OGC Global Advisory Council
The OGC Board of Directors created the Global Advisory Council ("the Council") as a committee of the board to function as a non-executive, "blue-ribbon" panel positioned to advise OGC concerning its global outreach and organizational strategies. The Council is chartered to become a significant, high-level and strategically motivated "forum" to represent OGC in global outreach activities and to act as a center for education and worldwide member recruitment. It is also intended to introduce diversity of ideas and a truly global perspective into the strategic thinking of OGC's board and membership, at the same time enabling the consortium to maintain a cohesive management core while affiliating many remarkable people with the OGC process who otherwise for political or financial reasons would find themselves disenfranchised from the consortium process.
Membership in the Council includes individuals representing diverse national groups and regions appointed by the OGC board, an elected representative of each OGC Member Forum, and interested members of the OGC Board of directors (serving or retired).
Chairman
The Council is chaired by an OGC director appointed by the OGC board. The Chairman has overall responsibility for the conduct of Council business and acts as formal liaison between the board and Council on all matters concerning Council activity. David Schell is the Chairman of the Global Advisory Council.
A non-executive Co-Chairman (Co-Chair) of the Council is elected from the Council membership by majority vote. Supported by OGC staff, the Co-Chair provides leadership for planning Council activities, acts as Chair at all Council meetings and proceedings, and coordinates the development of the Council’s position papers and advisory reports.
OGC Board Members who are members of the Council
- David Schell (Council Chair)
- Roberta Balstad
- Mike Jackson
- Mark Reichardt
- Francois Robida
- Rob Van de Velde
- Asia / Pacific
- Peoples Republic of China
- Huadong Guo (Director, Center for Earth Observation and Digital Earth (CEODE) / Chinese Academy of Sciences)
- Deren Li (Chairman of the Academic Committee of LIESMARS, Wuhan University)
- Ershun Zhong (Professor Institute of Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences; President of SuperMap GIS Technologies)
- India
- Sanjay Kumar (CEO, GIS Development)
- Shailesh Nayak (Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences)
- K.K. Singh (Chairman and Managing Director, Rolta)
- Australia
- Gary Nairn (Consultant, Former member of House of Representatives, Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia)
- Bruce Thompson (Director, Spatial Information Infrastructure, Department of Sustainability and Environment, Victoria, Australia)
- Republic of Korea
- Jinsoo You (Professor Yonsei University, Chair OGC Korea Forum)
- Japan
- Morishige Ota (Fellow at Kokusai Kogyo Co. Ltd.; Lecturer University of Tokyo; member national delegation to ISO/TC211)
Europe
- Ian Dowman (President, International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS))
- Ulrich Boes (Director, URSIT)
- José-Luis Colomer (Technical Deputy Director, Institut Cartogràfic de Catalunya
- Mauro Salvemini (EUROGI)
Africa
- Dozie Ezigbalike (UNECA)
- Dr. Derek G. Clarke (Chief Director of National Geo-Spatial Information, Department of Rural Development and Land Reform (Head of the National Mapping Organization), South Africa)
Canada / United States
- Irwin Itzkovitch
- Jay Pearlman (GEO and IEEE)
- Fred Campbell (President, Fred Campbell Consulting)
- Fraser Taylor (Chair International Steering Committee on Global Mappiong (GlobalMap), OGCii)
- Herb Dhaliwal (Member of Parliament for Vancouver, Canada)
- Michael Goodchild (Director, Center for Spatial Studies, University of California at Santa Barbara)
Latin America
- Carmen Reyes (Director General CentroGeo, MX)
- Paulo Fortes (IBGE, Brazil, PCIDEA)
- Iara Musse Felix (Business Development Director of Santiago & Cintro Consulting)
Mid-East
- Dr. Khalid A. Rahman Al-Haidan (Director of GIS Directorate in the Central Informatics Organization, and General Secretary of the National GIS Steering Committee, Kingdom of Bahrain)
Dr. Khalid Al-Haidan
Since 2003, Dr. Al-Haidan has been Director of the GIS Directorate of the Kingdom of Bahrain's Central Informatics Organization (CIO), a center devoted to helping governmental organizations be more resilient, adaptive, and sustainable through wise strategic foresight and imaginative insights regarding spatial enablement of society and government. From June 2004 to the present, he has served as member and General Secretary of Bahrain's National GIS Steering Committee. From 1993 to 2001, Al-Haidan served as Head of Geodetic Network of Bahrain’s’ Survey Directorate of Ministry of Housing, with responsibility for all the department-level activities associated with field survey, networks, and development solutions. In 2003, he was appointed Project Manager of the Bahrain Center for Studies & Researches (BCSR). He was appointed Acting Director of Computer Operations Directorate in the Ministry of State for Cabinet Affairs in 2006. In the same year, he also served as Acting Director of Human Resources Directorate.
Throughout his tenure at CIO, Al-Haidan has worked with a portfolio of strategy, innovation, and research projects, including: the National Spatial Database Infrastructure (NSDI) project for Kingdom of Bahrain, Signage Project, Land Information System Project for Real-estates, and establishing Bahrain Petroleum Company’s infrastructure database. Furthermore, he established the National Geodetic Network and the “Geoids Model” for the Kingdom of Bahrain. In addition, he initiated a Regional Spatial Data Infrastructure for Gulf Cooperation Council Countries.
