Plenary Speakers

Huadong Guo

Digital Earth Science Platform in facilitating SDGs

Guo Huadong is a Founding Director General of the International Research Center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals (CBAS), Professor of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Aerospace Information Research Institute, an Academician of CAS, a Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and a Foreign Member of the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters，a Fellow of the World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), a Fellow of the International Science Council (ISC).He is presently serving as Honorary President of the International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE), Director of the International Center on Space Technologies for Natural and Cultural Heritage under the Auspices of UNESCO, Member of the ISC Global Commission on Science Missions for Sustainability, Chair of the Digital Belt and Road Program (DBAR), and Editor-in-Chief of two scientific journals, International Journal of Digital Earth and Big Earth Data, published by Taylor & Francis. He also served as a member of the UN 10-Member Group to Support the Technology Facilitation Mechanism for SDGs (2019-2021), President of ISDE (2015-2019), and President of the ICSU Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA) (2010-2014). Prof. Guo specializes in remote sensing, radar for Earth observation, and Digital Earth science. He has published more than 500 papers and 24 books, and is the awardee of 20 international and domestic prizes, including ISC Science for Sustainability Award.

Alessandro Annoni

Is Digital Earth the Digital Twin of the Earth?

Alessandro Annoni is the President-elect of the International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE). Prior to his retirement in 2020 he was the Head of the Digital Economy Unit at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. His unit provided techno-socio-economic research in support of the Digital Economy, to accelerate the transition towards a data-driven economy in Europe and understand the issues and challenges of a more connected world (IoT). Previously he headed the Spatial Data Infrastructure Unit (the largest group in Europe dedicated to SDI research) ensuring, among others, the technical coordination of the INSPIRE Directive for the development of the European SDI. In 2006 Alessandro was appointed as co-chair of the Architecture and Data Committee of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and subsequently as co-chair of the GEO Infrastructure Implementation. Before joining the JRC in 1997, he worked for two decades in the private sector in companies specialised in Remote Sensing, Geomatics, Software, and Information Systems development. He is the author, co-author, and editor of over two hundred papers and books related to GIS and Remote-Sensing. He was awarded the 2013 Ian McHarg Medal of the European Geosciences Union reserved for distinguished research in Information Technology applied to Earth and space sciences and he was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award, during the Geospatial World Awards 2020 event for playing a pivotal role in the development and proliferation of spatial sciences in Europe.

Prof. Maria Antonia Brovelli

Open and user contributed GEO data-centric AI

Degree with honours in Physics, PhD in Geodesy and Cartography. She is Professor of “GIS” and “The Copernicus Green Revolution for sustainable development” at Politecnico di Milano (PoliMI) and a member of the School of Doctoral Studies in Data Science at “Roma La Sapienza” University. From 2006 to 2011 she lectured GIS at the ETH of Zurich and from 1997 to 2011 she was the Head of the Geomatics Laboratory of PoliMI (Campus Como). From 2011 to 2016 she was the Vice-Rector of PoliMI for the Como Campus. Currently, she is the coordinator of the Copernicus Academy Network for the PoliMI and the Head of the GEOLab, the Interdepartmental Lab to which 7 Departments of POLIMI are contributing. She is Vice President of the ISPRS Technical Commission on Spatial Information Science, a former member of ESA ACEO (Advisory Committee of Earth Observation); co-chair of the United Nations Open GIS Initiative, chair of the UN-GGIM (Global Geospatial Information Management) Academic Network, mentor of the PoliMI Chapter of YouthMappers (PoliMappers), one of the three curators of the geospatial series of the AI for Good, organized by ITU in partnership with 40 UN Sister Agencies. Her research activity is in the field of geomatics. Her interests have been various, starting from geodesy, radar-altimetry and moving later to GIS, webGIS, geospatial web platform, VGI, Citizen Science, Big Geo Data, geoAI. She is participating and leading research on these topics within the frameworks of both national and international projects and scientific networks. One of her main interests is in Open-Source GIS, where she plays a leading worldwide role.

Fulong Chen

Remote sensing empowers the sustainability of cultural heritage sites

Fulong CHEN is a Professor of International Research Center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals (CBAS). He serves as the Deputy Director of International Center on Space Technologies for Natural and Cultural Heritage under the Auspices of UNESCO, the editorial board member of "Remote Sensing", "Heritage" and "International Journal of Digital Earth". He received the B.E. degree in surveying and mapping engineering from Wuhan University, Wuhan, China, in 2003, and the Ph.D. degree in cartography and geographical information system from Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, in 2008. He successively worked as a post-doc research fellow and research associate at the Institute of Space and Earth Information Science, The Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2008-2012. He was selected as the 100-Talents Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the "Winner of Young Scientists in Global Frontier Science and Technology" of WGDC 2020. Now he is also a professor of Aerospace Information Research Institute, CAS. His current research interests include remote sensing for achieving SDGs, interferometric SAR for geohazards and cultural applications, and intelligent remote sensing data processing and modeling, which are the areas where he has more than 100 academic papers and been the PI for more than 10 national and provincial sponsored projects in recent five years.

