Alex is a Distributed Spatial Systems Researcher with many years of experience in geospatial data management and web- and cloud-based geoprocessing with a particular focus on land use, soils, hydrology, hydrogeology and water quality data. His interests include Discrete Global Grid Systems (DGGS), OGC standards and web-services for environmental and geo-scientific data sharing, modelling workflows and interactive geo-scientific visualisation.

Alex completed a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellow (MSCA) with our Landscape Geoinformatics working group on improving standardised data preparation, parameterization and parallelisation for hydrological and water quality modelling across scales and has now started a 5-year project on spatial modelling of soil properties using machine-learning.

Geospatial Data Scientist

PhD student at Institute of Cartography and Geoinformatics, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary.

Researcher in Geomatic at SUPSI

I am a PhD candidate at RSC4Earth, University of Leipzig, engaged in harnessing high-resolution satellite imagery to develop deep learning models using multi-source Earth System Data Cubes (ESDCs). Furthermore, I am a Google Developer Expert for Google Earth Engine (GEE), making contributions in geospatial data processing using GEE, including the development of eemont and spectral. Additionally, I have developed open-source tools for remote sensing applications such as Awesome Spectral Indices, cubo and sen2nbar, aiming to enhance the accessibility and utility of remote sensing data.

David Youssefi received the Electrical Engineering degree from the École Nationale Supérieure d’Electronique, Informatique, Télécommunications, Mathématique et Mécanique, Bordeaux, France. From 2013 to 2018, he was a Study Engineer at Communications et Systèmes, Toulouse, where he worked on remote sensing image processing especially in 3D processing. He is currently with the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (French Space Agency), Toulouse, as a Ground Segment Software Development Engineer where he is responsible for software development for Pleiades and design for the future Earth Observation mission CO3D from CNES.

Earth Observation and Geospatial Software Engineer.

AI Software Engineer at BMW, MSc. Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Cum Laude from the Sapienza University of Rome and BSc. in Mechatronic Engineering from the National University of Colombia with experience in software development, project planning, and product development. Recipient of several education grants and author of three patents on AI-based products. My focus is computer vision and natural language processing techniques.

Environmental Engineer, PhD Student @ Politecnico di Milano (Italy) passionate about GIS, photogrammetry and Remote Sensing.
OpenStreetMap contributor, OSGeo Charter Member

I am currently pursuing a PhD in Physics and Earth Sciences at Leipzig University, Germany, and I have been a visiting researcher in Valencia, Spain, as a member of the ELLIS PhD program. My research focuses on the application of machine learning in Earth systems. I am part of the team at the Remote Sensing Center for Earth System Research (RSC4Earth), working under the supervision of Prof. Miguel D. Mahecha and Dr. Karin Mora. My research is kingly funded by the Center for Scalable Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence (ScaDS.AI).

I'm Gianmarco Naro, a Computer Science graduate from Politecnico di Milano. My academic focus on smart cities led to a thesis collaboration with Carlo Andrea Biraghi and Emilia Lenzi, exploring innovative solutions for urban development. Together, we authored an abstract encapsulating our research insights, showcasing our dedication to advancing knowledge in computer science and urban studies.

Assistant professor in Geoinformation Technology at the Department of Built Environment, Aalto University.

I am a computational geographer working at the intersection between geocomputation and the environmental sciences. My research is focused on developing and applying spatial methods to broaden our understanding of processes and patterns in the environment. Vital part of my work is to create, collaborate, and improve geocomputational software. I am an active member of the #rspatial community and a co-author of the Geocomputation with R book.

I'm a PhD student in Environmental Engineering at Politecnico di Milano, a Geoinformatics Engineer, and a geospatial developer. I have more than 3 years of experience developing geospatial web tools as a full-stack developer using technologies such as Angular, Django, Vue, OpenLayers, and Node.js. My main interest is to use my knowledge of web technologies to help grow the GIS field and to create meaningful geospatial web tools for the community.

Senior university lecturer
Aalto University

Luís Moreira de Sousa completed the Degree on Informatics and Computers
Engineering at the University of Lisbon in 2002, which he complemented with a
Masters on Geographic Information Systems in 2005. In the Department of Civil
Engineering of this university he was a junior researcher from 2002 to 2008,
contributing to applied research projects with Instituto da Água and Estradas
de Portugal. After a year as consultant with SIQuant at the National Laboratory
of Civil Engineering (LNEC), in 2009 he became an independent consultant,
supporting de development of the spatial data infrastructure of the newly
created Administração da Região Hidrográfica do Tejo (ARH-Tejo).

