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Speakers
Aaron Addison
Executive Director
World Geospatial Industry Council
Aaron Addison is the Executive Director of the World Geospatial Industry Council (WGIC), where his focus is geospatial industry outreach working with companies and organizations around the globe on challenges related to the policy, implementation and communication of geospatial data. His 30 years of international experience includes extensive work in the public and private sectors as well as NGOs and higher education institutions. Addison currently provides program management leadership for WGIC activities in education, workforce development, digital twins and recently initiated GeoAction Africa project examining the contributions that geospatial tools and services may provide to countries in Africa. In addition to his operational and project management roles, he also staffs the WGIC Industry\Academia committee working to bring education and research together with geospatial industry. Prior to joining WGIC, Aaron served as the Director of Data Services for Washington University in St. Louis. In 2006 he joined WU to build a university-wide geospatial program for teaching, research and administration. His teams delivered analytic and technical services to faculty, students and staff as well as leading the creation of a GIS Certificate curriculum and teaching courses at multiple universities.
Nadine Alameh
Executive Director
Taylor Geospatial Institute
Dr. Nadine Alameh is the Executive Director of the Taylor Geospatial Institute (TGI) – founded in St. Louis to fuel geospatial science & technology for global impact. Nadine is a recognized geospatial leader with experience in Disaster Preparedness, Climate Impact, Earth Observations, and Defense. Prior to TGI, she was CEO of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), senior advisor to NASA, entrepreneur and startup founder, and Chief Innovation Architect at Northrop Grumman. Nadine sits on the board of the Private Sector Network of the UN Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM); and is an appointed member of the US National Geospatial Advisory Committee (NGAC). She’s the recipient of the OGC 2024 Service Excellence Award, the prestigious 2023 Women in Technology Leadership award, the 2022 Geospatial World Forum Diversity Champion award, and the 2019 Canada Geomatics Leadership award. Nadine holds a Ph.D. and 2 M.S. degrees from MIT.
Dean Angelides
Corporate Director, International
Esri
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José Luis Blanco Álvarez
Senior Partner, Global Leader of Engineering, Construction and Building Materials Practice McKinsey & Company
José Luis Blanco Álvarez leads McKinsey’s engineering, construction, building materials (ECB) and construction technology work in North America and is a leader of their real estate practice. Before joining McKinsey, José spent almost 10 years as a Project Manager and Senior Project Manager at ACS-Hotchief, Europe’s largest E&C conglomerate, where he led hundreds of engineers and workers in completing some of the company’s most complex projects. This included transforming a former bullring into a shopping mall in 2009 and constructing Agbar Tower, one of Barcelona’s skyline landmarks, in 2006. Since he joined the firm, he has extensively served players across the construction value chain across North America, Europe, Latin America, and Asia. His clients include investors, architecture shops, engineering and construction firms, construction equipment firms (OEMs & Equipment rentals), building materials and construction software firms. José has served construction equipment firms with focus on strategy, operational excellence, mergers and acquisitions, and digital transformations. He brings deep expertise in optimizing performance and unlocking value through embedding digital capabilities and deploying and scaling up new technologies. He spearheads McKinsey’s construction technology landscape scan which periodically maps emerging construction technology solutions against innovation and investment patterns, and McKinsey’s global E&C performance benchmark, which periodically reviews the financial and operating health of the world’s top construction firms.
