Venkatesh Raghavan (aka Venka) is Professor Emeritus at the Graduate School of Science, Osaka Metropolitan University, where he has made significant contributions to geospatial science and education. He received his D.Sc. in Geologic Remote Sensing from Osaka City University in 1994. He currently serves as President of the Japan Society of Geoinformatics and Association of GeoInformatics Laboratories for Earthsciences, and as Editor-in-Chief of The GIS-IDEAS Journal. A long-standing advocate of Free and Open Source Software for Geoinformatics (FOSS4G), he has helped advance its development and adoption worldwide for more than three decades.