Keynote Speakers

Dr Markus Neteler is a co-founder of mundialis in Bonn (<https://mundialis.de/>) and ESMERALDA (<https://esmeralda.earth>). His main topics are remote sensing, analysis of large-scale geodata and free software GIS development. He has been GRASS release manager (<https://grass.osgeo.org/>) since 1997 and is a founding member of [FOSSGIS](https://fossgis.de), the Italian [GFOSS](https://gfoss.it/associazione) and [OSGeo.org](http://OSGeo.org). In 2006, he was awarded the Sol Katz Award; he received the [Life Achievement Award 2022](https://neteler.org/blog/life-achievement-award-2022-ceremony/) from the OpenGeoHub Foundation.

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.

CEO/Owner of GeoCat – Chair and founder of the GeoNetwork opensource – OSGeo President of the Board of Directors. Jeroen established the GeoNetwork opensource project while working at the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). A widely used geospatial catalogue application used for example as national and international level catalogs including National Geospatial & Open Data Registries and the INSPIRE GeoPortal in the EU. Jeroen has been promoting the use of international standards and Free and Open Source Software for geographic data and information for over twenty years now. He currently serves on the OSGeo Board, and did so in 2007 & 2008.

Born in 1974. Ph.D. in Engineering from the University of Tsukuba. Graduated from the Department of Architecture, Tokyo University of Science. After working at Sony Computer Entertainment and as Associate Professor at Tokyo Metropolitan University, he assumed his current position in 2018. He was a Visiting Scholar at Harvard&amp;amp;#39;s Reischauer Institute. Currently serves as Deputy Director General, Division for Strategic Communications, The University of Tokyo.

Ela Kagel is a digital strategist and board member of Platform Coops eG, a Berlin-based organisation that supports the digital-cooperative economy across various sectors. Ela has been instrumental in developing networks and platforms that challenge extractive models of technology and economics. In 2010, she co-founded SUPERMARKT, an independent hub for digital culture and collaborative economy in Berlin. There, she has spent over a decade curating conferences, workshops & research projects that explore cooperative practices and equitable digital infrastructures. Ela is also co-founder of Poetic Technologies, a collective enterprise dedicated to reimagining digital infrastructures beyond bureaucratic constraints.

Hal Seki is one of Japan's leading figures in the civic tech movement. In 2013 he founded Code for Japan, a nonprofit bringing citizens, technologists, and governments together to solve public challenges through open collaboration—now a nationwide network of local brigades. His work began with sinsai.info, the volunteer-run crisis-mapping platform he launched after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. A longtime advocate for open data, open source, and open geospatial technology, he has advised national and municipal governments on digital transformation. He also founded Geolonia, a company advancing open location infrastructure.

Britta Ricker is assistant professor at Utrecht University. Her research group experiments with open geospatial data, to identify optimal workflows to make effective maps for decision and policy making related to a range of sustainability issues. Ricker is an active member of the UN Inter-agency and Exert Working Group on the SDG indicators on Geospatial Information (IAEG-SDGs WGGI), acts as the Netherlands representative to the International Cartographic Association, is the Chair of the Commission of Cartography and Sustainable Development. She is also a co-author of the United Nations publication "Mapping for a Sustainable World."