Major General (Ret.) Clint Crosier
Director, Aerospace and Satellite
AWS (Amazon Web Services) Public Sector
Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Clint Crosier is Director of the AWS (Amazon Web Services) Aerospace and Satellite business, established to help accelerate innovation in the global aerospace and satellite industry. He leads a global team that is dedicated to working alongside commercial and government space customers to provide tailored, secure, and cost-effective cloud solutions to help them solve their toughest challenges. The team continues AWS’s long history of supporting customers in the space industry by helping commercial and government customers build satellites, conduct space and launch operations, and reimagine space exploration. Prior to joining AWS, Crosier served 33 years in the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force. His career includes a broad charge of experience in space operations, including a one-year deployment to the Middle East as the U.S. Central Command Director of Space Forces. He served in staff assignments in the U.S. Senate, Secretary of the Air Force’s 39 Action Group, U.S. Air Force Office of Legislative Liaison, Office of the Secretary of Defense, Air Force Space Command and US Strategic Command. During his career, he operated GPS, SatCom, and missile warning satellite constellations, launched Atlas and Titan rockets putting national security payloads in orbit for the National Reconnaissance Office, and led Requirements and Strategy Development for the entire US Air Force. Prior to retiring from military service as a Major General, he was the lead planner and architect of the US Space Force, helping to stand up the first new military service in 72 years. Crosier earned his degree in aerospace engineering from Iowa State University. In 2020 he was inducted into the ISU Aerospace Engineering Hall of Fame. He has also earned a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Southern Mississippi (Summa Cum Laude), and a Master’s of Science in National Security Studies from the US Naval War College with Highest Distinction. His military service awards include the Bronze Star for exemplary service in a combat zone, Air Force Space Command’s Sijan Leadership Award, two Defense Superior Service Awards, three Legions of Merit, and the NRO Director’s Gold Medal. His military academic awards include Distinguished Graduate and Top Graduate accolades at Squadron Officer School, Air Command and Staff College, and the Naval War College.
Andy Deacon
Co-Managing Director
Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy (GCoM)
Andy Deacon has been part of the Global Covenant of Mayors secretariat team since January of 2020 and as Co-Managing Director is working to guide programme management and delivery across all of GCoM’s areas of activity. GCoM is the largest global alliance for city climate leadership and is built on the commitment of over 13,500 cities and local governments. Andy has worked for 25 years across a range of environmental protection issues focusing on climate change, energy and air quality in local, regional and central government, academia and NGOs. He has advised Mayors and Ministers on city scale carbon reduction and climate adaptation, community energy, home retrofit and air quality. Andy has a BSc in Geography and Environmental Studies from the University of Surrey Roehampton Institute and an MSc in Applied Meteorology and Climatology from the University of Birmingham.
Bryn Fosburgh
Board President
World Geospatial Industry Council
Bryn Fosburgh holds the position of Board President at the World Geospatial Industry Council (WGIC) and is a Senior Vice President at Trimble, where he serves as an Advisor to the CEO. Since 1994, Bryn has led various sectors at Trimble, including Geospatial, Construction, Transportation and Logistics (T&L), and Agriculture. He is a founding member of Trimble’s joint ventures with Caterpillar, Hilti, and Nikon, having spent over twenty years on those joint venture boards. Bryn also founded Trimble’s consolidated construction and T&L businesses, overseeing profit and loss centers that generated more than a billion dollars in revenue. Prior to joining Trimble, Bryn worked for nearly ten years in the Federal and State Government at the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Defense Mapping Agency (DMA). He received a Master of Science in Civil Engineering from Purdue University and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. His achievements have been recognized with the Purdue University Civil Engineering Alumni Achievement Award and induction into the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) Hall of Fame. Bryn is passionate about mentoring early-stage companies, helping them achieve their market potential and realize their vision and objectives.
U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper
U.S. Senator, Colorado
John Hickenlooper took an unconventional path to public office. After starting out as a geologist, John took a chance by opening the first brewpub in Colorado. As a small business owner, he gained a deep understanding of the local community and the value of collaboration. John entered public service because he knew he could listen to the diverse array of Colorado voices and get things done. As Colorado's U.S. Senator, John is committed to bringing people together to solve our country's toughest problems.
