“In her previous activities, Athina has been an extraordinary asset to the OGC,” said Mark Reichardt, OGC’s President and CEO, “and we are fortunate indeed to have her on staff now, working full time to advance the goals of the Consortium in Europe. European membership in the OGC recently surpassed North American membership, and we anticipate a lot of activity as European companies and organizations seek to evolve geospatial standards that address European needs.”
Athina Trakas has worked part time for the OGC since August 2006. During this time she also served as Director of Business Development and Marketing for WhereGroup GmbH & Co. KG, where she was responsible for activities concerning cooperation with institutions and organizations on a national and international level. In that role, she promoted standardized WebGIS solutions -- including OGC Web Services (OWS) standards -- as well as open source software. Prior to that position, from 1998 to 2006 she served CCGIS (Consulting Center for Geographical Information Systems) in a variety of management roles as the company evolved from start-up to a successful consultancy. In 2007, CCGIS merged with Karta.Go and GeoConsortium to form WhereGroup. Athina has also worked for the German Cultural Council. She holds a degree in Geography from the University of Bonn.
“Building on my experience and close contacts with OGC members and other organisations in Europe, I am excited to have this opportunity to further the mission and goals of the OGC,” said Athina. “The heterogeneous environment of Europe in administration, business and academia is a fertile field for interoperability initiatives and I look forward to working with our European members to bring new requirements and ideas into the OGC process.”
The OGC is an international consortium of more than 370 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OpenGIS® 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. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org.
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