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'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.