Dr. Khalid A. Rahman Al-Haidan received a doctorate of philosophy (PhD) in National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) for the Kingdom of Bahrain from Newcastle University (UK) in 2008, and a Masters Degree in Geographic Information System (GIS) from Cranfield University (UK) in 1996. He received Masters Degrees in Cadastral, Mapping and Survey from the School of Military Survey (UK) in 1995. He has also received a BSc (Civil Engineering) from the University of Bahrain in 1993.
His areas of expertise include GIS, Remote Sensing, Geodesy, Surveying, Mapping, Cartography, Planning, Civil Engineering, and Project Management. Based on his long tenure, experience, and services in the Geospatial community, he received a ‘Geospatial Pioneer Award’ in the Middle East in 2010.
Dr. Roberta Balstad
Roberta Balstad is Senior Fellow, CIESIN, and Co-Director, Center for Research on Environmental Decisions, Columbia University. She serves as Chair of the U.S. National Committee on Science and Technology Data, National Research Council and Editor-in-Chief of Weather, Climate, and Society, a journal of the American Meteorological Society. She has been a director of OGC since 2003.
Dr. Balstad has published extensively on science policy, information technology and scientific research, remote sensing applications, and the role of the social sciences in understanding global environmental change. She was awarded the Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1974. Dr. Balstad was appointed senior fellow at Oxford University in 1991-1992 and was a Guest Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in 1994. She was previously the Director of the Division of Social and Economic Sciences at the National Science Foundation, the founder and first Executive Director of the Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA), and President/CEO of CIESIN prior to its joining Columbia University. She has lectured widely, both in the United States and abroad. From 1992 to 1994, she was Vice President of the International Social Science Council and has served as chair of the NRC Steering Committee on Space Applications and Commercialization, the NATO Advisory Panel on Advanced Scientific Workshops/Advanced Research Institutes, the assessment of Scientific Data and Information for the International Council of Science (ICSU), the AAAS Committee on Science, Engineering and Public Policy, and the Advisory Committee of the Luxembourg Income Study. She has published translations of the poetry of Jorge Luis Borges (Spanish) and N.P. van Wyck Louw (Afrikaans).
Ulrich Boes
Ulrich has assumed various positions in research, industry and government. In 2000, he founded the consulting company URSIT in Bulgaria and has been its director since then. URSIT focuses on geographic information, spatial data infrastructures and their business aspects. URSIT Ltd. is an associate member of OGC and pursues the vision to support the ICT sector in South East Europe in the transition towards the market economy. Before this, Ulrich worked 11 years in the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium, as scientific officer; during this time he contributed to Standardisation and in particular to the creation of the European offices of OGC and W3C.
Ulrich has participated as an expert in INSPIRE, working together with the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. He is a lecturer and trainer in areas such as Electronic Business, IT, GIS and INSPIRE. He has worked as a consultant in several positions for the design of GIS and for information technology strategy. He works actively towards the establishment of spatial data infrastructures in South East Europe, and has on-going collaboration with international organizations in the field of GIS such as OGC, Eurogi, EuroGeographics. Ulrich has participated in several projects funded by the European Commission in the area of GIS and spatial data infrastructures. Ulrich carries out research on the collaborative geo-spatial semantic web and he has published in several articles on this subject. Further, he is the founder and one of the promoters of the "Association for Geographic Information in South-East Europe" AGISEE, of which he is also the elected president.
Fred Campbell
Fred holds a Ph.D. in Stratigraphy and Sedimentology from the University of Manitoba. Before retiring as Manager of Program Development at the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing (CCRS) in 1998, he was a Research Scientist with the Geological Survey of Canada, and held several other senior management positions in the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources (now Natural Resources Canada).
While with CCRS, he developed and managed remote sensing research, training and technology transfer programs in Asia, Latin and South America, Africa, and the Middle East. The most extensive of these was the GlobeSAR Project - an airborne radar data collection and research program - that was carried out in ten countries around the world. Lasting three years, it was primarily designed to enable users to prepare for the availability of RADARSAT data. A similar program was carried out afterwards using RADARSAT data in nine countries in Latin America, and it had the same goals and objectives. During his time at CCRS, he worked in, or with, remote sensing and other experts from 36 countries around the world.
Since his retirement, he has been a Consultant on remote sensing projects in several countries in Latin America and Asia for the Canadian Government and Private Companies. In 2009, he accepted a position as Visiting Professor at the Centre for Earth Observation and Digital Earth of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. He continues to travel regularly to China to advise the Centre on a broad range of matters.
José-Luis Colomer
For the past 30 years, José-Luis Colomer has been working at the Institut Cartogràfic de Catalunya (ICC), the official mapping agency of Catalonia (Spain), as Head of the Systems and Development Unit until 1997 and as Technical Deputy Director since then. Before joining the ICC, he developed remote sensing software while at the Computer Centre of the Technical University of Barcelona, and was a part-time professor at the Computer Architecture Department of the Faculty of Informatics.
He was appointed head of the scientific committee of the 1995 ICA Congress and co-chaired Working Group II/7 (standards) of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing from 1997 to 2000. Lluis is a member of the international editorial board of The Photogrammetric Record and an Honorary Member of the International Cartographic Association. He is also member of the Executive Committee of the Spanish SDI and member of the Catalan Coordinating Body for Geoinformation. Lluis holds a degree in Solid State Physics from the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
Herb Dhaliwal
Herb Dhaliwal is a former Canadian Member of Parliament and former Minister of Natural Resources.
