Ingrid Vanden Berghe

acting Chair UN-GGIM: Europe

General administrator, IGN Belgium

Jonkvrouw Ingrid H.J. Vanden Berghe is the General administrator of the the Belgian national mapping agency National Geographic Institute. She represents Belgium on the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management and co-chaired this committee from 2020 – 2025. She is acting chair of UN-GGIM : Europe and member of the international Advisory Board of several global centres of excellence, including the UN-Global Geodetic Centre of Excellence. Mrs Vanden Berghe obtained a master’s degree in bio-engineering from KULeuven. In the early years of professional life she worked as a researcher and at the regional administration and in advisory roles in politics. She was President of EuroGeographics, the Association of European National Mapping, Cadastral and Land Registration Authorities from 2012-2018. She was visiting professor at KULeuven and board member of several research organizations and today chairs the board of technology research organization VITO.

14:20 – 14:45
Transforming a traditional mapping agency into a geobroker
15:20 – 16:20
Panel discussion: SDI European to National level, sharing experience, policy and implementation

What has been the most valuable lesson learned in developing your country’s National Spatial Data Infrastructure including its institutional, regulatory and collaborative aspects ?

The most important factor for success is people wanting to serve others so they can be successful.

What makes cooperation successful in the geospatial sector?

An attitude where you take the blame for failure if needed but leave the praise for success to the people really doing something with your geospatial data and infrastructure

What do you see as the biggest challenge in making geospatial data more accessible and widely reusable?

The ignorance in the mainstream IT about geospatial data and its specific requirements and the power it contains to unlocking big data messes

How will AI shape the geospatial sector in the coming years?

We have to make sure AI answers geospatial issues with real geospatial data and not with fabulated maps. This means we have to find ways to make AI consume geodata without deforming it, and we have to prepare our own data accordingly

What is the key message you would like to share and discuss with the audience in Budapest?

AI can take over functions where it is better than humans, so humans can focus on the domains where thinking and ethical judgment matter.