Ed Parsons

Ed Parsons is the Geospatial Technologist of Google, with responsibility for evangelising Google’s mission to organize the world’s information using geography. In this role, he maintains links with Governments, Universities, Research and Standards Organisations which are involved in the development of Geospatial Technology.

He is a member of the the Board of Directors of the Open Geospatial Consortium and was co-chair of the W3C/OGC Spatial Data on the Web Working Group.

He is a Visiting Professor at University College London and has been an industry advisor to a number of international universities.

Ed is based in Google’s London office, and anywhere else he can plug in his laptop.

Ed was the first Chief Technology Officer in the 200-year-old history of Ordnance Survey, and was instrumental in moving the focus of the organisation from mapping to Geographical Information. He came to the Ordnance Survey from Autodesk, where he was EMEA Applications Manager for the Geographical Information Systems (GIS) Division.

He earned a Masters degree in Applied Remote Sensing from Cranfield Institute of Technology, holds a Honorary Doctorate in Science from Kingston University, London. and is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, an Associate Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation and a professional member of the British Computer Society.