Prior to entering politics, Mr. Dhaliwal had a 25 year career as a small businessman and entrepreneur in transportation, maintenance, and real estate development. Mr. Dhaliwal was first elected to the Canadian House of Commons in 1993. As Member of Parliament, he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. He was vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Health and the Task Force on Aquaculture, and chair of the British Columbia Liberal Caucus and the Northern and Western Liberal Caucus.
Mr. Dhaliwal played an active and prominent role in trade missions and parliamentary delegations. He participated in the International Parliamentary Union Conference in Beijing, China, which resulted in the acceptance of the Canadian delegation's resolution banning the use of anti-personnel land mines.
Mr. Dhaliwal served as Minister of National Revenue from 1997 to 1999. In 1999, He was appointed Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and was re-elected to Parlaiment for a third term in November 2000. As Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, Mr. Dhaliwal led the ratification of the United Nations Fish Agreement in 30 countries around the globe. In 2001 he instituted an annual international conference on Oceans Stewardship in Vancouver and chaired the Ministerial Section of the UN Environment Program Meeting, where more than 100 countries were represented, for the Global Programme of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment from Land-based Activities. Mr. Dhaliwal also played a prominent role in promoting sustainable aquaculture development.
Ian Dowman
Ian Dowman is Emeritus Professor of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, University College London (UCL), and is also First Vice President of ISPRS.
Ian Dowman has spent most of his career working at UCL, initially carrying out research with aerial and close range photography, but moving towards an interest in the application of digital aerial and satellite data to mapping. His current research involves automatic feature extraction, terrain mapping and the geometric fusion of different types of data.
He has been involved in ISPRS (International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing) for many years as a Working Group chair, Commission President, Secretary General, President, and is now First Vice President of ISPRS. In this position he represents ISPRS at UN fora, particularly the Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS). Ian has also been chair of the sub group on Terrain Mapping of the CEOS Working Group on Calibration and Validation, and of the EuroSDR Science Committee. As President of ISPRS Ian has been promoting the use of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing in Africa and in 2008 was awarded the merit Award of the African Association of Remote Sensing of the Environment for his work in Africa.
Ian Dowman holds a BSc in Geography from UCL, a PhD in Photogrammetry from UCL, and is a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (FRICS).
Alan Edwards
Alan Edwards has worked throughout his career in a global scientific research environment. He began his research career in 1973, working in the domain of elementary particle physics and in particular the electromagnetic interactions of matter. In 1984 he moved to the Joint European Torus (JET) to work on the development of nuclear fusion as a potential energy source using magnetically confined plasmas.
At the beginning of 1999, he began his career in the European Commission, becoming a Programme Officer in the Research Directorate General. His initial responsibilities within the Environment Research Programme lay in the domains of: marine operational forecasting and observing systems; physical oceanography; ocean-margin and deep-ocean research.
In addition to these duties, Alan was also a member of the original Support Team for the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) initiative, with a focus on scientific, technical and data policy related issues.
He has also represented the Research Directorate General on the Commission's European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODNet) inter-service working-group.
Following the GMES Initial Period, he became involved with the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) initiative as member of the GEO Architecture and Data Committee. From mid-2007 he has worked full time on the GEO, serving as the representative of the European Commission Co-Chair of the GEO and, in addition, as a Co-Chair of: the GEO Capacity Building Committee; the GEOSS Common Infrastructure Initial Operating Capability Task Force; and the GEOSS Data Sharing Task Force.
Dozie Ezigbalike, PhD
Dozie Ezigbalike is the Data Management Coordinator in the African Centre for Statistics (ACS) of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), a position he has held since December 2009. He joined UNECA in 2001 as a Development Management Office (Geoinformation), in the erstwhile Development Information Services Division (DISD). In 2002 he was seconded to UNECA’s Institutional Strengthening Programme (ISP) as the Knowledge Management Coordinator and served in that capacity for 18 months, before returning to DISD as a Senior Geographic Information Systems Officer, and subsequently the Chief of the Geoinformation Systems Section in the ICT Science & Technology Division (ISTD) that replaced DISD.
While in DISD and ISTD, Dozie provided strategic direction to UNECA’s work in the field of geoinformation, with emphasis on implementing the African Reference Frame (AFREF) and supporting member States to develop national spatial infrastructures. His current responsibility focuses on supporting member States to adopt sound data management practices to ensure that statistical data are used in evidence-based decision making, as well as incorporating geospatial technologies in statistical processes.
Before joining UNECA, Dozie lectured at the Universities of Zimbabwe (1988 – 1990), Melbourne (1990 – 1998) and Botswana (1998 – 2000). He was a Visiting Scholar to the Sasol Centre for Innovative Environmental Management of the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (2000-2001), where he contributed to the data management initiatives of the SAFARI 2000 project.
Dozie holds a PhD in Land Information Management from the University of New Brunswick in Canada (1988). He started his geomatics education at the Enugu Campus of the University of Nigeria with a BSc (Hons) degree in Land Surveyor (1979). He obtained an MSc in Land Surveying from the Ahmadu Bellow University in Zaria (1983), where his thesis dealt with the computerization of the Nigerian geodetic records.
