Federal 100: David Schell

ChairmanOpen Geospatial Consortium
David Schell


Schell led the formation of Open Geospatial Consortium forums in India, France and South Korea and worked on an interoperability framework for the Global Earth Observation System of Systems, an initiative that involves 81 countries.

He also helped the Federal Geographic Data Committee define the geospatial component of the federal enterprise architecture.

“David has been the Moses of the geospatial community as we have crossed the desert to the promised land,” said Christopher Tucker, principal at Yale House Ventures, a portfolio of social initiatives and technology companies. “When he began the quest of ensuring that the public and private sectors could be geospatially enabled, there was great skepticism. Now…we are all very grateful to David for his commitment to enabling this geospatial revolution to transform the public sphere.”

Read more about the 2010 Federal 100 award winners.