National Mapping Summit Theme: Geospatial Knowledge Infrastructure for Global Economy

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. Enkhjargal Natsagdorj holds a Ph.D. degree in geoinformatics from Ghent University in Belgium. Prior degrees were earned at the National University of Mongolia (M.S.) for remote sensing and GIS and at the Mongolian University of Life Science (B.S.) for land management engineering in Mongolia. Currently, she is the director of the spatial data analysis department at the Centre for Policy Research and Analysis. Her organization serves on capital city government projects on geospatial data analysis. She is a board member and leader of the Technical Committee on GIS of the Mongolian Geospatial Association.

Sile Martin is currently the policy lead at the UK Geospatial Commission responsible for public sector use of EO data policy. For the last 3 years, Sile has been focused on developing and monitoring a portfolio of projects in a team whose ambition is to increase the UK public sector's capability to utilise geospatial data and deliver more effective and efficient public services. Prior to joining the UK Geospatial Commission, Sile worked for the Houses of Parliament measuring the benefits of a portfolio of building and infrastructure projects.

As Chief Information Officer, Markus Jobst is responsible for the IT organisation, the strategic IT management and the IT knowledge infrastructure at the Austrian Federal Office of Metrology and Surveying (BEV).

Markus Jobst studied geodesy and geoinformation at the Vienna University of Technology and completed his studies with a thesis on the use of multimedia technologies in map-related representations in 2003. He then worked as a research assistant at the Institute of Geoinformation and Cartography at the Vienna University of Technology and finished his doctoral thesis with the focus on a semiotic model for cartographic communication with 3D in 2008. In his further scientific career, Jobst received a post-doctoral fellowship at the Hasso Plattner Institute at the University of Potsdam from 2008-2009. He joined the Federal Office of Metrology and Surveying for the implementation of the EU Directive 2007/2/EC (INSPIRE) and the extension of the IT architecture for the EU Directive (EU) 2019/1024 (Open Data Directive). Starting from 2014 he is active member and supporter of the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management in Europe. In 2022 Markus Jobst was appointed Chief Information Officer (CIO) at BEV.

Markus Jobst's ongoing research interests lay in the fields of sustainable service-oriented architectures, efficient geo-communication and trustful geospatial knowledge infrastructures. Insights are taught in corresponding courses as a lecturer at the Vienna University of Technology, the Graz University of Technology and the Hasso Plattner Institute of the University of Potsdam.

David leads the strategy and roadmap to reinforce and extend Ordnance Survey's position, reputation and contribution as a leader in the national and international geospatial industry.

David joined OS in 2003 and has 25 years of geospatial industry experience across a variety of technical and leadership roles. He has been part of the OS Executive Team since 2015 where he has led both product strategy and customer facing teams.

He leads the UK's delegation to the UN's Committee of Experts on Global Geographic Information Management (UNGGIM) and is a Vice-Chair of the UNGGIM Europe Regional Group. David is a former Chair of the UK's Association for Geographic Information (2015 and 2016), member of the Management Board of Eurogeographics (from 2017) and from 2016-19 was the industry external examiner for the GeoSciences School at Edinburgh University.

In 2019 David was awarded an Honorary Fellowship from the Royal Scottish Geographical Society.

Alejandro Guinea de Salas is the President of EUROGI, an organization that works to advance geographic information across Europe. He holds a degree in Surveying Engineering and a Master's in Cartographic Geotechnologies in Engineering and Architecture. Additionally, he is a member of the working group for the Spatial Data Infrastructure of Spain. Currently, he serves as the CEO of Geograma, a company specializing in geographic information services.

