GeospatialAI | Earth Observation Platform Architect | Tech Lead

Transforming
Satellite Data
into Intelligence

Architecting next-generation GeospatialAI (GeoAI) & Earth Observation (EO) systems and multi-sensor EO drone platforms, engineering satellite data pipelines, deploying GeoAI and ML/DL systems, and building cloud-native geospatial infrastructure while exploring quantum computing and blockchain to push the boundaries of what satellite data can deliver.

14+ Years Experience
2 Tech Startups
Ph.D. Remote Sensing Sci. & Tech.
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About Me

I'm Dr. Kazi Rifat Ahmed, a GeoAI & EO Platform Architect, Full Stack GeoAI Engineer, and Tech Lead engineering satellite data pipelines and multi-sensor EO drone platforms, deploying AI/ML-DL systems for geospatial intelligence, architecting cloud-native EO infrastructure, and pioneering emerging technologies like quantum computing and blockchain to transform Earth observation data into real-world impact at scale.

AI/ML-DL for Geospatial Data

Designing and deploying GeoAI systems from deep learning models for satellite imagery analysis to end-to-end ML pipelines for geospatial intelligence.

GeoAI Agents & LLM Integration

Building domain-specific GeoAI agents and skills powered by LLMs — enabling natural-language interaction with geospatial data, autonomous EO analysis workflows, and AI-assisted coding for remote sensing tasks.

Satellite Data Engineering

End-to-end EO data engineering for large-scale multi-sensor & multi-mission processing pipelines, analytics, and geospatial visualization at scale.

Multi-Sensor EO Drone Engineering

Designing next-generation airborne EO platforms combining X-band SAR, RGB, NIR, thermal, and LiDAR sensors with onboard edge AI enabling affordable, all-weather, very high-resolution Earth observation beyond existing spatio-temporal resolution constraints.

Cloud-Native Architecture

Architecting scalable, resilient EO platforms using Kubernetes, microservices, and cloud-native DevOps from ground segment to user-facing APIs.

Emerging Technologies

Exploring quantum computing and blockchain for next-generation geospatial data security, provenance, and processing efficiency.

Tech Stack

PythonJavaJavaScriptTypeScriptC/C++ BashDockerKubernetesDevOps AI/ML-DLMLOpsGeoAI AgentsLLM Integration Edge AIDrone ProgrammingSAROpticalLiDAR GDAL APIsRemote SensingGeospatial Data ScienceBlockchain

Research Interests

  • GeoAI & Big Data Analytics
  • GeoAI Agents, Skills & LLM Integration
  • Satellite Data Engineering & EO Systems
  • Multi-Sensor EO Drone Platforms & Edge AI
  • Cloud-Native EO Platform Architecture
  • EO Sensors & Space Technology
  • Advanced Remote Sensing Techniques
  • Planetary Science & Exploration
  • Quantum Computing & Blockchain

Business Acumen

Co-founder of two tech startups and actively seeking investment to bring advanced geospatial and EO products to market. Bridging cutting-edge space technology with commercial opportunities in the rapidly growing billion-euro geospatial market by filling critical gaps through next-generation satellite data services, GeoAI platforms, and multi-sensor EO drone hardware ventures. Expertise in transforming complex EO pipelines into scalable SaaS/PaaS/DaaS offerings delivering measurable ROI across climate adaptation, agriculture, disaster management, and carbon markets. Available for geospatial & EO consultancy and hardware/software collaboration.

Products & Services

Addressing the Billion-Euro Satellite Data Services Market
Sensor Aktor GmbH

Technical Lead | Business Intelligence

Cloud-native Software SaaS · DaaS · PaaS

Web GIS & Remote Sensing Platform

Multi-mission. Multi-sensor. Cloud-native. API-first.

A state-of-the-art cloud-native Web GIS and Remote Sensing platform, APIs, and analytics for satellite data-driven insights, built on Green IT principles with agile and cutting-edge technology. Enables users to search, download, visualize, monitor, and analyze multi-sensor and multi-mission EO data (Optical & Radar) at scale without building their own infrastructure.

  • 35+ optical indices (vegetation, water & moisture, urban & built-up, and specialized analysis) from Sentinel-2, Sentinel-3 OLCI, Landsa 7/8/9, and upcoming missions
  • Radar tools for Sentinel-1 SAR (Land & Ocean)
  • Land & Water products for Sentinel-3 and atmospheric data from Sentinel-5p TROPOMI
  • Basic Remote Sensing tools including Raster Calculator
  • Basic GIS tools for vector draw & edit, measurement, GeoJSON import/export & edit
  • Numerous base maps including Sentinel-2 RGB mosaic
  • European Land Use/Land Cover maps as base layers
  • Very high resolution base layers — 2m satellite (Europe), 20cm airborne (Hessen, Germany)
  • Property boundaries and cadastral information for Hessen, Germany
  • Location-based current weather information overlay
  • Air-gapped deployment with ultra-low latency for secure environments
  • Accessible UI for non-expert users with interactive web maps
Web GISSAROpticalCloud-Native SaaSPaaSDaaSGreen IT
QuantumED UG · ESA BIC

Founder | Technical Lead | Business Intelligence

Cloud-native Software DaaS · SaaS · PaaS

Advanced Earth System Model Platform

Turning terabytes of satellite data into actionable intelligence.

