Alessandro ANNONI is working in European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) since 1997. He is the Head of the Digital Earth and Reference Data Unit working to develop Information Infrastructures and advancing research on multidisciplinary-interoperability. His Unit ensure the Technical Coordination of the INSPIRE Directive 2007/2/EC (Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe) that lays down general rules for the establishment of a European Spatial Data Infrastructure.

Alessandro graduated in Physics from the University of Milan. Before joining the European Commission, he worked for several years in the private sector (1979-1996) and managed companies specialising in advanced studies in Remote Sensing, Earth Observation, Geomatics and Information Systems development.

Since 2006 Alessandro served as co-chair of the Architecture and Data Committee of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and is now co-chairing the GEO Infrastructure Implementation Board. He is a visionary member of the International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE) and has been awarded the 2013 Ian McHarg Medal of the European Geosciences Union reserved for distinguished research in Information Technology applied to Earth and space sciences.