Prof. Dheeraj Kumar is the Project Director of TexMin Hub (Mining Innovation Hub set up by Govt. of India). He is also Deputy Director at IIT (ISM) Dhanbad. Prof. Kumar is the founding Director of TEXMiN Foundation and ACIC Foundation (Section 8 Companies set up with support from DST and NITI Aayog, respectively). Prof. Kumar is a Mine Surveying & Geomatics Professor at the Department of Mining Engineering, IIT (ISM) Dhanbad. He completed his M. Tech from IIT (ISM), Dhanbad, and PhD from IIT Kharagpur. He has more than 20 years of experience in teaching & research at various organizations. His areas of expertise include Surveying, Geomatics, Rock Excavation Engineering, and IT Application in different earth science domains. Dr Kumar has published more than 70 technical research papers in various international/national journals, including seminars/symposiums, and presented several papers at conferences in India and Abroad. Dr Kumar has authored several books and chapters in Advances in Mine Surveying and Application of IT in Mining. He has already completed more than 60 industrial consultancy projects sponsored by various mining & allied industries for solving their real-life mining projects. He has completed six research projects in different areas of Mining and Earth Science. Dr Kumar has conducted several Executive Development Programmes (EDP) and trained over 550 mining executives on various mining and allied disciplines for different organizations. NTPC Ltd., NHPC Ltd., Coal India Ltd., Oil India Ltd., Tata Steel, Atlas Copco, Infosys, Vedanta, IMFA, Indian Oil Corporation. He is a recipient of the National Merit Scholarship; Meritorious Scholar award at IIT Kharagpur in three consecutive years, i.e., 2000- 2001, 2001-2002 and 2002-2003; "CSIR Foreign travel Grant" and "Hindustan Zinc Limited Award" by the Institution of Engineers (INDIA). Dr Kumar has been a recipient of the SBI 2nd Best Researcher award for five consecutive years 2012-13, 2013-14, 2014-15, 2015-16, and 2016-17.

Mark has worked in GIS and mapping since 1984. As Esri's Director of National Mapping Solutions, since 2005, he has a passion for working with National Mapping, Maritime, Aviation and Geospatial Authorities to help them be successful. Mark previously worked with these same organizations for nearly 10 years as a Senior Consultant and Project Manager in Esri's Professional Services. Prior to Esri, Mark was on the management team at NAVTEQ (now HERE), as they were pioneering digital mapping for in-vehicle navigation, web and mobile uses. Mark participates on the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM).

At the British Geological Survey, Chris currently oversee the full digital transformation of the overall mapping system, coordinating and co-designing the projects that enable systems ready for field deployment and onward data integration.

Chris designs and implements cross-organisational frameworks and workflows to enable efficient, repeatable and transparent data related operations, with over 12 years' experience in the geo-environmental sector. These incorporate the different stages of the environmental data lifecycle, from data capture to data analysis and environmental modelling, through to data product development and delivery.

Bringing together experts from across areas including data architecture, data engineering, data analysis through to those applying systems as direct users, is core to his work. Understanding and orchestrating how these different skills and requirements align to ensure suitable data oriented solutions can be designed is what drives him.

Vikrant has over 23 years of rich cross-functional experience in the geospatial industry. He has a proven track record of success in envisaging/designing/delivering enterprise geospatial products/solutions/services (GIS, Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing, Mapping) for the defense and private sector industries.

Brenda has accumulated 17 years of experience specializing in the development of specific Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and their utilization with georeferenced statistical information at the INEGI. She played a pivotal role in leading the development of the MxSIG institutional platform, a significant accomplishment allowing the creation of Geomatics Solutions for the Web. The software within this platform is a combination of the best open-source or free geographic software and in-house developed software, released under free or open-source software licenses.

Brenda's efforts in this development have facilitated the technological transfer of MxSIG to several countries in the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. She also spearheaded the development of web applications under the MxSIG platform, focusing on the publication of geographic and georeferenced statistical information generated by INEGI. In this capacity, Brenda incorporated User Research and Design Thinking methodologies, resulting in applications such as the online Digital Map of Mexico, The System for the Consultation of Census Information 2020, The Gender Atlas, and the Analytical Viewer for COVID-19.

Additionally, Brenda took the lead in developing web applications under the MxSIG platform for the publication and consultation of the Statistical and Geospatial Framework for the Americas (MEGA) in collaboration with UN-GGIM: Americas.

Sallie leads the EuroGeographics Head Office team and reports to the Management Board. She champions our members' data, services and expertise by building constructive partnerships with European and global stakeholders.

Sallie is also responsible for internal management and operational delivery, as well as coordinating membership and communications activities, and the Association's events programme, which includes the General Assembly.

Nicholas Brown is Head of Office at the United Nations Global Geodetic Centre of Excellence in Bonn, Germany. Nicholas works with Member States and organizations to strengthen their collective impact to enhance investment in the global geodesy supply chain, build capacity, and make geodesy and its benefit more visible and understandable to society.

Eric Loubier, Director General of the Canada Centre for Mapping and Earth Observation, has worked for the Government of Canada for the last 20 years as a project manager, program manager and Director at the executive level.

He previously worked as Director of the Science Policy and Partnership Division of the Science and Technology Branch of Agriculture and AgriFood Canada (AAFC).

Prior to joining the public service, Eric worked for a consulting firm in the field of land management as well as a sub-contractor for the Canadian Space Agency.

Eric has significant experience in providing corporate leadership in planning, developing, and implementing complex national geomatics and earth observation programs and strategies. He holds a bachelor in Geography (B. Sc) and a master's degree in public administration (MPA).

