Australia will host two key geospatial standards meetings later in the year, a coup for the nation’s geospatial industries.

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) technical committee will hold its first Australian meeting in November. The committee, which will convene in Sydney starting 29 November, sets the international standards for geospatial and location based services.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) technical committee on Geographic Information/Geomatics will hold its annual meeting shortly afterwards in Canberra, starting on 6 December.

The location of ISO meeting gives recognition to Australia’s role in the development of the international standard’s and the leadership shown in promoting the adoption of these standards.

Ben Searle, general manager at the Australian Government Office of Spatial Data Management, welcomed the announcement.

“Australia is fortunate to be the location for these significant meetings and will hopefully take full advantage of having this body of knowledge in the country,” he said.

Around 200 – 250 delegates from overseas are expected to attend both meetings.

The two organisations will be looking at issues around developing an international address standard, the calibration of remote sensing imagery sensors and data, spatial referencing, location based services, smart grids, and a number of other topics.