Vinton G. Cerf is widely known as a "Father of the Internet" and is vice president and chief Internet evangelist for Google. In this role, he is responsible for identifying new enabling technologies to support the development of advanced, Internet-based products and services from Google. He is also an active public face for Google in the Internet world. Cerf is the former senior vice president of Technology Strategy for MCI. In this role, Cerf was responsible for helping to guide corporate strategy development from the technical perspective. Previously, Cerf served as MCI’s senior vice president of Architecture and Technology, leading a team of architects and engineers to design advanced networking frameworks including Internet-based solutions for delivering a combination of data, information, voice, and video services for business and consumer use. Cerf is the co-designer of the TCP/IP protocols and the architecture of the Internet. In December 1997, President Clinton presented the U.S. National Medal of Technology to Cerf and his colleague, Robert E. Kahn, for founding and developing the Internet. Kahn and Cerf were named the recipients of the ACM Alan M. Turing award in 2004 for their work on the Internet protocols. The Turing award is sometimes called the “Nobel Prize of Computer Science.” In November 2005, President George Bush awarded Cerf and Kahn the Presidential Medal of Freedom for their work. The medal is the highest civilian award given by the United States to its citizens.
Keynoters
Jack Dangermond is the founder and president of ESRI. Founded in 1969 and headquartered in Redlands, California, ESRI is widely recongnized as a technical and market leader in geographic information system (GIS) software, pioneering innovative solutions for working with spatial data on the desktop, across the enterprise, in the field, and on the Web. ESRI has the largest GIS software install base in the world with more than one million users in more than 300,000 organizations worldwide. Dangermond fostered the growth of ESRI from a small research group to an organization of over 3,100 employees, known internationally for GIS software development, training, and services. He holds seven honorary doctorates from California Polytechnic University-Pomona, State University of New York at Buffalo, University of WestHungary, City University of London, University of Redlands in California, FerrisStateUniversity in Michigan, and LomaLindaUniversityMedicalCenter.
Michael Jones
is chief technology officer of the Google Earth service for
distributed geospatial visualization to users worldwide. He
is co-founder of Keyhole, the company taken over by Google
to create Google Earth. In addition, he is a popular technical
presenter, an inventor with eleven issued U.S. patents, a
director on private company boards, and an associate in several
Silicon Valley projects. He was formerly President & CEO
of Intrinsic Graphics, Director of Advanced Graphics Software
at Silicon Graphics responsible for OpenGL, Performer, and
all other graphics APIs, co-founder of a movie coloring company,
and a computer graphics consultant during the 1980s. He has
been a computer programmer since the fourth grade.
Geoff Zeiss,
director of Technology, Enterprise Solutions Architecture
Infrastructure Solutions Division of Autodesk, has more than
10 years' experience developing enterprise geospatial solutions
for the utilities, communications,
and public works industries. His particular interests include
streamlining the infrastructure management workflow at utilities,
telecommunications firms, and local government; open source
geospatial and Web 2.0 and its impact on infrastructure management;
and converged BIM/CAD/GIS solutions. Zeiss came to Autodesk
from MCI VISION* Solutions where he was director of product
development. VISION* Solutions is credited with pioneering
RDBMS-based spatial data management, CAD/GIS integration,
and data versioning in the utility, communications, and public
works industries. Zeiss is a frequent speaker at geospatial
events around the world including GITA (U.S., Australia, Japan),
GeoBrazil, GeoTec, Location Intelligence, and MapAsia and
recently received two Speaker Excellence Awards at GITA 2007.
Plenary Session Speaker
Vincent Tao, Ph.D., is director of the Microsoft
Local Search and Virtual Earth business unit. He was founder
of the GeoTango International Corporation, a 3-D online mapping
and visualization software company, acquired by Microsoft
in 2005. Tao has developed several innovative technologies
and products, including Earth-based 3-D Web visualization
and 3-D modeling from imagery. Prior to joining Microsoft,
Tao held the eminent Canada Research Chair Professor position
in Geospatial Information Technology at York University in
Toronto. Tao holds several executive positions in organizations
and adjunct professorships in universities. He has authored
over 200 technical papers and a number of book chapters. He
has been honored with numerous awards and distinctions.
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