Congratulations are indeed in order for spectactular recent news of Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation funding for TDWG's standards development activities.
Kudos to the matchmakers, Stan Blum, Walter Berendsohn, Donald Hobern, among others for approaching the GBMF for support, and kudos to recent GBMF Program Manager John Marchioni for recognizing the societal and research value of a stable, supported, biodiversity informatics network infrastructure. Great job, great insight, and congratulations all.
I find it most heartening however, in the face of all of the challenges that we constantly face with funding, technology development, deployment and support, to realize that TDWG's first meeting was held 20 years ago, in 1985, as a 'blue sky' vision primarily of Professors Vernon Heywood and Frank Bisby. All of us who work in this field owe a debt of gratitude to them for their inspiration to imagine a standards-based, global architecture, and for their determination to strive over many years, with all those who followed and toiled, to make it real.
Jim Beach Biodiversity Research Center University of Kansas