Joan Masó receives OGC’s 2018 Gardels Award

13 September 2018: Last night, at the September meeting of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Technical Committee in Stuttgart, Germany, Joan Masó received the OGC’s prestigious Kenneth D. Gardels Award. The Gardels Award is presented each year to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to advancing OGC's vision of fully integrating geospatial information into the world's information systems.

Joan Masó, from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (CREAF), was awarded for being ‘the hardest working OGC member out there.’ Joan chairs several working groups, is very active in the OGC Innovation Program, and always provides high-quality results across his work. His work on the Web Map Tile Service (WMTS) standard has proved invaluable, as this standard is one of the most widely adopted standards in the geospatial community.

Joan currently chairs or co-chairs four Domain Working Groups, three Standards Working Groups, and the Iberian and Latin American Forum. Given that OGC members participate on a voluntary basis, Joan shows unprecedented energy in contributing to the goals of the Consortium.

In addition to chairing several Working Groups, Joan was elected by the OGC membership to become a member of the OGC Architecture Board (OAB), in order to ensure that OGC standards remain of the high quality and interoperable consistency as desired by the membership. OAB duties also include assessing emerging trends in technology and business practices to assist in aligning OGC efforts with the direction in which the industry is moving.

In all this work, Joan has demonstrated the principles, humility, and dedication in promoting spatial technologies to address the needs of humanity that characterized Kenn Gardels’ career and life. Joan exemplifies the highest values of the OGC.

Mark Reichardt, President and CEO of OGC, commented: “Each year, one member representative of the Consortium is acknowledged by his or her peers and the OGC Board of Directors for their personal excellence, unwavering commitment, and substantial contributions to the OGC mission. Congratulations to Joan Maso on his selection for this award. Kenn would be proud.”

Image - Joan Masó shakes hands with OGC President and CEO Mark Reichardt upon receiving the 2018 Gardels Award.