Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)

About OGC

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is an international, not-for-profit consortium that brings together government agencies, industry, academia, research institutions and non-profits to collaboratively develop open, consensus-driven standards for geospatial and location-based information.

OGC standards enable data, systems, and applications to work together seamlessly—making geospatial information discoverable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable across platforms, sectors, and national boundaries. These standards form a critical foundation for modern digital infrastructures that rely on location intelligence, including urban planning, infrastructure development, environmental monitoring, disaster management, and scientific research.

By promoting open standards and collaborative development, OGC helps ensure that geospatial technologies remain future-ready, vendor-neutral, and globally interoperable.

OGC Test Beds and Innovation Activities

OGC Test Beds are collaborative research and development environments where emerging geospatial technologies, APIs, and standards are prototyped and validated before global adoption.
 

They bring together experts from academia, industry, and government to solve complex interoperability challenges. At Geo-Intel Lab, we are working toward:

1. Participating in OGC Test Beds focused on:

   • Federated data services and cross-platform discovery.

   • Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) and IoT data streams.

   • Geospatial AI and analytics interoperability.

   • Cloud-native geospatial architectures and APIs.
     
     

2. Developing Indian OGC Use Cases in collaboration with partners such as the Survey of India, ISRO, NRSC, and IISc Bangalore, to align national datasets and services with global OGC standards.
   
   

3. Testing & Validation for the Federated GDI:

   • The Federated Geospatial Data-Sharing Interface (GDI), developed with the Centre for Public Good, IISc Bangalore, is designed on OGC-compliant architecture.

   • It supports WMS, WFS, WCS, and OGC API – Features standards, enabling discovery, access, and integration of government, startup, academic, and private datasets under one interoperable framework.

   • The GDI acts as a test bed node for validating interoperability, metadata harmonization, and data-exchange protocols.

Why OGC Matter to India’s Geospatial Mission

India’s geospatial ecosystem is undergoing a major transformation, driven by the National Geospatial Policy 2022 and an increasing emphasis on open data, federated platforms, and digital public infrastructure.

In this context, OGC standards play a critical enabling role by supporting:

• Interoperability for Public Good
  Ensuring that geospatial data from diverse sources—such as satellite systems, drones, LiDAR, IoT sensors, surveying & mapping—can be integrated and used together without technical or institutional barriers.

• Scalable and Federated Digital Governance
  Enabling data-driven decision-making through standardized web services and APIs that support multi-agency, multi-level coordination enabling Digital Public Infrastructures.

• Alignment with National Policies
  Supporting the objectives of the National Geospatial Policy 2022 by promoting open, interoperable, and standards-based geospatial ecosystems that encourage innovation while maintaining trust and sustainability.

• Global Collaboration and Knowledge Exchange
  Connecting India’s geospatial initiatives with international practices and communities, allowing Indian institutions to both learn from and contribute to global standards development.

Value of OGC for Research and Innovation Ecosystems

For academic/ research institutions and startups, OGC provides more than technical specifications—it offers a collaborative research and innovation framework.

Participation in the OGC ecosystem enables:

• Standards-based Research and Experimentation
  Using open standards as a stable foundation for developing, testing, and validating new geospatial methods, platforms, and analytical approaches.

• International Collaboration
  Engaging with researchers, technologists, and public-sector practitioners worldwide on shared interoperability and data integration challenges.

• Bridging Research and Practice
  Translating academic research into deployable, interoperable solutions that are relevant to real-world policy, governance, and societal needs.

Future-ready Skills and Capacity Building

• Exposing students, researchers, and startups to globally adopted standards, APIs, and architectural approaches that are increasingly required in both public and private sector geospatial systems.

OGC’s collaborative innovation initiatives, including code sprints, pilots and testbeds, provide structured environments where emerging ideas can be explored, validated, and refined before broader adoption.

Brings the Value of OGC to the Indian Ecosystem

Through its Geo-Intelligence and Applications Laboratory (Geo-Intel Lab), IITTNiF aims to act as a facilitator and enabler for standards-aware research and innovation in India’s geospatial domain.

The lab’s vision is aligned with fostering an open, interoperable, and federated geospatial ecosystem that supports:

• Academic research grounded in globally recognized standards

• Experimentation with interoperable, API-driven geospatial architectures

• Collaboration between academia, startups, government agencies, and industry

• Capacity building for students and researchers in modern geospatial practices

Geo-Intel Lab’s Vision

The OGC and Federated GDI initiatives together embody our mission —

“To establish an open, interoperable, and federated geospatial ecosystem that powers innovation, digital governance, and research for public good.”

By engaging with OGC and its community, Geo-Intel Lab seeks to lower barriers between data producers and data users, support reproducible and interoperable research, and contribute to India’s evolving geospatial and digital public infrastructure landscape.