Luiz Paulo Souto Fortes
Luiz Paulo Souto Fortes holds a BSc in Cartographic Engineering (Engineering Military Institute - IME, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1981), a MSc in Computer Science applied to Cartography (IME, 1997) and a Ph.D. in Geomatics Engineering (University of Calgary, Canada, 2002). He has been working during the past 28 years for the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics - IBGE. He currently holds the position of Director of Geosciences. He also holds the position of Associate Professor at the Cartographic Engineering Department of the University of the State of Rio de Janeiro. He is President of the Permanent Committee for Geospatial Data Infrastructure of the Americas - CP-IDEA, and Executive Secretary of the National Commission on Cartography in Brazil. Dr. Fortes has published more than 50 papers published in journals, magazines and proceedings in Brazil and abroad.
Michael F. Goodchild
Michael F. Goodchild is Professor of Geography at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Director of spatial@ucsb. He received his BA degree from Cambridge University in Physics in 1965 and his PhD in geography from McMaster University in 1969. He was elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and Foreign Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2002, and member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2006, and in 2007 he received the Prix Vautrin Lud. He was editor of Geographical Analysis between 1987 and 1990 and editor of the Methods, Models, and Geographic Information Sciences section of the Annals of the Association of American Geographers from 2000 to 2006. He serves on the editorial boards of ten other journals and book series, and has published over 15 books and 400 articles. He was Chair of the National Research Council's Mapping Science Committee from 1997 to 1999, and currently chairs the Advisory Committee on Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences of the National Science Foundation. His current research interests center on geographic information science, spatial analysis, and uncertainty in geographic data.
Huadong Guo
Prof. Guo Huadong is Director-General of the Center for Earth Observation and Digital Earth, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). He has been engaged in remote sensing research since 1977, focusing on research on radar remote sensing, development of new earth observing systems, and remote sensing applications.
As one of the founders of the International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE), he serves as the Secretary General of ISDE and Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of Digital Earth, the official journal of ISDE published by Taylor & Francis. He has also been actively involved in the leadership role on earth science data access and data mining, acting as an Executive Committee member of the Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA), and Chairman of the Society on Environment Remote Sensing of China.
With over 200 publications including 15 books, Prof. Guo has been Principle Investigator for more than 20 major national projects/programs in China, and PI for seven international radar remote sensing programs, as well as Guest Professor at seven Universities in Australia and China. He was appointed to be the Leading Scientist of the National Expert Committee for Information Acquisition and Processing Technology in China from 1992 to 2000. Due to these achievements, Prof. Guo was named “National Outstanding Expert” by the State Council of China and CAS in 2000 and 1992. In 2009, he was awarded the Honorary Doctorate of Science by Curtin University of Technology, Australia.
Irwin Itzkovitch
Dr. Mike Jackson
Mike holds a research Chair in Geospatial Science at the University of Nottingham, UK, where he is also Director of the Centre for Geospatial Science (CGS) and Chair of the University Crime, Security and Defence Priority Group. CGS is a multi-disciplinary post-graduate research centre focussing on geospatial intelligence, location-based services and geospatial interoperability. Prior to 2005 he was Director of QinetiQ's Space Division.(QinetiQ, formed from the UK's Defence Research and Evaluation Agency, is a leading science and technology organisations with more than 10,000 scientists and engineers). In earlier appointments, Mike was Head of Location Platform at Hutchison3G UK, a Hutchison Wampoa third generation mobile telecommunications company, and CEO of Laser-Scan Holdings plc, an organisation which took an early and active role in the specification and development of standards within OGC. Mike has first-class honours and PhD degrees from Manchester University and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Technology from Kingston University in 2002. Professor Mike Jackson has been a director of OGC since 2001.
Sanjay Kumar
As Chief Executive Officer of GIS Development, a geospatial media company, Sanjay Kumar has worked towards facilitating and accelerating growth of the geospatial industry worldwide and raising awareness of the industry's contribution to the global development agenda.
Sanjay, who holds a Masters in Political Science and M. Phil. in International Studies from the University of Delhi, began his professional career in 1994, studying industrialization in rural India. This study led to a project management assignment, setting up industrial units in the Himalayan region. This and subsequent roles helped him understand the complications and benefits of industrialization from both a community and an industry point of view.
In 1997, Sanjay joined a diverse group of professionals to co-found the Centre for Spatial Database Management and Solutions (CSDMS), a not-for-profit organisation focussed on applying GIS in development and environmental planning. Through this work, Sanjay saw how little industry and government knew about geographic information and related technologies, which inspired him to co-found GIS Development Private Limited in 1999. Since becoming CEO in 2002, Sanjay has transformed GIS Development into the leading geospatial media company in Asia, the Middle East and Africa. He has actively collaborated with global geospatial organisations, and a major achievement has been to conceptualise and successfully execute, since 2007, the Map World Forum, a global biennial event.
Sanjay Kumar has also been associated with many geospatial professional societies and served as Chair of ISPRS WG VI-4 on distance learning from 2000-2004. He is founding Secretary of the Association of Geospatial Industries of India.