Nichola is a Digital Lead within the International Geoscience division of the British Geological Survey and has a focus on the design, development and implementation of custom spatial data capture and delivery systems, as well as the design and implementation of digital workflows. Nichola has led the development of the BGS bespoke digital geological field data capture system, BGS?SIGMA, since 2015 having previously been lead software developer on the project. She is now leading the redevelopment of this system to secure its use into the future and ensure it meets the needs of the new BGS strategy whilst also ensuring that it continues to be a valuable tool for geological surveys worldwide. Nichola also works extensively with international geological surveys as they aim to increase the use and delivery of geospatial data, and her work has taken her from Europe to Africa to Central and SE Asia. In addition, Nichola is the Vice-Chair for the Association for Geographic Information (Scotland) national group.

Aris Marfai is a geography professor who currently serves as the Head of the Geospatial Information Agency (BIG) of the Republic of Indonesia since January 27, 2021. He was the Dean of the Faculty of Geography at Gadjah Mada University from 2017 to 2021. He earned his doctoral degree in geography from Justus-Liebig University in Giessen, Germany, in 2008. He also holds a master's degree in earth system analysis from the Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), University of Twente, Netherlands, in 2003, and a bachelor's degree from the Faculty of Geography at UGM in 1998. In September 2013, he was appointed as a full professor at the age of 37.

As the head of BIG, Aris serves as the leader of the Indonesian delegation in the annual meetings of the United Nations Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM) and the chair of the Indonesian delegation in the biennial meetings of the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN). In his role as the head of BIG, Aris is a member of the advisory board of Indonesia's one-data policy and serves as the chair of the implementation team for Indonesia's one-map policy. He continues to oversee mapping of the sea and coastal areas, including coastline mapping, hydrographic surveys, and national bathymetric mapping. BIG manages more than 230 tide gauge stations, and Aris advocates for the establishment of new tide gauge stations in various regions of Indonesia to support reference services for survey work and monitoring coastal and marine dynamics.

Aris Marfai, as the chair of the One Map Policy (OMP) Secretariat, is driving the accelerated implementation of the OMP for 158 thematic maps from 24 ministries and institutions in 34 provinces. OMP has successfully identified approximately 43 million hectares of land use overlaps. Resolution of these overlaps continues, taking into account geospatial data through instruments of the coordinating ministry for the economy's regulations. In 2023 and 2021, Aris was ranked in the top 2% of world scientists by Stanford University and was included in the top 100 engineering and technology scientists in Indonesia for 2023 by the AD Scientific Index.

Aris has authored more than 230 publications, including books, book chapters, articles, and papers, published in both national and international journals, indexed on Google Scholar [https://scholar.google.co.id/citations?user=ABAF8Q0AAAAJ&hl=id], with an H-index of 32. Over 100 international publications are indexed in Scopus [Scopus Author ID 22951320200; Link: https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=22951320200], with an H-index of 18.

An industry veteran with over three decades of experience in the IT industry, Agendra has been promoting the use of geospatial technologies in the country. Under his leadership, Esri India has partnered with numerous government and private organizations to execute critical and transformative projects using Esri's GIS (Geographic Information System) technology.

Before joining Esri India, Agendra held leadership positions at Silicon Graphics, Veritas Software, and Symantec.

He has also made significant contributions to the geospatial industry as President, Association of Geospatial Industries (AGI), and Chairman, FICCI Committee on Geospatial Technologies.

Agendra holds M.Sc. (Hons.) in Mathematics and Master of Management Studies (MMS) degrees from BITS, Pilani.

Hui Ying serves as a Deputy Director in the Geospatial & Survey Division of the Singapore Land Authority (SLA), where she leads the strategic capture, creation, and maintenance of 3D digital geo-information. Together with her team, they drive the production of national fundamental map data that are instrumental in empowering government agencies with comprehensive support for their planning, risk management, operations, and policy formulation. With a rich background encompassing both the public and private sectors and as a Registered Surveyor in Singapore, Hui Ying has garnered extensive experience in cadastral, mapping tunnelling, and engineering surveys.

Piotr Perz is a Manager in the Geoportal Division in the Department of Informatization, Head Office of Geodesy and Cartography. Master of Science, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olszyn. Experienced in spatial data management, especially in terms of OGC services and API accessibility. The organization is responsible for the functioning of the national geoportal as a central access point to the national geodetic and cartographic resources.

