The United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) leads the geospatial community in the pursuit of stronger collab-oration between government, industry, academia, professional organisations and individuals who share a mission in developing and applying geospatial intelligence data and geo-processing resources to address national security objectives. USGIF is the first and only organisation dedicated to promoting geospatial intelligence tradecraft and uniting the many disciplines in the geospatial intelligence sector. The Foundation works to exchange ideas, share best practices and promote education and the importance of a national geospatial-intelligence agenda.

Founded in January 2004, USGIF (www.usgif.org) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, service foundation. After only two years, it has grown to include more than eighty US government agencies and member companies, including the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC). This international geospatial and location-based services standards body continues to develop open interfaces and encodings to enable and enhance interoperability between geospatial systems and technologies. USGIF works to promote such interoperability, it being an underlying necessity in the geospatial intelligence sector. As programs and missions become more complex, the necessity of being able to access various data from a multitude of sources and move it seamlessly across a large number of systems becomes imperative.

USGIF promotes interoperability within industry and government by providing interoperability demonstrations and working closely with OGC and other USGIF members to make open geospatial technologies the norm rather than the exception. USGIF real-time interoperability demonstrations serve as centerpieces to the Foundation’s two annual keystone events: Tech Days and GEOINT. The former, held in the spring, provides a two-day exhibition and networking opportunity without speakers and panel sessions. Co-hosted by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), the first day is held at classified level to showcase classified work. An unclassified exhibition is held the following day to allow industry to demonstrate its capabilities to the intelligence community.

The annual GEOINT Symposium, held in the autumn, is the only event dedicated to promoting geospatial intelligence tradecraft and fostering growth of the community tasked with furthering the US national security agenda. It provides an opportunity for those involved in geospatial intelligence to exchange ideas, uncover new technologies, and network. Last year’s symposium attracted more than 2,100 participants and filled an exhibition hall of more than 100,000 square feet. This year, the GEOINT 2006 Symposium will be held from 13th to 17th November at the Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center in Kissimmee, Fla. US, and is expected to surpass even last year’s success.