Deren Li
Prof. Dr. Deren Li is a scientist in photogrammetry and remote sensing who holds dual membership in both the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering. He is a member of the Euro-Asia International Academy of Science and he holds an honorary doctorate of ETH. At present, Dr. Li is Professor and PhD supervisor at Wuhan University; Vice-President of the Chinese Society of Geodesy, Photogrammetry and Cartography; Vice-president of the Hubei Association for Science and Technology (HAST); and Chair of the Academic Committee of Wuhan University and the State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing.
In the 1980s, Prof. Deren Li was mainly engaged in studies of observation errors and processing methods in geodesy and photogrammetry. For his work on the separability of model errors he received the 1988 Best Paper Award of the German Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing as well as the Hansa Luftbild Award. His recent contributions include development of several major software systems as well as contributions to the Chinese Space Program and remote sensing programs in Asia.
Since 1989, Prof. Deren Li has supervised 166 PhD and post-doctoral students and he has published over 615 papers and 11 books. His awards include a National Great Invention Award, three National Science and Technology Progress Awards, a National Excellent Textbook Award and others.
Prof. Deren Li served as Comm. III and Comm. VI president of ISPRS in 1988-1992 and 1992-1996, worked for CEOS in 2002-2004 and was the first president of the Asia GIS Association (2003-2006).
Gary Nairn
The Hon. Gary Nairn holds a Bachelor of Surveying from the University of New South Wales, and he is an Honorable Fellow of the Surveying & Spatial Sciences Institute and of the Institution of Surveyors, a Director of the Spatial Industries Business Association (SIBA) and a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
After a 25 year career as a Surveyor in Australia, the UK and Europe, including 13 years as the Managing Director of his own surveying and mapping business, he served as the Member for Eden-Monaro in the Australian Parliament from 1996 till 2007.
His parliamentary career included being the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister from 2004 to 2006 with responsibility for water reform and the Science, Engineering & Technology unit within Prime Minister & Cabinet and as Special Minister of State from 2006 to 2007, during which time his responsibilities included e-Government for the whole of government, all Commonwealth properties except Defence properties, parliamentary services and the position of shareholder Minister for five government business enterprises.
He now operates his own consultancy business specializing in business development, spatial information and property matters. He was also recently appointed to the Board of Vekta Pty Ltd, a surveying & spatial information company.
Dr. Shailesh Nayak
Dr. Shailesh Nayak has been Secretary to the Government of India, Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), since August 2008, providing leadership for the programs related to science of climate change, weather services, polar science, ocean modeling, ocean survey and resources and ocean technology.
He obtained Ph. D. in Geology from the M.S University of Baroda in 1980. He joined the Space Applications Centre, Indian Space Research Organization in 1978 as a scientist, and was elevated as the Director of Marine and Water Resources. He was responsible for conceptualizing; formulating and executing many national level projects related to application of satellite data on ocean color, integrated coastal zone management, snow and glacier studies and water resources.
He was appointed as the Director, Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), Hyderabad, an autonomous institution under the Moses in May 2006. At INCOIS, he set up set up a state-of-the-art Early Warning System for Tsunami and Storm Surges in the Indian Ocean.
He is recipient of the National Mineral Award for the year 2005. He was awarded the Indian National Remote Sensing Award for the year 1994 by the Indian Society of Remote Sensing, Dehradun.
He is President, Indian Society of Remote Sensing. He is elected as the Chairman, Indian Ocean-Global Ocean Observing System (IO-GOOS) for the term 2008-10. He is Vice-Chair of the Inter-Governmental Coordinating Group on Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System (ICG-IOTWS). He was President, International Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS), Technical Commission (TC) IV on ‘Geo-databases and Digital Mapping' for the term 2004-08.
He has published about 80 papers in International and National journals and atlases.
Morishige Ota
Mr. Morishige Ota is a Fellow of Kokusai Kogyo Co., Ltd. He entered this company in 1973 as a surveyor and started the GIS investigation in the next year. He studied Photogrammetry at the postgraduate level at ITC in the Netherlands in 1979. Afterwards, he worked for Japanese central and regional government agencies as a GIS consultant.
He was a visiting professor of the Center for Spatial Information Sciences at the University of Tokyo from 2005 up to 2007. Currently he is a board member of GIS Association of Japan, a part-time lecturer for the Department of Technology at University of Tokyo, and a member of the study group on the investigation of Japanese GIS&T Body of Knowledge.
He was a member of the Japanese delegation to ISO/TC211 from 1995 up to 2004. He was a project leader for Japan Industrial Standard (JIS) X 7108 - Temporal Schema and X 7115 - Metadata, which are identical to ISO/TC211 standards. He was awarded the International Standardization Contributor Award from the Ministry of Economics, Trade and Industry in 2007. Currently he is a member of the ISO/TC211 domestic committee and is a project leader for the standardization of JIS X 7136 - GML.
Jay S Pearlman, PhD
Dr. Jay Pearlman was Chief Engineer of NCOC&EM at Boeing and a Boeing Technical Fellow. He was responsible for advanced development of information systems. Previously he was Northrop Grumman deputy program manager of Hyperion on the NASA EO-1 satellite program and was active on the International Science team for EO-1. He has a Ph.D. from the University of Washington and a B.S. from the California Institute of Technology. Jay is a Fellow of the IEEE and was IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing VP for Information Services. Dr. Pearlman is Past Chair of the IEEE Committee on Earth Observation and Co-Chair of the GEO Architecture and Data Committee, which is the organization building the GEOSS SoS information infrastructure. Through IEEE, he supports programs in Europe and Africa. Jay is a member of the Committee of Earth Studies of the US National Research Council and the US National Academy's Ocean Studies Board. Dr. Pearlman has more than 75 publications and 25 international patents.