Dr. Gopika Suresh is an Earth Observation (EO) & Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) scientist with more than 14 years of experience developing algorithms and methods to exploit EO data for land, forest, marine, coastal and disaster response applications. Having discovered the gaps in present EO data & solutions, she co-founded Marble Imaging, which aims at becoming Europe's first provider of VHR data acquired from its small satellite constellation and is CSO and head of products where her Team develops cutting edge EO based analytics & solutions for real-world challenges.

Born in a coastal town in the south of India, she has a Bachelor of Technology in Electronics and Communications Engineering from the University of Kerala, India, a MSc in Satellite Applications engineering from the Technical University of Munich, Germany and a PhD in marine Geosciences from the University of Bremen. For her PhD, she developed the first automatic SAR based system to detect marine oil slicks in SAR images and estimate their source hydrocarbon seeps. Since then she has worked as a scientist for the German Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy, as a postgrad lecturer at the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences, a postdoc at the Earth Observatory of Singapore and recently led the team for geospatial solutions at Unique Land use GmbH, where her team developed EO based solution for the forestry and land use sector She was selected as a Geospatial World's 50 rising stars in 2021, a leading woman in ML4EO by the Radiant foundation in 2021 and is the co-organiser of the Sisters of SAR initiative. And she does all this while bringing up a 3 year old toddler and her newborn 2024 baby.

As a regional manager within Kadaster International, the international branch of the Cadastre, Land Registry and Mapping Agency of the Netherlands, Haico is responsible for the business development in Eastern-Europe and Central Asia. As a spatial data infrastructure (SDI) expert, he is involved in many national and international SDI implementation projects. He has also been working on the design, implementation and further development of the national geoportal 'PDOK', as part of the Dutch SDI. He has led projects in a number of countries, focusing on developing a fit-for-purpose land administration. Haico has worked for nearly 5 years in France for EuroGeographics, the association of European national mapping and cadastral agencies, as a marketing communications and business manager. Haico is graduated as a Geographer and Cartographer at the University of Utrecht.

Dr. Nag holds the position of Additional Director General (Exploration) at Directorate General of Hydrocarbons, Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas.

He is a professional geologist with 34 years of experience in upstream oil and gas industry at ONGC and has worked in the entire gamut of upstream hydrocarbon exploration.

Dr. Nag has earned Doctorate in Applied Geology and has published / presented more than twenty research/technical papers in International and National journals & conferences. He is a life member and fellow of Geological Society of India and many Scientific Societies. He is also on the board of studies of several Indian Universities.

Mr Sandy, a licensed surveyor, is the Surveyor-General of Victoria, and Chair of the Surveyors Registration Board of Victoria, as such is the primary government authority on surveying and the cadastre.

The Surveyor-General fulfils a range of statutory roles and responsibilities dealing with land and property boundaries.

Mr Sandy is also a member of the following Commissions and Committees:

• Registrar of Geographic Names
• Victorian Electoral Boundaries Commission
• Federal Redistribution Committee for Victoria
• Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping - Chair
• Council of Reciprocating Surveyors Board of Australia and New Zealand - former Chair

Mr Sandy has a focus on engaging with the surveying profession to develop strategies for meeting the challenges that the current digital environment is creating.

In 2020, he was awarded the Asia Pacific Spatial Excellence Award for Spatial Professional of the Year for 2019 for his work in modernisation of the cadastre and in raising awareness for mental health issues in our profession.

Mr Sandy is the former Surveyor-General for the Northern Territory of Australia, the only person to have held this title in more than one Australian jurisdiction.

Expert, working in different domains of the Geo and Open Data Chain. Ranging from data management, data quality and metadata across services, metadata of services and bulk downloads to geoportal Geopunt, catalogue Datavindplaats and reporting under various regulatory frameworks such as INSPIRE and High-Value Datasets.

A leading lady of Digital Flanders, responsible for the Flemish SDI, has a degree in geography and has worked for more than 15 years in the Flemish government.

Andrea is a Senior System Analyst in the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Radiocommunication Sector.

His current duties encompass software and radio communication engineering activities finalized to the design and implementation of software solutions and systems focused on the application of the provisions of the ITU Radio Regulations and Regional Agreements. He is also the ITU Focal Point for Geospatial Information Management, a Member of the Steering Committee of the UN Geospatial Network and a co-chair in the GeoAI Working Group of the UN Open GIS Initiative.

Since 2021 Andrea coordinates the GeoAI activities at the AI for Good. ?He holds a Ph.D. in Physics (Indiana University, 2000) and an Executive MBA (Geneva University, 2011) with a specialization in International Organizations.

