Geospatial Foundation Models (GFMs) are rapidly reshaping how we extract meaning from Earth observation, maps, trajectories, and multimodal geospatial data. The space is moving fast—often in parallel across academia, startups, and industry—which makes collaboration unusually valuable right now.
CARTO and the BSC AIF are hosting a one-day workshop in Barcelona to gather a small group of people actively building or researching foundation models for geospatial problems. The goal is to share what’s real, what’s working, and what’s missing and then create space for candid discussion and potential collaboration.
What to expect
- Lightning talks + short technical talks from invited participants
- Discussion-oriented sessions (less “conference”, more “working room”)
- Time for collaboration: shared challenges, benchmarks, datasets, eval, deployment patterns
- A community-first vibe: pragmatic, technical, and honest
Who this is for
- Research groups working on GFMs EO foundation models geospatial VLMs
- Startups building foundational geospatial AI (EO, mobility, mapping, risk, climate, etc.)
- Applied teams at labs or companies pushing the frontier (modeling, eval, infra, products)
Event details
Date: February 04, 2026
Time: 9:30h to 17:30h (Madrid, CTE),
Location: Hybrid | Via Laietana, 26, Ciutat Vella, 08003 Barcelona
Language: English
Participation: this is a curated / capacity-limited workshop to keep discussion high-quality.
Agenda
| Time | Session | Speaker |
|---|---|---|
| 09:30 – 10:00 | Check-in & Breakfast | |
| 10:00 – 10:10 | Welcome | Javier Pérez, CARTO |
| 10:10 – 10:30 | BSC AI Factory | Albert Cañigueral, BSC |
| 10:30 – 10:50 | Invited Talk – Geospatial Foundation Models: Opportunities and Open Challenges | Lucía García-Duarte & Miguel Álvarez, CARTO |
| 10:50 – 11:20 | Invited Talk – Inference-Centric vs Embedding-Centric GeoAI: Two Visions for Earth Intelligence | Bruno Sanchez-Andrade, LGND AI |
| 11:20 – 11:45 | Coffee Break & Discussion | |
| 11:45 – 12:45 | Lightning Talks, Part 1 | Review of embedding models based on vector geo data – Kamil Raczycki, Dataplace.ai Validating LLM spatial reasoning with deterministic geometry – Sergio Contreras, Arup Trustworthy and Interoperable Spatial Knowledge Graphs as Infrastructure for Foundation Models Using Emerging Metadata Standards – Nathan McEachen, TerraFrame Inc. Integrating AI inference into Sentinel Cloud‑Based Pipelines – Marcin Kluczek, CloudFerro |
| 12:45 – 13:30 | Discussion Sessions | |
| 13:30 – 14:30 | Lunch | |
| 14:30 – 15:00 | Invited Talk – Lifestyle Embeddings as Geo-Foundational Models of Human Activity | Esteban Moro, Northeastern University |
| 15:00 – 16:15 | Lightning Talks, Part 2 | Planaura: Geospatial Foundation Model for Bi-Temporal Land-Cover Change Detection – Mikhail Sokolov, Natural Resources Canada Crop Classification with Crop-Calendar-Aligned TESSERA Embeddings – Yapkan Choi, NEO Geospatial foundation models for predicting population dynamics – Francisco Rowe, University of Liverpool Climate Responsive Urbanism – Lakshmi Narayanan, IAAC New approach to Air Quality maps – Endika Aguirre, Tracasa Global |
| 16:15 – 16:45 | Discussion Sessions | |
| 16:45 – 17:15 | Invited Talk – Population Dynamics Foundation Model Embeddings | Joydeep Paul, Google Research |
| 17:15 – 17:30 | Final Remarks |
🔗 Registration
In case you would like to join online, please join the session following link here .