Mark Reichardt
Mark Reichardt is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC). Mr. Reichardt has overall responsibility for Consortium operations, overseeing the development and promotion of OpenGIS® standards and working to ensure that OGC programs foster member success. He works with other standards development organizations and professional associations to establish alliance agreements to assure that OGC standards and other standards work together fluidly. Such coordination is critical, for example, to support standards that enable the full integration of geospatial information with real time sensor data and Building Information Models (BIM) used in architecture, engineering, construction and full life cycle management of buildings and other physical infrastructure. Mr. Reichardt joined the Consortium in November 2000 as Director of Marketing and Public Sector Programs; became the President of OGC and a member of the Board of Directors in September, 2004; and was appointed President and CEO in January 2008.
Before joining the OGC, Mr. Reichardt was involved in technology modernization and production programs for the US Government. In the mid 1990's, he was a member of a DoD Geospatial Information Integrated Product Team (GIIPT) formed to help transition the DoD mapping mission to a more flexible and responsive geo-information based paradigm. Under Mr. Reichardt's leadership, the GIIPT Production Team validated the ability of commercial off the shelf hardware and software to meet many of the DoD functional requirements for geospatial production operations.
In 1998 Mr. Reichardt accepted an assignment with Vice President Gore's National Partnership for Reinventing Government to manage a program to illustrate how the use of geospatial information and technologies could improve local to federal government coordination. In early 1999, Mr. Reichardt was selected to establish and lead an international Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) program for the US Federal Geographic Data Committee. In this position, Mr. Reichardt helped to establish globally compatible national and regional SDI practices in Africa, South America, Europe, and the Caribbean. He was instrumental in establishing several nation-to-nation collaborative SDI agreements.
Mr. Reichardt serves on the Board of Directors of the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Association and on the BuildingSmart Alliance Board of Direction.
Carmen Reyes
Dr. Carmen Reyes is a researcher and expert in the fields of Geographic Information Systems, Cybercartography, and Geomatics. She completed a BSc in Mathematics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and a MSc in Mathematics at the Metropolitan Autonomous University of Mexico. Afterwards, she obtained her PhD in Geographic Information Systems at Simon Fraser University in Canada. For more than thirty-five years, Dr. Reyes has worked in different areas of Geomatics.
Dr. Reyes has received several academic distinctions such as a doctoral fellowship granted by the Mexican National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT) as well as a supplementary grant rewarded by Simon Fraser University in Canada. After the completion of her studies, Dr. Reyes was rewarded the "Samuel Gill Gamble Award for Cartography" by the Pan-American Institute of Geography and History of the Organization of American States (OAS). Dr. Reyes is one of the founding members, and former president, of the Mexican Association of Geographic Information Systems (AMESIGE). She has participated in numerous national and international conferences.
In January 1999, Dr. Reyes founded the Jorge L. Tamayo Center for Research on Geography and Geomatics (CentroGeo) and was the Director General for ten years. CentroGeo belongs to a consortium of 27 research centers which are supported by CONACYT. Currently, Dr. Reyes is a Senior Researcher at CentroGeo (www.centrogeo.org.mx).
François Robida
François Robida is Deputy Head of Information Systems and Technologies Division at BRGM. BRGM is France's leading public institution involved in the Earth Science field for the sustainable management of natural resources and surface and subsurface risks. In his current position, he is in charge of research and development and supervises European and international projects in the domain of Information Systems for geosciences and environment in general (such as Orchestra, Rise, Swing, Genesis, Aegos, EuroGeoss, OneGeology).
Prior to taking this position in BRGM, François Robida held different positions in the organization related to computer science applications to earth sciences. Following his first work in mining geostatistics, he was in charge of the design and development of software related to all aspects of geology, and especially to 3D modeling. He was then responsible for the BRGM software group, co-coordinating the development and marketing of software developed by BRGM.
As “Terre Virtuelle” project leader since 2001 (Terre Virtuelle / Virtual Earth is a BRGM R&D corporate project to support the development of new services through the use of new technologies), François Robida has promoted and introduced interoperability, Grid computing and Virtual Reality technologies within BRGM. The project delivered in 2003 the first OGC compliant portal in France.
Involved as an actor of the development of interoperability at different levels, he has been a member of the European Expert Group for INSPIRE during the preparation phase, and he chairs the Working Group on “Geographic information & INSPIRE” of the European Geological Surveys association (EuroGeosurveys). He also represents BRGM in CNIG (French council for geographic information), in OGC (BRGM became the first French OGC member in 2001), and has also been a member of the OGCEurope advisory board.
François Robida is currently member and treasurer of the Council of IUGS/CGI, the Commission for Geoscience information which develops GeoSciML, the geosciences markup language. He is co-coordinating the technical development of the OneGeology initiative (94 countries) that aims at delivering a geological map of the world based on interoperability principles. François Robida is a Mining Engineer, graduate of the Nancy School of Mines (Engineer Degree in geostatistics).
