Vitalie Dilan is a GIS expert and academic leader with over 25 years of experience in geospatial science. Since 2005, he has led the GIS Laboratory at the “Ion Creangă” State Pedagogical University of Moldova, where he founded the country’s first Master’s program in Geoinformatics.

As a national expert for the development of Moldova’s National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI), Vitalie bridges the gap between academia, government, and the private sector. His expertise spans Web GIS, Remote Sensing, and Disaster Risk Management, with significant contributions to international projects funded by Horizon 2020, World Bank, and UNDP. An active member of the FOSS4G and geo-spatial.org communities, he is dedicated to promoting open-source solutions and modernizing geospatial education across South-Eastern Europe.