With Dr. Markus Neteler, a prominent figure in the Open Source GIS scene will join the management of mundialis GmbH & Co KG in Bonn (http://www.mundialis.de) from March of this year. The company, founded last year, combines the topics of remote sensing and satellite data as well as big data with open source WebGIS solutions.

The 46-year-old Neteler has been head of the GIS and Remote Sensing department of the Edmund Mach Foundation in Trento, Italy, since 2008, and in this function has been involved in numerous projects on biodiversity, environmental and agricultural research. He is also a founding member of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo), a non-profit organization headquartered in Delaware (USA) that promotes the development and use of Open Source Geoinformation Systems (GIS). And since 1998, he has been coordinating the development of the well-known GRASS GIS, a powerful Open Source GIS that can process time series with several thousand raster, 3D raster or vector layers in a short time.

He will continue to be able to cultivate this role as “Mr. GRASS” at mundialis, especially since the company also sees itself as a research and development company that focuses on the interfaces between geoinformation and remote sensing through the open source lens. Although a new foundation, mundialis has more than 50 years of GIS experience right from the start thanks to the founding team. In addition to Neteler, these are Till Adams and Hinrich Paulsen, both founders and (still) managing directors of terrestris in Bonn, which has been developing Open Source GIS solutions since 2002. Many years of experience in the development of WebGIS and geoportal architectures with free software as well as in the application of common OGC standards are combined at mundialis with in-depth know-how in the processing of big data with spatial reference as well as remote sensing data.