Keynote Sessions Asian Economies : The Spatial Perspective David Maguire Dr. Maguire is the Director of Products, Solutions and International and member of the senior management team for Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI). Dr. Maguire has authored or co-authored over 70 books and publications on GIS, including the industry recognised Geographical Information Systems. He received his doctorate degree in Geography from the University of Bristol in 1983, and is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Prof. V. S Ramamurthy Prof. V. S Ramamurthy is presently the DAE Homi Bhabha Chair Professor, Inter-University Accelerator Centre. From 1995-2006, he was the Secretary to the Government of India, Department of Science and Technology.He holds a PhD in physics from Madras University.Major research contributions of Prof. Ramamurthy span the areas of nuclear fission and heavy ion reaction mechanisms, statistical and thermodynamic properties of nuclei, physics of atomic and molecular clusters and low energy accelerator applications. He has 69 papers to his credit, that have been published in refereed journals. Puan Noriyah Ahmad Deputy Director General (Macro) Economic Planning Unit, Malaysia Infrastructure Development and Engineering Bhupinder Singh Bhupinder Singh joined Bentley in 1994 and is the Senior Vice President of Bentley Software. Bentley Software is responsible for the strategic direction and management of all Bentley’s software products and development activities. Previously, Mr. Singh served in the sales organization as managing director for Bentley South Asia and prior to that role, he served as Bentley’s senior vice president of the Platform Products Group. Before joining Bentley, Mr. Singh held various software engineering positions at Montgomery Watson Hazra and Intergraph Corporation. He is a graduate in Civil Engineering with a B.Tech from I.I.T Delhi and holds master’s degrees in Structural Engineering from Vanderbilt University and in Computer Science from Rutgers University. Maneesh Prasad Maneesh Prasad is the Chief Operating Officer and Managing Editor at GIS Development. Maneesh is responsible for the content and technical activities related to magazines [GIS Development & Location], portal[GISdevelopment.net] and GIS Institute. He is the founder member of GIS Development and has been associated with it as Director since it's inception. He played key role in developing (1) The Geospatial Resource Portal, http://www.GISdevelopment.net [2000], (2) Handheld GIS on open source platform called GramChitra [2002] and (3) Location publications: print and electronic[2006]. He holds a B. Tech in Computer Engineering from Mangalore University, India. Vincent Dessard Vincent Dessard is the Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of IONIC Software SA, Belgium. As an international consultant for GIS and Distributed Geographical Systems as well as an Active Technical Member of the OGC since 1999, Mr. Dessard has experience in developing new markets for adopting the concepts and COTS products implementing the ISO and OGC vision of interoperable Spatial Data Infrastructure. He is currently focusing on support of the INSPIRE Initiative of the European Commission, GMES and GALILEO. He is also leveraging the OGC / ISO vision of interoperable Geo Services in emerging markets like India, Middle East, Asia Pacific. He got his University degree in Computer Science from the University of Liege, Belgium, has extensive work experience with large companies as Siemens Nixdorf, gaining experience in R&D activities and project management. Y. Bhg. Dato' Ir. Dr. Judin Director General Department of Works (JKR) Malaysia Technology Trends Marc Tremblay Dr. Marc Tremblay is VP and General Manager of the Commercial Business Unit at DigitialGlobe, a leading provider of geospatial content and associated web services. The company owns and operates Quickbird™, the world’s highest resolution commercial imaging satellite. Brad Skelton Brad Skelton is the Chief Technology Officer at Leica Geosystems Geospatial Imaging, LLC, headquartered in Norcross, Georgia, USA. Mr. Skelton spearheads all aspects of the product innovation process for the leading provider of geospatial imaging solutions. 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. He worked for a short time as a researcher at the university and then joined the startup ERDAS. He led the ERDAS IMAGINE product development throughout the 1990s and served as Vice President of Engineering during ERDAS’ transition to Leica Geosystems. Dr. Franz Leberl Franz Leberl (62) grew up in Austria and received the degrees of Dipl.-Ing. (1967) and Dr.techn. (1972) from Vienna University of Technology. He worked in the Netherlands, California, Minnesota, Colorado and Austria. Today he is a chaired professor of Computer Science and Director of the Institute for Computer Vision and Graphics at Graz University of Technology in Graz (Austria, currently on partial leave). Franz Leberl founded Vexcel Corporation in Boulder (Colorado, 1985) and Vexcel Imaging GmbH (Austria, 1993, manufacturer of the UltraCam Digital Large Format Aerial Camera). He was CEO of the Austrian Research Centers (1996-1998) with 1000 employees. In the period 2000-2004 he was President of Commission III (Theory and Algorithms) of the International Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS). His awards include the Otto-von-Gruber Medal from the ISPRS (1976) and the Fairchild Award from ASPRS (1991). He is a Fellow of the IEEE (1996). In 2005, he was awarded the Grand Decoration of Honor for Services to the Republic of Austria. In May 2006, Vexcel Corp. and Vexcel Imaging GmbH were sold to Microsoft Corp. (USA), resulting in Franz Leberl’s current position as a Director of Microsoft’s Virtual Earth initiative. Dato’ Sr Dr. Abdul Kadir bin Taib Dato’ Sr Dr. Abdul Kadir bin Taib is the Deputy Director General, Survey and Mapping, Malaysia. He joined the Department of Survey and Mapping Malaysia as Land Surveyor on 1st April 1978. Dr. Abdul Kadir is also the Deputy Chairman, Land Surveyors Board Peninsular Malaysia. He holds a Ph.D in Geomatic Engineering from University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia (1994). ROI in Geo-spatial Technology Applications Robert M. Samborski Robert M. Samborski is the Executive Director of the Geospatial Information & Technology Association (GITA). Mr. Samborski’s background encompasses association management and private sector consulting experience. Mr. Samborski has a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Colorado and a Master’s degree in Public and International Affairs from Texas Christian University. Aki. A. Yamaura Aki. A. Yamaura is the Senior Vice President of Asuka DBJ Partners Ltd (ADP), private equity fund backed up by the Development Bank of Japan. ADP’s one of focus is on investment in Asian technology, including field of Geospatial technology/satellite imagery/Geospatial data processing. Mr. Yamaura was previously General Manager, Space & Geospatial Business of Mitsubishi Corporation. He is one of the opinion leaders of Japanese Geospatial Industry, Trustee Board member of ISPRS Foundation and previously Director of the Board of Open GIS Consortium, USA. Michael Jones Michael Jones is the Chief Technologist of Google's Earth, Maps, and Local Search efforts, the teams within Google responsible for providing location intelligence and information in global context to users worldwide. Michael was formerly the CTO of Keyhole Corporation, CEO of Intrinsic Graphics, Director of Advanced Graphics at Silicon Graphics, and a developer of scientific and interactive computer graphics software for many years. A computer programmer since age ten, he is also an avid traveler and an amateur photographer with a home-built 4 gigapixel camera made with parts from the U2/SR71. Datuk Ir. Hj. Keizrul Abdullah Director General Department of Irrigation and Drainage Malaysia Dato' Mohd. Fadzil Bin Hj Mohd. Khir Director General Town and Country Planning Malaysia