A physics-based, mechanistic advanced Earth System Model (ESM) platform delivering sensor-specific geospatial intelligence from field scale to global scale, in daily to monthly at 10 m to 300 m resolution across SaaS, DaaS, and PaaS delivery models. Supporting climate resilience (adaptation & mitigation), agricultural monitoring, ecosystem management, environmental monitoring, urban planning, disaster management & response, supporting Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) achievement and more.

  • Ecosystem Evapotranspiration (EcoET) — flagship ESM for water and energy fluxes
  • Ecosystem specific drought monitoring with multi-sensor EO data fusion and advanced soil moisture modeling
  • Above Ground Biomass, Biodiversity Mapping & Crop Health monitoring
  • Flood modeling & near-real-time disaster response services
  • Urban Heat Island detection & Surface Water parameter retrieval
  • Fire Hazard mapping based on multi-sensor EO data and weather conditions
  • Bathymetry estimation for inland & coastal water bodies
  • Multi-sensor fusion: Sentinel-1/2/3/5P, Landsat 7/8/9, FLEX-SIF, Biomass, ECMWF, EUMETSAT
  • Weather forecasting & historical data as base maps
  • Interactive data visualization tools with 2D & 3D web maps with time-series analysis
  • ESM calibration & validation data for Sentinel, Landsat & upcoming missions
ESMEcoETDroughtBiodiversity FloodClimateSaaSPaaSDaaS ESA BIC
spectralGeoAI

Founder | Technical Lead | Business Intelligence

Hardware & Software DaaS · PaaS

terraSAT — Next-Gen Multi-Sensor EO Drone

Sees through clouds. Works in the dark. Thinks at the edge.

The world's first affordable multi-sensor EO drone platform co-registering X-band SAR, RGB, 3D Depth, NIR, Thermal, and LiDAR on a single airborne platform with onboard edge AI. Addresses critical gaps in satellite spatial resolution, revisit frequency, data timeliness, edge AI & computing, all-weather operability, and ESM cal/val readiness, and delivering near-real-time multi-modal geospatial intelligence from the air.

  • X-band SAR — all-weather, day/night imaging; interferometry & polarimetry for surface deformation, soil moisture, biomass estimation, and coherent change detection
  • RGB Camera — high-resolution true-color orthomosaics, optical indices computation, and photogrammetric reconstruction for urban planning, agriculture & disaster monitoring
  • 3D Depth Camera — near-real-time point cloud generation for volumetric analysis, structural inspection, stockpile measurement & autonomous navigation in GPS-denied environments
  • NIR Camera — custom vegetation indices for early-stage plant stress detection, crop analytics & biodiversity monitoring
  • Thermal Camera — radiometric heat-signature detection for solar panel anomalies, electrical infrastructure auditing & building envelope analysis
  • LiDAR — centimeter-accurate elevation models, under-canopy forestry & biomass analysis, flood modeling & corridor mapping
  • Onboard edge AI for near-real-time analysis at acquisition with zero cloud computation latency
  • ESM cal/val data readiness for Sentinel, Landsat & upcoming missions
X-band SARLiDARThermalEdge AI Multi-sensor FusionEO DroneCal/ValDaaS PaaS

Projects & Web Apps I built

Actively seeking investment — All projects are at pre-launch state

Open Source Geospatial & GeoAI Web Apps / Projects

WeatherX-Geo

Real-time weather and astronomical data app showing 5-day forecasts, full sun ephemeris (sunrise/sunset, golden hour, solar noon, day length), moon ephemeris (phase, illumination, moonrise/moonset), illustrated moon phases, and interactive web maps with sun/moon positions and daylight terminator line.

Weather ForecastWeather MapsAstronomyReal-Time Sun & Moon TrackerDaylight ZoneReal-Time TerminatorWeb Maps
Geospatial AI Query

Query geospatial data with natural language and visualize on map and chart with custom styles — replacing complex traditional GIS software for data query and visualization. Easily download results without handling multiple complex software.

NLPGeoAIWeb MapsChartsData VisualizationGeographic Data
GeoAI Coding Agent

Specially trained LLMs for coding geospatial tasks with detailed explanations and downloadable code files (Python, Java, C/C++, Rust, JavaScript). Architecture based on the GeoAI-Assistance-Ext project.

LLMCode GenGeoAIMulti-langPythonJavaC/C++JavaScriptTypeScriptRust
GeoAI Assistance Extension

A VS Code extension for local GeoAI assistance on any geospatial task with an integrated chat interface powered by DeepSeek-R1 via Ollama.

