The International Organization for Standardization (ISO),
established in 1947 in Geneva, Switzerland, is a non-governmental,
worldwide federated organization of national standards bodies from
some 130 countries, one from each country.
(For example, the American National Standards Institute
(ANSI) in the United States of America).
The mission of ISO is to promote the development of standardization
and related activities in the world with a view to facilitating the
international exchange of goods and services, and to developing
cooperation in the spheres of intellectual, scientific, technological
and economic activity.
ISO's work results in international agreements which are published as
International Standards.
|
|
The term ISO is not an acronym, it is a word, derived from the Greek
isos, meaning "equal". It is the root of the prefix "iso-" that
occurs in a host of terms, such as "isometric" (of equal measure or
dimensions) and "isonomy" (equality of laws, or of people before the
law).
The term ISO is used around the world to denote the organization,
thus avoiding the plethora of acronyms resulting from the translation
of "International Organization for Standardization" into the
different national languages of members, e.g. IOS in English, OIN in
French (from Organisation internationale de normalisation). Whatever
the country, the short form of the Organization's name is always ISO.
The ISO website is called ISO Online.
|
