Plenary Agenda

Tuesday, 28th April

0730 - 0900

Greet and Meet for VIPs and Mainstage Plenary Speakers

0900 - 1045

Opening Plenary and Ministerial Address

Sanjay Kumar

CEO
Geospatial World
India

Cora Smelik

Member of the Executive Board
Kadaster
The Netherlands

H.E Dr Khalifa Al Romaithi

Chairman
FGIC
United Arab Emirates

H.E. Eng. Fahad bin Mohammed Al-Jubeir

Mayor of the Eastern Province
Eastern Province Municipality
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Damian Spangrud

Managing Director
Esri
USA

Aarti Holla Maini

Director
UNOOSA
Austria

Mzwanele Nyhontso

Hon'ble Minister of Land Reforms and Rural Development
Republic of South Africa

1045 - 1130

Networking Coffee Break

1130 - 1215

Mainstage Plenary Session 2: Spatial Computing and Digital Twins: Augmenting Space and Geospatial Value Chain

Moderator

Ananya Narain

Vice President - Consulting
Geospatial World
India

Keynote Address

Jeroen Zanen

CEO
AI InfraSolutions
The Netherlands

Hasan Al Hosani

CEO
Spatial Solutions, Space42
UAE

Carlo Ruiz

Vice President
Europe Middle East and Africa, Nvidia
The Netherlands

Jan Wester

Director
European Digital Infrastructure Consortium for Networked Local Digital Twins towards the CitiVERSE
Spain

1215 - 1315

Mainstage Plenary Session 3: Optimizing GeoAI and Digital Twins Towards Utilities and Network Management

Moderator

Akanksha Tyagi

Senior Director, EMEA
Geospatial World

Keynote Address

Geert De Coensel

CEO
Merkator Group
Belgium

Mats Hultin

Board Member
JSAN Consulting and Former CIO at Ericson
Sweden

Krishna Bodanapu

Executive Vice Chairman and Managing Director
Cyient

Nicolas Paparoditis

Dy Director General
National Institute of Geographic and Forest Information (IGN)
France

Bhupinder Singh

Board Member
Magnasoft | Co-founder, EIRIS
India

Garret Synnott

Senior Director
Cognizant
Ireland

1315 - 1430

Networking Lunch

1430 - 1530

Mainstage Plenary Session 4: Space Infrastructure as a Service: Enriching Geospatial Platforms and Spatial Intelligence

Moderator

Vaishali Dixit

VP - Major Account Management & Americas
Geospatial World

Prateep Basu

CEO
Satsure
India

Motoyuki Arai

CEO
Synspective
Japan

Milena Lerario

CEO
e-GEOS
Italy

Nicholas James Brown

Head of Office
United Nations Global Geodetic Centre of Excellence
Germany

1530 - 1640

Mainstage Plenary Session 5: High-Definition Mapping and Visual Positioning Systems: NextGen Geospatial Platforms for Business Enterprises and Location Intelligence

Moderator

Archita Shaktawat

Director - Consulting
Geospatial World
India

Nick Bolton

CEO
Ordnance Survey
UK

Miriam Daniel

VP and GM
Google Maps
USA

Birendra Sen

President - Business Process Services
Tech Mahindra
India

Will Mortenson

Executive Director
Overture Maps Foundation
USA

Mike Gilbert

VP - Product Management
TomTom
The Netherlands

Mike Gilbert is Vice President of Product Management at TomTom, where he leads the maps organization responsible for navigation, ADAS, and automated driving map products. He oversees product strategy and delivery for TomTom's Orbis map platform, including advanced road- and lane-level technologies used by leading automotive OEMs worldwide.

Since joining TomTom, Mike has led the transition from legacy map systems to a scalable, continuously updated platform, while strengthening product quality, governance, and global customer engagement across Europe, North America, and Asia. His work focuses on delivering production-ready map solutions that meet real-world automotive, safety, and regulatory requirements at scale.

Prior to TomTom, Mike spent more than 25 years at Microsoft in a range of product leadership roles. His experience includes operationalizing and scaling the first version of Streetside, Microsoft's street-level imagery solution, and leading product management for the Bing Maps Data Platform.

Javier de la Torre

Chief Strategy Officer
CARTO
Spain

Javier de la Torre, founder and Chief Strategy Officer of CARTO, has been instrumental in advancing the geospatial industry. At CARTO, he's led innovations in location intelligence. He also serves on the Open Geospatial Consortium board, aiding in the development of standards like geoparquet.