I am an experienced Analyst (20 years) with a demonstrated history of working in the non-profit organization. Skilled in Environmental Awareness, Mining, Hydrogeology, Remote Sensing, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). I am a professional with a post-graduation degree "Master of Technology" focused in Applied Geology from Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, India. I have created several user friendly tools for informed decision making on soil and water conservation measures, water budgeting, aquifer mapping, land mapping etc. and ensured uses of the tools and technology by the village community in more than 50K villages with field teams, NGO partners and Government departments in India by providing trainings, handhold supports and monitoring the usefulness of technology for natural resource management.

Clinton Heimann is the Deputy Director-General of Spatial Planning and Land Use Management at South Africa's National Department of Agriculture, Land Reform, and Rural Development. His role centres on strategic oversight for implementing key legislative frameworks, including the Spatial Planning and Land Use Management Act, the Planning Professions Act, and the Spatial Data Infrastructure Act, crucial for policy development and modernizing South Africa's geospatial frameworks. He also leads the South African delegation to the UN-GGIM and UN-GGIM Africa.

In the past three years, Heimann has driven initiatives to upgrade the country's geospatial infrastructure, fostering collaborative governance and strategic partnerships. His work ensures the alignment of South Africa's National Geospatial Strategies with the Integrated Geospatial Information Framework (IGIF), aiming to bring socio-economic benefits across the region and enhance South Africa's contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Africa Agenda 2063.

Jani Kylmaho has been working with geospatial data infrastructures, data production and distribution for 20+ years. He has been involved in national and international collaboration and projects, working both for the public and private sector. Currently Jani is the Chief Digital Officer at National Land Survey of Finland.

Amy Rose is technical director at Overture Maps Foundation. She had dedicated several decades to the geospatial domain designing, building, and deploying geospatial data and technology solutions for human health and security, environmental remediation, logistics, and transportation planning projects. She's worked in the academic and private sector, in government ecosystems, and most recently at Oak Ridge National Laboratory where she worked with interdisciplinary teams to model and map the built environment and highly resolved estimates of human population at global scale.

Amy received her PhD in Geography from The University of Tennessee and an MS in Geography with a graduate minor in Logistics and Transportation.

Emilio Lopez Romero is a computer engineer. He is the Director of the National Centre for Geographic Information of Spain, the National Contact Point for INSPIRE Directive and President of the Spain's Geographical Information Infrastructure Board of Directors. For more than 12 years Emilio Lopez has been working in the field of Spatial Data Infrastructures with main focus on governance and IT architecture both in a national and international context.

I'm economist with MBA. I've been working for 30 years of which the last 10 in mainstreaming the use of Geospatial Information in socioeconomic development planning. The GIS methodology was initially brought to our country and our attention as the methodology used in Spatial Development Initiatives (SDI's) the one for planning the development of Corridors - that's the country areas with huge potential of natural resources that needed infrastructures to unlock them. The SDI's approach emphasizes the simultaneous planning of infrastructures and the productive sectors through identification of anchor projects supported with GI.

The introduction of GI in development planning in Moz. inititated 13 years ago as a Program (Spatial Development Program-SDP) with support of donnor's funds (WB, UK AID and Development Bank of South Africa) and in 2020 the Government created a public institute - The National Development Geo-spatial Agency where I'm still attached.

I also have been assigned the responsibility of preparing the National Coutry Plan for Integrated Management of GI with support of UNGGIM and SDG Alliance.

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.

Ruud van Rossem studied Geodesy at the Technical University of Delft. After various functions at the Dutch Cadastre he moved to the national government (Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the environment, Ministry of Infrastructure and the environment, Ministry of Interior and Kingdom Affairs) where he was responsible for the development op various so called Key Registers and other parts of the Spatial Data Infrastructure. He was general program manager for de Key Registers Cadastre and Topography (2004-2009), the Key Register Large Scale Topography (2008-2017) and the further development of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (2017-now). The presentation is about the further development from these various Key Registers towards a much broader Data Foundation as a base for working on the various challenges that we currently meet in a data driven way.

Dr. Enkhjargal Natsagdorj holds a Ph.D. degree in geoinformatics from Ghent University in Belgium. Prior degrees were earned at the National University of Mongolia (M.S.) for remote sensing and GIS and at the Mongolian University of Life Science (B.S.) for land management engineering in Mongolia. Currently, she is the director of the spatial data analysis department at the Centre for Policy Research and Analysis. Her organization serves on capital city government projects on geospatial data analysis. She is a board member and leader of the Technical Committee on GIS of the Mongolian Geospatial Association.

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.

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.