Dstl upgrades to Principal level of OGC Membership

As a Principal Member of OGC, Dstl will support the OGC’s innovation and standardisation activities to advance Geospatial interoperability and Open Standards for future defence and security needs.

22 October 2021: The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is pleased to announce that the Defence Science & Technology Laboratory (Dstl) has raised its membership in OGC to Principal level.

As a Principal Member of OGC, Dstl will participate across OGC activities and serve in OGC's Planning Committee to explore market and technology trends relevant to OGC's global mission to make location information more Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR). 

“It’s great to see Dstl upgrading their OGC Membership to Principal level,” said OGC CEO Dr Nadine Alameh. “Their upgrade reinforces their position as leaders in creating value from location in the defence domain. In addition to their continued commitment to location standards, I’m particularly appreciative of Dstl’s visionary sponsorship of our Innovation Program, and through it, their contributions to the OGC API family of standards, and to novel, standards-based, data-centric, and security conscious solutions for inter-cloud data exchange.”

Dr Stephen Helsdon, Senior Principal Scientist, Dstl, added: “Geospatial Information is an essential element supporting Defence and Security. In the future, it will be more important as we seek to exploit new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence. We develop solutions that enable us to share this information easily with our partners. Membership of the OGC enables us to do that collaboratively across the breadth of its community. Their open, modular and interoperable standards provide a critical foundation to enable discovery and sharing of this information.

“As a Principal Member, we look forward to engaging with their innovation and standardisation activities. We seek to exploit civil standards wherever possible and by partnering with the OGC, we will work together to help their open standards meet UK defence needs and future ways of working.”

OGC Principal Members ensure that OGC's policies and procedures remain effective and agile in a changing technological environment, and participate in final approval decisions for all OGC standards as well as nominations to the Board of Directors. 

As an OGC Principal Member, Dstl will work alongside other world-leading Principal Member organisations looking to advance the location information industry, including Airbus Defence & Space, the US Army Geospatial Center (AGC), Amazon Web Services (AWS), the Indian Department of Science and Technology, Esri, Feng Chia University, Google, Hexagon, Leidos, Maxar, Microsoft Corporation, the US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Oracle, and Trimble Navigation. A list of all current OGC Members is available at ogc.org/ogc/members.

About Dstl

The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) delivers high-impact science and technology (S&T) for the UK's defence, security and prosperity.

Dstl is an Executive Agency of the MOD with around 4,500 staff working across four sites; Porton Down, near Salisbury, Portsdown West, near Portsmouth, Fort Halstead, near Sevenoaks, and Alverstoke, near Gosport.

What we do:

• Research – original research and concepts, creating new capabilities for defence and security
• Requirements and Evaluation – Dstl S&T support to assess, evaluate and deliver current and next generation capabilities
• Specialist Advice & Services – our knowledge and facilities are ready to meet priority needs
• Operational Support – rapid and deployed S&T to meet the urgency of operations

Dstl gives the UK a clear advantage across science, technology, cyber and information. 

For more information contact the Dstl press office on 01980 950000 option 2. Email: Dstlpress@dstl.gov.uk, Social media: @dstlmod, Website: gov.uk/dstl

About OGC

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is a collective problem-solving community of experts from more than 500 businesses, government agencies, research organizations, and universities driven to make geospatial (location) information and services FAIR - Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable.

The global OGC Community engages in a mix of activities related to location-based technologies: developing consensus-based open standards and best-practice; collaborating on agile innovation initiatives; engaging in community meetings, events, and workshops; and more.

OGC's unique standards development process moves at the pace of innovation, with constant input from technology forecasting, practical prototyping, real-world testing, and community engagement.

OGC bridges disparate sectors, domains, and technology trends, and encourages the cross-pollination of ideas between different communities of practice to improve decision-making at all levels. OGC is committed to creating an inclusive and sustainable future.

Visit ogc.org for more info on our work.