Science & Technology

World Standards Day: Explained in one minute

Explained: What is the World Standards Day and why is it significant

 
Published: Monday 14 October 2019

October 14 is marked as the World Standards Day every year to honour those who developed technical agreements published as international standards. One aim of celebrating the day is also to raise awareness for regulators, the industry and consumers about standardisation.

Standards, of course, are important to maintain parity in public exchanegs — to come to agreement regarding distances, weights, volume, etc that govern both everyday life as well as high science. 

Among those who celebrate the occasion are:

  • International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)
  • International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
  • Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
  • International Telecommunication Union (ITU)

It all started in 1946, when a day delegates from 25 countries came together in London and chose the day. The ISO was set up the next year. But official cleebrations were held up and the first World Standards Day was marked only in 1970.

Gradually, the international standards were adopted by most nations, albeit small creases (is it a mile or a kilometre) remained.

In India, the Bureau of Indian Standards and the National Standards Body of India focussed on improving indigenous standards for set-top boxes and optical fibre networks.

This year, the theme is ‘Video Standards Create a Global Stage’ — about standardising the video compression technologies. 

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