Geospatial Knowledge Infrastructure for National Development

Currently employed as Vice President - Consulting at Geospatial World, Ananyaa Narain, an economist by education, is a leading thought leader in the socio-economic and market research space for geospatial, BIM, and frontier technologies worldwide. She was recognized as a 40U40 geospatial professional for 2020 by xyHt, and a Geospatial Rising Star 2022 by Geospatial World. Over her eight years of experience in the geospatial technology domain, she is recognized for her result-oriented approach to exploring the impact of the cross-linkage of technology, economics, and policy using varied qualitative and quantitative tools and frameworks. Her professional expertise includes working with cross-sectoral and interdisciplinary stakeholders across technology, academia, and government stakeholders for market size and forecast assessment, socio-economic impact evaluation, developing national policy and governance frameworks, and initiating and contributing to global technology and policy dialogue and debates through research reports and articles, and conference convening.

Dr. Joan Maso (m) is a Principal investigator of CREAF leading specialized group on geospatial interoperability, GIS, remote sensing. Developer in C, JavaScript, Python. Active member of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) since 2003. Editor of OGC 07- 057r7 WMTS standard, the new OGC 20-057 OGC API Tiles, and OGC 21-026 Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF. OGC Gardels gold medal in 2018. Active member of GEO (participant in the Data Working group and Chair of the Citizen Science Initiative). Expert in Metadata, Data Quality documentation, Geospatial data visualization, Citizen Science, In-situ data requirements and Green Deal Data Space. Earth and Space Science Informatics (ESSI) former division president in the European Geosciences Union (EGU). Senior member of IEEE and council member of ISDE.

Rosemarie assists public and private organizations to initiate multi stakeholder partnerships or help them to break out of a deadlock. She accomplishes this through hands-on advice, on-the-job coaching and (scientific) research on organizational and collaboration issues.

For Geonovum she supports the learning processes of the use cases and the collaborating parties involved, on developing and embracing a Digital Twin as an instrument for policy and decision-making processes related to the spatial societal challenges the Netherlands faces. Therefor she developed a learning methodology which helps organizations to change to a digital twin-based way of working more easily. Rosemarie holds a PhD on public and private network collaborations, and a MSc. on governance and organizational sciences.

Prof Dr Zaffar Sadiq Mohamed-Ghouse is a Director of Advisory & Innovation at Woolpert, a leading global architecture, engineering, and geospatial firm. He has over 25 years of experience in providing strategic advice and solutions to several governments and international organizations on geospatial and space-related matters, such as positioning networks, data policies, spatial digital twins, geospatial ecosystems, natural resources, and Geospatial master plans. He has led several multi-million-dollar national mapping projects for various countries and regions, including Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia.

As a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers Australia, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and an Honorary Fellow of the Geospatial Council of Australia, Zaffar is recognized as one of the spatial leaders in Australia and globally. He is also the Chair of the United Nations Global Geospatial Information Management - Private Sector Network, where he facilitates collaboration and innovation between the private sector and the UN-GGIM community. He is passionate about advancing the spatial industry and its contribution to the sustainable development goals. He has published extensively in GIS, surveying, remote sensing, data management, and spatial data / knowledge infrastructures and Geospatial Ecosystems. He is the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the Professional of the Year 2022 by the Asia-Pacific Spatial Excellence Awards and University of Melbourne's Prestigious Thornton Smith Medal for outstanding service to Geospatial and Surveying Community. Zaffar has academic appointments at University of Melbourne, Anna University and National Institute of Advance Studies. He served on the Programme Board of Geospatial Knowledge Infrastructure since its inception. He is currently the Vice president of the International Society of Digital Earth and serves as Board of Directors of the Open Geospatial Consortium and Programme Board of Group on Earth Observation.

Dr. Abrams specializes in calibration and independent verification and validation of complex information systems. Examples include establishing absolute spectral calibration systems in the 1980s, establishing 3D geodetic networks with DGPS class stability and accuracy, and demonstrating and certifying 3D remote sensing systems with sub-meter absolute accuracy.

In 2004, Dr. Abrams demonstrated 11 cm (3DRMS) absolute geodetic calibration in the remote third world. In 2012, he led a USG team that certified a country-scale LIDAR survey with an absolute accuracy of 2 m CE90 and 1 m LE90, from which he developed a concept of 'vendor self-certification.' Most recently, he supported the certification of high-resolution 3D digital surface models and co-registered imagery covering 26 globally distributed international sites. He has deployed on four continents, most recently in Africa, and has delivered national-scale reference databases across the last three decades on each continent.

Dr. Abrams believes in hands-on science and engineering and actively mentors the next generation of technicals and field officers, sponsoring and teaching hundreds of government employees and deployers. He is the father of four adopted boys, each from a different continent. His oldest is now a cybersecurity engineer, number two has spent three years learning field operations and logistics, number three is fluent in multiple languages, and his youngest is both learning disabled and training to be a physicist.