Mauro Salvemini
Esperto di fama internazionale di informatica applicata all’urbanistica, all’ambiente ed all’e-government. Pioniere delle infrastrutture di dati territoriali.
Ingegnere dal 1972, docente di informatica applicata all’urbanistica e di tecnica urbanistica, professore all Sapienza Universita' di Roma ed in universita' Italiane ed estere. Esperto delle Nazioni Unite, nel 2009 è stato inviato a fare parte del gruppo ristretto di esperti mondiali per la realizzazione del Conferenza ONU sull gestione della informazione territoriale. Esperto dell Commissione Europea per e-government e per le informazioni territoriali è stato iniziatore della direttiva INSPIRE della Unione Europea. Responsabile del Laboratorio di sistemi informativi territoriali e ambientali dell'Università di Roma è Presidente dell’associazione europea EUROGI e della associazione italiana AMFM GIS Italia. Già presidente della associazione europea dei laboratori di ricerca per la informazione territoriale ha insegnato in università americane, spagnole ed egiziane. Responsabile ricerche per ente pubblici e privati, progettista e direttore dei lavori di rilevanti appalti pubblici nel settore dei sistemi informativi e della cartografia digitale. Autore di più di ottanta pubblicazioni la maggior parte presentate a convegni internazionali. Membro di commissioni nazionali ed europee, già consgliere di amministrazione di società a capitale pubblico, vive tra Roma ed Anzio.
David Schell
David Schell serves as Chairman of the Board of the Open Geospatial Consortium Inc. which he founded in 1994 with both public and private sector support to evolve "OpenGIS®" into a global standard for interoperable geoprocessing. Mr. Schell is primarily responsible for directing OGC's Board of Directors operations, including oversight of corporate business planning and management, and strategic planning and development initiatives designed to ensure OGC's continued leadership in evolving and expanding technology markets.
Mr. Schell's activities in the area of geospatial technology standards began in 1985 with his work at Massachusetts Computer Corporation (Masscomp), and later with Okidata Microsystems, where he focused on development and marketing of real time measurement and control, document management, and spatial imaging systems. During this period, Mr. Schell worked closely with the US Army Corps of Engineers Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (USACERL) to support development and industrial application of USACERL's widely used open source GIS product, the Geographical Resources and Analysis Support System (GRASS). In 1991, he was elected to lead the non-profit corporation founded, in partnership with the Corps of Engineers, to formalize technology transfer of GRASS to the private sector, and to begin organizing industry support for the creation of an infrastructure to support the development of geospatial interoperability. Renamed the Open GIS Foundation, the organization focused on industry outreach and the integration of diverse geospatial product capabilities in the UNIX and internet environment, and defined the concept of "Open GIS" which resulted in the creation of the Open GIS Consortium, Inc., with Mr. Schell as its president and chairman. Mr. Schell led OGC in this capacity until 2004, when he assumed the role of Chairman and CEO upon appointment of Mark Reichardt to the new position of President and Chief Operating Officer and the renaming of the corporation the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.
Mr. Schell began his career as a systems analyst for IBM Corp., and subsequently worked in technical marketing for Honeywell Information Systems and Data General Corporation. In the early 80's, he worked with several UNIX-based workstation companies as marketing director, focusing on strategic alliances, the integration of UNIX-based productivity tools, and the development of industry business models for third party marketing.
In October of 2002, CIO Magazine presented Mr. Schell with the CIO Magazine "CIO 20/20 Vision Award" for innovation and leadership in the development of transformational technologies essential to today's business process. In 2007 he received the GeoTec Media 2007 Visionary Achievement Award for dedication to the technical advancement and widespread use of geospatial technology.
Mr. Schell earned B.A. and M.A. degrees from Brown University and the University of North Carolina respectively, and currently holds an appointment as Special Professor in Geospatial Interoperability in the School of Engineering at the University of Nottingham.
K.K. Singh
D. R. Fraser Taylor
Professor Taylor received his M.A. and Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Edinburgh and did post graduate work at the University of London and Harvard University. Currently he is Distinguished Research Professor of International Affairs and Geography and Environmental Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. He is also Director of the Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre.
Dr. Taylor's main research interests in cartography lie in the application of geomatics to the understanding of socio-economic issues both in a national and international context. He has extensive international experience in Africa, Latin America and China. Dr. Taylor's current funded research involves working with communities in the Canadian north to empower these communities to express their perceptions of their own environmental and socio-economic reality in new ways. He is the author of numerous publications.
Dr. Taylor is a Board member of the Geospatial Interoperability Institute and a member of an international GEOSS Data Sharing Task Force, which is creating guidelines for access to earth observation data. Currently Dr. Taylor is Chair of the International Steering Committee for Global Mapping (ISCGM), an international body producing a digital map of the world dealing with sustainable development. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the US's committee examining The Geographic Foundation for Agenda 21. He has held leadership positions in the Canadian Association of African Studies, the Canadian Cartographic Association, the International Cartographic Association, and the International Union for Surveys and Mapping. Dr. Taylor was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in June 2008.
Bruce Thompson
Bruce Thompson is Director, Spatial Information Infrastructure, State Government of Victoria, Australia. He is responsible for Victoria’s whole-of-Government spatial information strategy and policies and for the management of Victoria’s spatial information infrastructure.
