Speakers

The forum invites Directors/ CTO’s along with technical evangelists from various companies especially leaders in providing Geospatial tools and API’s.

Below is the list of Keynote/ Technical speakers that are expected to be present at this event as Keynote speakers (This is not the final list and more speakers are expected to be present at this Forum).

Keynote Speakers

Brad Skelton CTO ERDAS Inc. With a rich history in the geospatial software industry, Skelton spearheads all aspects of the product innovation process for ERDAS. After working for a short time as a researcher at a university, Skelton was the second software developer to join ERDAS, Inc. in 1980. Skelton led the ERDAS IMAGINE product development throughout the 1990's and served as Vice President of Engineering during ERDAS’ transition to Leica Geosystems. Educated at the Georgia Institute of Technology, he received a Bachelor of Science in Physics in 1981, and a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering in 1986.

David Sonnen President Integrated Spatial Solutions David has been involved in the SIM marketplace for more than 28 years and has been IDC’s senior consultant for spatial information management since 1991. His IDC Spatial Information Management reports are widely regarded as the industry’s most accurate and influential thought leadership and economic information. President and founder of Integrated Spatial Solutions, Inc. in 1991, David's company provides market development and software design to the spatial information management industry. His experiences include the design, implementation, management and marketing of spatial and other large-scale information systems. Before founding ISSI, David held senior positions in both commercial and government organizations, including the chairmanship of the Governor’s Task Force for Geospatial Information in Colorado. David also has extensive experience in design of large distributed database systems.

Jayant Sharma Technical Director Oracle Spatial Products Dr. Jayant Sharma is Technical Director, Spatial Product Management at Oracle's New England Development Center. He has over fifteen years experience in databases and spatial information systems. He is currently focused on the product strategy, and design, of spatial components for Oracle's database and application server products, and on deployment architectures using these components. He works closely with Oracle Spatial's business partners and strategic customers. He also represents Oracle at the OpenGeospatial Consortium's Planning & Technical Committee meetings and its working groups. Dr. Sharma has delivered invited talks, tutorials, and research papers at various academic and industry conferences. He is on the Program Committee of conferences on spatial reasoning, spatial databases, and spatial information theory. He is the co-editor of "Frontiers of Geographic Information Technology” published by Springer in January, 2006.

Jim Barry Program Manager ESRI Developer Network (EDN) Jim is a GIS professional who has been with ESRI for 14 years. He has a B.S. from Rutgers University and an M.S. in Geography from Central Connecticut State University. Before ESRI he served as an infantry officer in the U.S. Army, and as a city land-use planner. At ESRI he has served in many technical and leadership roles related to helping people use GIS most effectively. He has been an author, instructor, designed and developed custom software applications, as well as provided direct developer support. Like most GIS professionals, he is a true believer in what GIS technology can do to help improve our stewardship of this planet for the collective good of all life upon it. Now leading the EDN program, he is working to develop ways to improve the resources and social networking available for developers to get the most from GIS.

Jim Quanci  * Director Autodesk Developer Network With more than 20 years of engineering and design experience, Jim Quanci has spent the past 18 years working closely with Autodesk’s leading technology partners. He oversees an international network of more than 3,000 third-party software partners who customize, complement, and extend Autodesk solutions. Quanci’s experience working with Autodesk partners from around the world includes six years in the Americas, six years in Asia-Pacific, and two years in Europe. Prior to Autodesk, Quanci worked at Sun Microsystems, Fairchild Semiconductor, and General Electric. With a BS in mechanical engineering from The Cooper Union, and an MBA in international marketing from San Francisco State University, Quanci is a frequent presenter and consultant on design software development technologies.

Manish Choudhary Managing Director Pitney Bowes MapInfo India Private Limited As the Managing Director of Pitney Bowes Mapinfo India, Manish Choudhary is responsible for establishing and managing complete range of operations and overseeing the delivery and execution of strategy for PB MapInfo India operations. Spearheading the India operations he is responsible for setting up the India office from scratch in Noida and building cross-functional teams for engineering, data development, global services and operations to deliver full lifecycle development. After having worked at MapInfo headquarters at Troy, New York for more than eight years in various positions, Manish shifted base to India in 2006 to setup India operations. Manish has a Masters degree from University of Akron,Ohio and a Bachelors degree in Architecture. He has attended various business management programs in US and has completed executive management program from National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore focussed on developments in Asia Pacific region. Manish is an avid painter of oil on canvas and enjoys still photography.

Ron Lake CEO, Galdos Systems, Inc. Ron is widely recognized as a visionary figure in the geospatial industry with over 30 years of experience in the advanced software technologies including more than 20 years of advanced database and spatial information systems. Ron is best known as the creator of Geography Markup Language (GML) an ISO and Open GIS data standard and a founding member of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). In June 12, 2002, Mr. Ron Lake was presented the Gardel's award by the OGC, “In particular, this award recognizes your great achievement in creating the Geography Markup Language, (GML), and your uniquely sensitive and effective work to promote the reconciliation of national differences to promote meaningful standardization of GML on a global level.” Prior to founding Galdos, Ron spent three years at Laser Management International as a Vice President of Engineering and 10 years at Macdonald Dettwiler (TSX: MDA) as a Principal Engineer.

Saurabh Bagaria CTO Data World Saurabh Bagaria has over Ten years of experience in designing and developing solutions on varied platforms with exposure to all stages of project development life cycle. He is specialised in creating technical architectures for solutions ranging from web based, desktop to embedded applications on leading technologies such as .Net, UML, Design Patterns, XML, LBS and SOA for various verticals. He has vast expertise in Geographical Information Systems, Location Based Services based on ESRI, MapInfo, and Oracle.

Alok Kumar Senior Program Manager Live Search and MSN Technologies India Development Center Microsoft

* - Confirmation awaited
Technical Speakers:

Abhinav Agarwal, Consulting Product Manager, Oracle Business Intelligence & Enterprise Performance Management

Note: Speakers wishing to contribute to this event can contact Harsha Vardhan.