VS CodeDeepSeek-R1OllamaGeoAIGISRemote Sensing
Satellite Machine Learning

Combination of unsupervised and supervised machine learning algorithms for satellite image classification to produce precise location-based landuse/landcover maps. Useful for the wider GeoAI community.

MLSatelliteClassificationLULC
Satellite Optical Indices

Jupyter notebooks for calculating widely used optical indices from satellite images — for studying earth surface features and their spatio-temporal changes.

JupyterOptical IndicesRemote Sensing

Experience

Jan 2025 — Present

CTO - Technical Director & Co-Founder

QuantumED UG, Darmstadt, Germany

  • Developing state-of-the-art Earth System Models as Satellite Data Services using cutting-edge geospatial tools and AI technologies
  • Architecting cloud-native solutions with GeoServer, GDAL, Kubernetes, Quarkus, and Keycloak
  • Full-stack development: Java, Python (backend) and JavaScript, TypeScript, HTML/CSS
  • Implementing AI-{ML/DL} pipelines for geospatial data processing at scale
  • Delivering SaaS, PaaS, and DaaS solutions
  • Leading business intelligence and project management initiatives
  • Technical documentation, R&D leadership, and strategic planning
Jan 2022 — Present

CTO - Technical Director & Co-Lead

Sensor Aktor GmbH, Darmstadt, Germany

  • Building cloud-native Web GIS and Remote Sensing platform for satellite data access, analysis, and visualization
  • Architecting cloud-native solutions with GeoServer, GDAL, Kubernetes, Quarkus, and Keycloak
  • Full-stack development: Java, Python (backend) and JavaScript, TypeScript, HTML/CSS
  • Implementing AI-{ML/DL} pipelines for geospatial data processing at scale
  • Delivering SaaS, PaaS, and DaaS solutions
  • Leading business intelligence and project management initiatives
  • Technical documentation, R&D leadership, and strategic planning
Jan 2018 — Dec 2021

Doctorate (Ph.D.) Researcher

Remote Sensing Laboratory, University of Zurich, Switzerland

  • Developed advanced forward modeling for Earth radiation fluxes and ecosystem transpiration estimation
  • Pioneered Sun-Induced Chlorophyll Fluorescence applications for crop drought monitoring
  • Big satellite data modeling using Radiative Transfer Models in Python
  • Course lecturer and co-supervisor for postgraduate research

Skills

Leadership & Business

Entrepreneurship
Technical Leadership
Project Management
Business Modeling
Strategic Decision Making
R&D Management
Team Collaboration
Technical Communication

Geospatial & Remote Sensing

Satellite Data Engineering
Remote Sensing Science & Technology
Multi-sensor Image Analysis
Atmospheric Correction
Earth System & Climate Modeling
Object Detection & Classification
Feature Identification & Extraction

AI & Machine Learning

Supervised Learning
Unsupervised Learning
Semi-supervised Learning
Reinforcement Learning
Scikit-learn & Scikit-image
PyTorch & TensorFlow
Generative AI & LLMs

Development & Engineering

Java & Python Backend
JavaScript & TypeScript Frontend
GDAL/OGR, Rasterio, GeoPandas
Leaflet & Folium Web Mapping
Django & GeoDjango
PostGIS & PostgreSQL
Geospatial Software DevOps

Infrastructure & Cloud

Kubernetes Orchestration
Apache Camel & Quarkus
Keycloak IAM
GeoServer
MinIO Object Storage
Git Version Control
Linux DevOps & VMs

Awards & Recognition

2019

AWS Prize Winner

Swiss Blockchain Hackathon

Developed SOMO (SOil to MOuth), an innovative blockchain solution for the agriculture and food sector using Amazon Managed Blockchain with Hyperledger Fabric.

View Winning Pitch
2017

ImageCLEF Germany Winner

ImageCLEF 2017

Best performing team for population density estimation using Copernicus Sentinel-2 data and machine learning algorithms.

2018

Best Poster Award

ESA Land Remote Sensing Course

Awarded at the 8th Advanced Training Course on Land Remote Sensing, University of Leicester, organized by ESA.

2014-2016

DAAD Scholarship

German Academic Exchange Service

Fully funded academic scholarship for M.Sc. at TU Darmstadt, including thesis funding for geoscience research.

Education

2024
Doctor of Philosophy (Dr.sc.nat)
University of Zurich, Switzerland
Remote Sensing of Water Systems

Thesis: Remote Sensing of Sun-Induced Chlorophyll Fluorescence for Advanced Ecosystem Evapotranspiration Estimates

2016
Master of Science
Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany
Tropical Hydrogeology & Environmental Engineering

Top 5% of class • Major in Remote Sensing & Geoinformatics

2014
Master of Science
Khulna University, Bangladesh
Environmental Science

Ranked 2nd • Major in Remote Sensing & Geomorphology

2011
Bachelor of Science
Khulna University, Bangladesh
Environmental Science

Major in Geoinformatics, Remote Sensing & Hydrogeology

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