He is a member of the Australia New Zealand Land Information Council (ANZLIC), a director of PSMA Australia, Australia’s national spatial data provider, and the Deputy Chair of the Australian Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information.
Mr Thompson developed and delivered Australia’s National Address Management Framework, a core policy and standards component underpinning the utilisation of spatial information. He also established the Victorian Mapping and Address Service, Victoria’s first spatial web services environment for delivery of spatial services for both public and private sectors, now operating commercially. He established and implemented Victoria’s GPSnet, a statewide 2 centimetre real-time positioning service, now operating commercially. He also developed and delivered Victoria’s topographic mapping platform, delivering fully automated topographic mapping production for both hard copy and digital online delivery.
Mr Thompson established a web 2.0 service allowing the community, local governments and emergency services organisations to notify, and have rectified, errors in Victoria’s mapping information. He also delivered, through the Victorian Spatial Council, the Victorian Spatial Information Strategy 2008-2010, jointly developed and endorsed by the public, private and academic sectors.
He is a 2006 graduate of the Australia New Zealand School of Government Executive Fellows Programs and holds a Master of Business (Information Technology) from RMIT University (2005) and a Bachelor of Design Studies (Architecture) (1983) from the University of Queensland.
Rob van de Velde
Rob van de Velde is currently director of Geonovum, the Dutch National SDI Executive Committee. Geonovum’s mission is to realize better access to geo-information in the public sector and full integration of its services to public and industry. Geonovum has been mandated by the National GI-Council to implement the EU INSPIRE Directive in The Netherlands and to develop a National Georegister. Furthermore Geonovum develops and manages the national framework of geo-standards.
In his current role as director Mr. Van de Velde is strongly engaged in stimulating location awareness and organizing strategic cooperation amongst leaders in national and local government, academia and industry. He has a part-time position as lecturer in Spatial Informatics at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Department of Economics. He has contributed to more than 40 publications on spatial decision support systems, environmental impact assessments and e-Government services based on geospatial technology.
Graduated as a human geographer (Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam), he started his career in geospatial technology when joining the National Planning Agency in 1985, the first Governmental Agency in the Netherlands to acquire GIS technology from ESRI inc. In 1988 he led the development of the first Dutch National Digital Atlas, presented by the Minister of Spatial Planning and Environment to national parliament, local politicians and leaders of industry. Later he served the National Environmental Protection Agency, responsible for developing a corporate geographical information system. He directed a consortium that developed the 10 Minutes Pan-European Land Use Database and was managing partner of an international collaboration between governmental agencies and universities under the EU-INTERREG3 program, entitled “Participatory Spatial Planning in Europe”. In 2000 he joined the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature Conservation and Food Quality, heading the GIS Competence Center. Here he experienced the key value of accurate spatial data and geospatial technology in managing the severe outbreaks of aviaire influenza and foot-and-mouth disease. Building on this he initiated the development of a National Spatial Data Infrastructure for Disaster management, a joint effort of several public agencies, which was awarded the Public Safety Innovation Award in 2007.
Jinsoo You
Dr. Jinsoo You: OGC Korea Forum Chair
Dr. You is a research professor at the U-City Research Institute of Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea. He has focused on research and development of urban information systems and geospatial web services since the early ‘90s. He has participated in a number of standardization projects for both ISO/TC 211 and Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) during the last decade. In 2008 he was appointed Co-Chair of the OGC-ISO/TC 211 Joint Advisory Group (JAG) which provides coordination between the organizations. He became the Chair of OGC Korea Forum in 2009.
As the Chair of OGC Korea Forum, Dr. You has focused on developing a geospatial services network in Korea based on global geospatial standards. The OGC Korea Forum is particularly focused on identifying an operational framework that can be shared by public sectors and industry players simultaneously by utilizing the nation’s spatial data infrastructure. The Forum’s mission is to support the development of a sustainable and useful NSDI in Korea.
Dr. You earned his Ph.D. in GIS for Transportation from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he received the Outstanding Ph.D. Award in 2000. Before joining Yonsei University, he worked at the University of Nottingham, UK as a research fellow engaged in geospatial interoperability research. He also worked as a CTO and a CIO of leading geospatial information technology firms based in Seoul, Korea.
Ershun Zhong
Zhong Ershun is the founder of SuperMap Software Co., Ltd.
Zhong Ershun received his Ph.D. degree in geography from Beijing University in 1991. Since then he has been working on geographic information technology research and development and has been involved in a number of key research programs on GIS in the country, including those of the Chinese Ecological Research Network, China Land Use Database of Chinese Academy of Sciences and the 863 program initiated by the Ministry of Sciences and Technology of China.
In 1997, he founded SuperMap Software Co., Ltd. and he has continued to develop a series of innovative GIS technologies, making SuperMap a leading GIS platform in China. SuperMap is widely used in governmental and industrial sectors of China. Zhong Ershu has personally been involved in building a number of application systems, such as the land information systems in the cities of Nanning, Xiamen, Liuzhou and Jilin, as well as digital government. As a deputy Chairman of the China GIS Association, he is active in the development and promotion of China’s GIS industry and has initiated research on China's Geographical Information Industry Policy. Also, he is the recipient of several key scientific and technological Awards, including a Science and Technological Award from the State Government in 2004.
Join OGC LinkedIn
Follow OGC on Twitter
RSS Feeds