Days Until World Standards Day

About World Standards Day

October 14 marks the anniversary of a 1946 meeting in London where delegates from 25 countries agreed to establish an international body to coordinate technical standards, which became the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in 1947.

The day recognizes the work of standards-development experts worldwide, whose work underpins everything from screw thread sizes to the ISO 8601 date format this site's date-math tools rely on.

Three organizations jointly sponsor the observance each year: ISO, the International Electrotechnical Commission, and the International Telecommunication Union, reflecting the day's origin across multiple overlapping technical-standards bodies.

ISO alone has published tens of thousands of international standards since its founding, covering everything from paper sizes to quality management systems, a scope the observance's messaging often highlights to illustrate standardization's invisible everyday impact.

The three sponsoring bodies — ISO, IEC, and ITU — jointly select the day's annual theme, often spotlighting standards work in an emerging technical area such as artificial intelligence or renewable energy.