemporary developers, including how successful web APIs should work. Chris' long time expertise in product management will help the Consortium meet its ambitious OGC API development milestones.

OGC’s Visiting Fellow program was established to support OGC’s integrated standards and innovation strategy, which falls under the leadership of OGC’s Chief Standards Officer (CSO), Scott Simmons, and Chief Technology and Innovation Officer (CTIO), Dr. Ingo Simonis. The program welcomes highly accomplished, seasoned experts from around the world to augment OGC's leadership team with external targeted expertise and support the strategic objectives of the Consortium for durations of 3-9 months.

Chris Holmes, Open Fellow & VP Product/Strategy at Planet, and who also serves on OGC’s Board of Directors, commented: “I’ve been impressed by the latest evolution of OGC towards more modern and modular standards as the members’ work has progressed on the OGC APIs. I am honored to serve as OGC’s first Visiting Fellow, and am excited to have the dedicated time to bring more ‘product-thinking’ to help the OGC API initiative usher in the next generation of geospatial interoperability.”

OGC President, Bart De Lathouwer also commented: “With Chris Holmes we bring on board someone fluent in the languages of ‘Standards’ and ‘Development. Chris will guide and help us to mature the new OGC API family of standards so that they look & feel familiar to a broad developer community. Making location FAIR for developers is an essential part of the mainstreaming of location information.”

OGC is a global hub for thought-leadership, innovation, and Standards for all things related to Location. With Location now mainstream, OGC works with diverse technology domains, at various degrees of maturity, often connected only by their use of Location to create value. The OGC Visiting Fellow program seeks to provide insight into these diverse domains, while strengthening the Consortium’s technical excellence in thought and execution.

If you are interested in the OGC Visiting Fellow program and wish to be considered, contact OGC using the form at ogc.org/contact.

About OGC

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is an international consortium of more than 500 businesses, government agencies, research organizations, and universities driven to make geospatial (location) information and services FAIR - Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable.

OGC’s member-driven consensus process creates royalty free, publicly available geospatial standards. Existing at the cutting edge, OGC actively analyzes and anticipates emerging tech trends, and runs an agile, collaborative Research and Development (R&D) lab that builds and tests innovative prototype solutions to members' use cases.

OGC members together form a global forum of experts and communities that use location to connect people with technology and improve decision-making at all levels. OGC is committed to creating a sustainable future for us, our children, and future generations.

Visit ogc.org for more info on our work.