GAIA 2025 Symposium
Geospatial AI and Applications
with Foundation Models
24-25 September 2025 | Sofia, Bulgaria
The first GAIA Symposium on Geospatial AI and Applications with Foundation Models, hosted by INSAIT and ELLIS Unit Sofia, was held in Sofia, Bulgaria, on 24 – 25 September 2025. This international event brought together leading researchers and practitioners in artificial intelligence, geospatial science, weather and climate, and Earth observation to explore the rapidly evolving intersection of machine learning, foundation models, and geospatial data. The symposium aims to foster interdisciplinary collaboration, highlight recent scientific and technical advances, and catalyze the development of next-generation foundation models tailored for spatial and multimodal applications. In addition to oral presentations and poster sessions, the program included ample opportunities for networking and building collaborations across academia, industry, and government sectors.
Speakers
Schedule
(Please find more detailed information via our Electric Booklet.)
Wed, 24 Sept 2025
Time | Speaker | Institution | Talk | Slides | Video |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9:00 – 9:15 | Prof. Luc Van Gool | INSAIT | Opening | ||
| 9:15 – 10:00 | Dr. George Leifman | Google Research | Remote Sensing Geo Foundation Models at Google | ||
| 10:10 – 11:00 | Alexandre Lacoste | ServiceNow Research | On the Path of Foundation Models for EO: Progress, Bottlenecks, and Possibilities | Watch the talk here | |
| 11:00 – 11:30 | Coffee Break | ||||
| 11:30 – 12:15 | Jeroen Audenaert | MIT | Rethinking space science with physics-inspired foundation models | Watch the talk here | |
| 12:30 – 13:15 | Prof. Thomas Zurbuchen | ETH Zurich | GeoLab: From Switzerland to Space and Back | Watch the talk here | |
| 13:30 – 15:00 | Lunch Break | ||||
| 15:00 – 15:45 | Prof. Devis Tuia | EPFL | A Meteor of Smarties | Watch the talk here | |
| 15:50 – 16:15 | Dr. Danda Paudel | INSAIT | Earth Observation with Large Multimodal Models | Watch the talk here | |
| 16:15 – 16:40 | Coffee Break | ||||
| 16:40 – 17:30 | Prof. Ioannis Papoutsis | National Technical University of Athens National Observatory of Athens | From Space to Safety with AI | Watch the talk here |
Thu, 25 Sept 2025
Time | Speaker | Institution | Talk | Slides | Video |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9:15 – 10:00 | Dr. Ferda Ofli | Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) | Advancing Geospatial AI for Real-World Challenges | Watch the talk here | |
| 10:10 – 11:00 | Poster Session | ||||
| 11:00 – 11:30 | Coffee Break | ||||
| 11:30 – 12:15 | Prof. Salman Khan | MBZUAI Australian National University (ANU) | Agentic Reasoning Models for Earth Observation | Watch the talk here | |
| 12:30 – 13:15 | Prof. Begüm Demir | TU Berlin, BIFOLD | From Efficient Foundation Models to AI Agents for Foundation Model Recommendations to Advance Earth Observation | ||
| 13:30 – 15:00 | Lunch Break | ||||
| 15:00 – 17:00 | Spotlight Talks |
Organizers
● Luc Van Gool (INSAIT)
● Danda Paudel (INSAIT)
● Bin Ren (Incoming Postdoc of INSAIT)
● Jeroen Audenaert (MIT)
● Ronny Hänsch (DLR)
● Salman Khan (MBZUAI)
● Xian Sun (Aerospace Information Research Institute)
● Yuliya Tarabalka (Space42)
● Iain Keaney (Ubotica Technologies)
● Begüm Demir (BIFOLD and Technische Universität Berlin)
Venue
The GAIA 2025 Symposium was held at the Grand Hotel Millennium Sofia (Vitosha Blvd 89B, 1463 Sofia, Bulgaria), a premier venue located in the heart of Sofia’s city center.
Special rates were applied for GAIA participants.
Contact
For any questions regarding the conference, please, write us at [email protected]
（）