Prof. Dr. Arzu Çöltekin

Immersive technologies and extended reality: Implications for Digital Earth and beyond

Prof. Dr. Arzu Çöltekin leads the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland's Institute of Interactive Technologies, and work at the same institute as a Professor of Human-Computer Interaction, Visualization and Extended Reality. Dr. Çöltekin is also a research affiliate at the Seamless Astronomy group in the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics of the Harvard University USA. She is a council member with the International Society of Digital Earth, chairs the international Extended Reality and Visual Analytics working group within the ISPRS, and co-chairs the Commission on Visual Analytics with the ICA. Her interdisciplinary work covers topics related to information science, visual analytics, visualization and cartography, virtual/augmented reality, gaze-contingent displays, eye-tracking, vision (perception and cognition), and human-computer interaction.

Ioannis Papoutsis

Artificial Intelligence in Earth Observation for Disaster Risk Management

Ioannis Papoutsis is a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Astronomy, Astrophysics, Space Applications and Remote Sensing of the National Observatory of Athens. He is an electrical and computer engineer and holds a PhD on the use of advanced satellite interferometry techniques. He has a deep understanding of the Copernicus flagship programme, where he served as the Operations Manager of the Greek node of European Space Agency Hubs that distribute Sentinel data, as well as the Copernicus Emergency Management Services Manager for Risk and Recovery. Ioannis leads the AI4EO research group OrionLab and his current research focuses on the exploitation, management and processing of big satellite data, and the use of artificial intelligence technologies for knowledge extraction using Earth Observation and geo-information, with emphasis on disasters management. He has participated in numerous research projects funded from the European Commission (H2020 and FP7), the European Space Agency and Copernicus. He is the coordinator of the H2020 project DeepCube that focuses on AI pipelines for big Copernicus data, and of the ESA-funded project SeasFire on seasonal wildfire forecasting with deep learning. Ioannis has co-authored several research articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Costas Varotsos

Advances in Remote Sensing and Nowcasting of Extreme Environmental Events

Professor Costas Varotsos is the fDean of the School of Science of the NKUA. His main research interests are: Remote Sensing, Climate Dynamics, Atmospheric Physics & Chemistry, Environmental Change, Non-linear Processes. He has established four international research Laboratories at NKUA.
He has published 15 Books-monographs (12 of SPRINGER, 3 of CRC Press and Matrix Rom). Also, he has published 5 University books in Greek and contributed with chapters to 6 more international books of IoP, Springer and CRC Press.
He is an Adjunct Professor of the University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, China, Honorary Professor of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences and the National Academy of Science of Armenia, a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society (Oxford, UK) and a Member of the European Academy of Natural Sciences, the World Academy of Sciences, and the International Academy of Astronautics.
He is a member of scientific societies including the American Meteorological Society, American Geophysical Union, European Geophysical Union, and the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers He has coordinated or participated in more than 50 research competitive projects, funded by EU, ESA, WMO etc.
He has been appointed as Specialty Chief Editor of "Frontiers in Environmental Science" of the NATURE Publ. Group (2013-2018), Editor-in-Chief of the “Journal of Atmospheric & Terrestrial Physics” of ELSEVIER (since 2023) and the “Remote Sensing Letters” of T&F (since 2020), Review Editor of “Water, Air & Soil Pollution” and “MAPAN” of SPRINGER (since 2020), Editor of: “Remote Sensing” of MDPI (2018-2020), "Big Earth Data", (T&F) (2017-19), “International Journal of Remote Sensing” of T&F (since 2006), "International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health" of MDPI (since 2017), Adviser or Guest Editor or Editorial Board Member of several refereed Journals indexed in Web of Science. He has been Visiting Professor/Researcher of several Institutions e.g., Oxford University UK, University of Dundee UK, University of Maryland USA, Chinese Academy of Sciences China and reviewer of EU, UN, US Scientific Proposals & Reports.

Hiromichi Fukui

Designing a resilient society that achieves SDGs through the social implementation of the Digital Earth

Hiromichi Fukui is a professor and Vice President of Chubu University. He also serves Director of International Digital Earth Applied Science Research Center (IDEAS) from 2011 and Director of Chubu Institute for Advanced Studies from 2015. Before joining Chubu University, he was a professor of Faculty of Policy Management and Research Director of Global Security Research Institute of Keio University. He joined at Keio University in 1996 after a senior chief researcher of STBRI (Sumitomo Trust Banking Research Institute) of the Think Tank in the field on urban and regional planning in Japan.
He has graduated from Nagoya University in 1980. He holds a Doctor of Science in Earth Sciences from Nagoya University in 1987. His current research interests include regional planning, ecological development, global environment and disaster related issues with emphasis on spatial information sciences and Digital Earth. Also, he has served on Councilor of ISDE (International Society for Digital Earth) and on guest professor of Chinese Academy of Sciences. His specializations are in Geo-spatial Informatics and Environmental Sciences.