Mohammed bin Yahya Al-Sayel has been appointed to become a member of the UN’s Global Geospatial Knowledge and Innovation Center following a royal decree on April 16.
The UN-GGKIC aims to build geospatial capabilities and competencies at the global level, develop centers of knowledge and innovation in countries, and benefit from the mechanisms, techniques, and analysis used in the field of geospatial information.
The center is working on implementing the Integrated Geospatial Information Framework to improve and strengthen work on managing national geospatial information for achieving sustainable development goals.
Al-Sayel has been the regional coordinator for Arab countries at the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing since January.
Al-Sayel, who has also been the president of the Kingdom’s General Authority for Survey and Geospatial Information since 2021, was nominated for his new position by the board of directors at the ISPRS.
The general authority is mandated with developing national capacities in the sector, in cooperation with universities and specialized institutes with its counterparts in other countries, international bodies, and organizations related to the sector.
The ISPRS is a non-governmental organization devoted to the development of international cooperation for the advancement of photogrammetry, remote sensing, and their applications.
Al-Sayel received a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering in 1984 from Roger Williams University, Rhode Island, US. He also received a high diploma in geodesy and map production from the Royal School of Military Survey.
He was granted a master’s degree in geomatics in 1994 from the University of Toronto, Canada, and obtained a doctorate in surveying engineering and geospatial information from Leibniz University Hannover, Germany.
Al-Sayel has taken a number of advanced training courses on geographic information and global positioning systems. He has attended several training courses on negotiations and boundary delimitation at Durham University in the UK.
Al-Sayel, who is both the CEO of Quality Geospatial Engineering Co. and Vision Intelligence, a digital sustainability solution-providing company, has risen in the military to the rank of major general and was an assistant director at the General Directorate of Military Survey. He was also the head of the boundaries and documents department.
He is the secretary-general of the Cooperative Society of Moringa and Desert Plants, one of the first Saudi cooperative societies aiming at increasing the country’s vegetation.
Al-Sayel is a consultant member of the Saudi Council of Engineers and a member of the American Imaging and Geospatial Information Society, and the ISPRS.