John started his career in Colorado as a geologist. After being laid off in the long recession of the mid-80s, he opened the state's first brewpub in a neglected warehouse district in Lower Downtown (LoDo) Denver. He and his partners started multiple businesses, renovating nearly a full block of LoDo warehouses in mixed-use developments that included 90 units of affordable housing. His company led the renovation efforts of more than a dozen historic buildings in cities across the Midwest. In 2003, John was elected Mayor of Denver. As Mayor, he focused on bringing people together to get things done, just as he'd done as an entrepreneur. He unified all 34 metro mayors to fund and build FasTracks, the most ambitious U.S. transit initiative in modern American history with 119 miles of new track. John made Denver the first large city to provide quality early childhood education for every 4-year old, initiated the most significant police reforms in the City's history, and opened one of the first offices of sustainability in the country.
John served as Governor of Colorado from 2011 to 2019. During his tenure, Colorado's economy recovered from ranking 40th in job creation during the Great Recession to become the number one economy in the country (U.S. News & World Report). As Governor, he expanded health care to half a million Coloradans, established climate pollution limits that served as a national model, and enacted commonsense gun safety measures. He also oversaw the creation of the first regulatory framework in the U.S. for the legalization of recreational marijuana, which has become the gold standard.
John is honored to serve the people of Colorado in the U.S. Senate. From traveling the state to sit down with farmers and small business owners to chairing committee hearings in Washington, John serves in the Senate with the appreciation that when he casts a vote, he represents all of Colorado.
Melody Olson
Senior Engineering Director, Geo Perception
Google Maps
Melody Olson is a Senior Engineering Director at Google, leading the Geo Perception team with a mission to transform how we understand the physical world. Melody's teams are responsible for Street View & Aerial hardware, global imagery collection, 3D and applied machine learning to create foundational data for Google Maps, which serves over 2 billion users worldwide. This data is also used for automotive mapping, sustainability initiatives, and enterprise applications. Melody's has expertise in sensor data and large scale infrastructure for mapping applications. She holds a Bachelor’s in Computer Science from the University of Colorado Boulder.
Kevin Pomfret
Partner
Williams Mullen
Kevin Pomfret is a partner at the Williams Mullen Law firm and is based in the Washington, DC area. He is recognized as a leading authority on the legal and policy issues that impact the collection, use, storage and distribution of geospatial information, such as government and commercial contracts, data licenses, privacy and data protection, data quality and liability and regulatory matters. He also advises a number of companies in the space and geospatial sectors on mergers and acquisitions, raising funds from private equity and venture capitalists, joint ventures and other corporate transactions. He is an adjunct professor on Geospatial Law and is the author of Geospatial Law, Policy and Ethics: Where Geospatial Technology is Taking the Law.
Eve Psalti
Senior Director, Artificial Intelligence
Microsoft
Eve Psalti is a 20+year tech and business leader, currently the Senior Director at Microsoft’s Azure AI engineering organization responsible for scaling & commercializing artificial intelligence capabilities and solutions. She was previously the Head of Strategic Platforms at Google Cloud where she worked with F500 companies helping them grow their businesses through digital transformation initiatives.Prior to Google, Eve held product and business development leadership positions at Microsoft and startups across the US and Europe leading 200-people teams and $600M businesses. A native of Greece, she holds a Master’s degree and several technology and business certifications from London Business School and the University of Washington. Eve currently serves on the board of WE Global Studios, a full-stack startup innovation studio supporting female entrepreneurs and she’s an advisor at VSN Hub, an education management company focused on leadership development inspired by Ancient Greek teachings.
Sean Young
Director, AECO, Geospatial, and AI Solutions Industry Marketing
NVIDIA
Sean Young is the global director of business development for the manufacturing industry at NVIDIA, responsible for linking the world’s product development innovators with revolutionary NVIDIA VR, visualization, simulation, engineering, and AI technologies. Sean has 20 years of manufacturing hardware and software experience, with prior management roles at HP, Autodesk, and Corel, focused on 3D graphics and design visualization. Sean resides in Colorado and holds an MBA from Queen’s University in Canada.
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