In 2011 he joined the Henri Tudor institute in Luxembourg as Research Engineer,
where he contributed to the development of Spatial Decision Support Systems on
the domains of Energy and Urban Planning. At the time he was already a PhD
candidate on Informatics Engineering at the University of Lisbon, promoted by
Prof. Alberto Silva. In 2016 he concluded this graduation with a thesis on
domain specific languages for the development of spatial simulation programmes.
Still that year he started a post-doc position at EAWAG (Swiss Federal
Institute of Research on the Water Domain) during which he conducted research
on rapid flood modelling and storm water network management. Since 2017 Luís
has been at ISRIC - World Soil Information in The Netherlands where he conducts
research on the geography and ontology of world soils.

Luís has relied on open source software for geospatial since 2001, when he
first interacted with GRASS. Since then he contributed code and documentation
to various projects such as OWSLib, OpenLayers, QGis and others. In 2016 he
became a OSGeo charter member and integrated the first Project Steering
Committee of the PyWPS project. He was one of the founding members of the
European chapter of OSGeo and chaired the Scientific Committee of the
FOSS4G-Europe conference in 2018. Since 2023 Luís shares the role of Chief
Returning Officer at OSGeo.

Dr. Marco Minghini obtained a BSc degree (2008), an MSc degree (2010) and a PhD degree (2014) in Environmental Engineering at Politecnico di Milano. From 2014 to 2018 he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the GEOlab of Politecnico di Milano, Italy. Since 2018 he works as a Scientific Project Officer at the European Commission - Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Ispra, Italy, focusing on (geo)data interoperability, sharing and standardisation in support of European data spaces, and contributing to the operation and evolution of the INSPIRE infrastructure. He is an advocate of open source software and open data. OSGeo Charter Member since 2015, active OpenStreetMap contributor and Voting Member of the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, Chair of ISPRS ICWG "Openness in Geospatial Science and Remote Sensing". He is a regular participant and presenter at global and local FOSS4G events, Secretary of FOSS4G Europe 2015, Co-chair of the Academic Track at FOSS4G 2022 and 2023 and FOSS4G Europe 2024.

Margherita Di Leo is an engineer with a PhD in Methods and Technologies for Environmental Monitoring. She has been an OSGeo charter member since 2011 and has contributed to GRASS GIS, OSGeoLive, GSoC@OSGeo among others. She works at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission in Italy as an external consultant.

My academic journey started with a bachelor's degree in Geoinformatics, a field that continues to captivate me. Building on this foundation, I pursued and successfully attained a master's degree in Applied Geography and Geo-informatics. Currently, I am immersed in the pursuit of a PhD in Geo-informatics advancing my knowledge in the field.

Using and developing open source software for making big EO data accessible and actionable.

Stefano Conversi was born in Viterbo, Italy, in 1997. He obtained both his BSc degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering and MSc degree in Civil Engineering for Risk Mitigation at Politecnico di Milano. Since February 2022 he is part of Politecnico di Milano's GIS-GEOLab team as a PhD student. Currently, he is collaborating with Regione Lombardia's General Direction for Territory and Green Infrastructure, in the development of studies aimed at exploiting Remote Sensing techniques for monitoring and preserving regional ecosystems and biodiversity (e.g. against Invasive Alien Species and drought impacts). His main fields of interest are the ones of crisis management and geoprocessing techniques to support risk assessment.

Versatile transportation and GIS professional with a solid background in GIS development, analysis, and transportation engineering. Known for creating innovative GIS applications and leveraging analytical skills to extract meaningful insights for informed decision-making. Experienced in traffic flow analysis, transportation modeling, and contributing to the planning and design of efficient transportation networks. Committed to pushing the boundaries of innovation at the intersection of GIS, transportation and urban development.

The WAPlugin team is a dynamic group of artificial intelligence engineers and earth science researchers passionate about leveraging remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS) for effective natural resources management. Sharing the same determination to make advanced technologies serve sustainable development, they have engaged in a collaboration to develop innovative solutions to the most pressing challenges in this field.

The latest project, WAPlugin, is the result of their collective expertise and commitment to advancing the application of remote sensing data in water resource management and agricultural productivity. As FAO WaPOR Hackathon winners, they have demonstrated exceptional skills in developing practical solutions that integrate remote sensing technology with GIS platforms to streamline data access, analysis and validation processes.