OGC Interoperability Days will be held
on Tuesday and Wednesday, June 3 and 4, 2008, in Potsdam, Germany.
These events will coincide with the OGC Technical Committee meetings,
which are being held in Potsdam that week. The first day will be in
English and the second day in German.

On Tuesday, Mark Reichardt, President of the OGC, will open the event
with a keynote on the value of open standards and their potential to
open new market segments. For customers as well as software suppliers
and solution integrators there is a huge win-win potential in using
open standards based components to build sustainable geospatial
solutions.

There will be a presentation and discussion of funding opportunities
in the context of the 7 th Framework Program of the European
Commission: OGC is actively involved in a number of high profile
projects and OGC staff will describe how OGC Membership can help to
build successful proposals and support the R&D work in future
projects. Participants in current projects will describe their use of
OGC standards and talk about their experience in using OGC as a
communication platform to advance European research and development.

The third topic to be addressed on Tuesday is the world of 3D and the
latest news on CityGML, an OGC standard. A number of real world
examples will highlight how 3D models and visualisation are becoming
part of geospatial data infrastructures.

After the end of the official program guests are invited to attend a
SIG 3D Party to chat with fellow experts and enjoy a snack and a glass
of wine.

On Wednesday, Athina Trakas and Martin Klopfer of the OGC will open
the Interoperability Day with a keynote on the value of open standards
in creating geospatial portals. Representatives of German government
agencies and local authorities will talk about their experiences in
deploying OGC standards and take a look at the benefits of OGC
Membership.

The third topic to be addressed during the Wednesday interoperability
day is „managing Europe&apo;s Growth“, offering a European
perspective on geospatial requirements and opportunities.

On both days, attendees will have opportunities to attend company and
project presentations.

Detailed programs and registration information are available at:
http://www.opengeospatial.org/event/080603techinterop and
http://www.opengeospatial.org/event/080604interop. Registration is
free, but attendees must register separately for each day. The event
will be held at GFZ Potsdam, Telegrafenberg 326, 14473 Potsdam,
www.gfz-potsdam.de.