1640 - 1800

Mainstage Plenary Session 6: Digital and Geospatial Infrastructure: Backbone for Resilient and Sustainable Development in Digital and Autonomous Age

Moderator

Mark Reichardt

Senior Consultant
Geospatial World

Keynote Address

Ron S. Jarmin

Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer
US Census Bureau
USA

Friso Penninga

Director
Geonovum
The Netherlands

Christophe Yvetot

UNIDO Representative to the EU, EIB, OACPS, Belgium and Luxembourg/Head of UNIDO Brussels Office
UNIDO
Belgium

Sergio A. Fernández de Córdova

Chairman
PVBLIC Foundation
USA

Clinton Heimann

Director General
Department of Land Reforms and Rural Development
South Africa

Dejan Jakovljevic

CIO and Director
Digital FAO and Agroinformatics
Italy

Wednesday, 29th April

0900 - 1115

Mainstage Plenary Session 7: National Mapping Agencies: Anchoring Geospatial Industry Ecosystem and its Value Impact in National Development Priorities through Public-Private Partnership

Moderator

Sanjay Kumar

CEO
Geospatial World
India

Srikant Sastri

Chairman
Geospatial Data Promotion and Development Committee, Dept of Science and Technology
India

H.E. Eng. Anwaar Al Shimmari

Executive Director
Federal Geographic Information Center
UAE

Michael Tischler

Associate Director for Core Science Systems
United States Geological Survey (USGS)
USA

Maree Wilson

Chief of Place & Communities Division
Geoscience Australia
Australia

Bob van Graft

Director - Spatial Information
Ministry of Housing and Spatial Planning
The Netherlands

Yeo Wenshan

Deputy Chief Executive (Development)
Singapore Land Authority
Singapore

Siva Ravada

Vice President
Oracle
USA

Dr. Siva Ravada serves as Vice President of Development at Oracle Corporation. In this role he is responsible for development of the spatial and graph technology at Oracle. Oracle's spatial database server and related geospatial offerings are used across a wide range of applications from traditional GIS/LIS applications to business geographic applications providing location-based services.

Dr. Ravada works with many national agencies to help them define the architecture for their spatial data systems and help them guide in their implementation of spatial data platform. He is a member of program committees of several international conferences to serve the broader communities of spatial databases, Geographic Information Science and spatial computing.

Dr. Ravada is an author and contributor to numerous geospatial publications, and he holds over 40 patents in geospatial technology. Dr. Ravada received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota, a M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Maryland, and a B. Tech. in Computer Science & Engineering from Andhra University, India.

Joao Bentes

Head of Institutional Affairs
GeoSat
Portugal

Neil Churman

CEO
Woolpert
USA

Erik Jorgensen

Chairman
Vexcel Group
USA

Avinash M.V.

Senior Vice President
DSM Soft
India

Willy Govender

CEO
Vast Point
South Africa

1115 - 1200

Mainstage Plenary Session 8: Hydrospatial Infrastructure and Blue Economy

Moderator

Greg Scott

Executive Director, SDG Data Alliance
PVBLIC Foundation
Australia

Greg Scott is the Executive Director of the SDG Data Alliance in PVBLIC Foundation, where he leads the expansion of the Data Alliance's next phase of execution and growth, with a particular focus on Small Island Developing States (SIDS) through PVBLIC's recent agreements with the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and the Government of Antigua and Barbuda to establish a Global Data Hub for SIDS.

Greg previously spent 12 years in the United Nations as the strategic advisor and Secretariat lead in the establishment and development of the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM) in New York.

Prior to joining the United Nations, Greg spent 25 years in Geoscience Australia, Australian Government's national geoscience research and Earth sciences Agency. Spanning several key roles, he delivered Australia's national topographic mapping and derivative geospatial programs, and provided independent scientific analysis and advice in the use of geospatial information for environmental management, emergency management, and critical infrastructure protection.

Greg possesses formal qualifications in Cartography and Survey Mapping from New Zealand, a Graduate Diploma in Geography from the Australian National University, and PhD in Geomatics Engineering from the University of Melbourne.

Keynote Address

Mark Heine

CEO
Fugro
The Netherlands

John Nyberg

Director
International Hydrographic Organization (IHO)
Monaco

Jonathon Pritchard

Senior Technical Manager
IIC Technologies

Dean Angelides

Managing Director, International
Esri
USA

1200 - 1400

Lunch and Visit to Tech Show

1400 - 1500

Mainstage Plenary Session 9: Geo-Technical Engineering and GeoBIM: Advancing Resilient and Sustainable Infrastructure

Moderator

Titas Roy

Industry Manager - Infrastructure
Geospatial World
India

Seng-Chuan Tan

President
World Federation of Engineering Organization
Singapore

GV Sreeramam

CEO
NeoGeoinfo Technologies
India

Piers Dormeyer

CEO
EagleView
USA

Andre Sobczak

Secretary General
Eurocities

1500 - 1615

Mainstage Plenary Session 10: Sovereign Space and Geospatial Infrastructure for National and Regional Security

Moderator

Aravind Ravichandran

Founder & CEO
TerraWatch Space
France

Presentation

Nicolaus Hanowski

Head of the European Space Agency's (ESA) Earth observation satellite missions
European Space Research Institute (ESRIN)
Rome

Ingrid Vanden Berghe

Administrator General
National Institute of Geography
Belgium

Ali Al Shehhi

Director General
National Space Science and Technology Centre
UAE

Abhay Mittal

CEO
Aetosky
Singapore

Vinay Simha

CEO
SkyServe
India

Coco Antonissen

Director Space Applications
Netherlands Space Agency
The Netherlands

Coco is the Director of Space Applications at the Netherlands Space Agency (NLSA). With a background in geoscience and remote sensing, she has extensive experience in the satellite applications domain. Coco focuses on stimulating the development and uptake of satellite-based solutions, and on improving the alignment between supply and demand for space-based data and services across sectors.

1615 - 1700