Dr. Prashanth Marpu is the VP of R&D at Bayanat where he is also leading the setup of the commercial space program. Prior to joining Bayanat/G42, he was an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Manager of YahSat Space Lab at Khalifa University of Science and Technology, Abu Dhabi, UAE. His specialization is in space systems, remote sensing, AI, environmental monitoring and internet of things. Before coming to the UAE, Dr. Marpu worked as a researcher at the University of Iceland and at the University of Pavia, Italy, where he was a Marie Curie Fellow working on developing advanced methods for earth observation data analysis. He holds a PhD in Remote Sensing from TU Freiberg, Germany, and MSc in Wireless Engineering from the Technical University of Denmark. He was involved in designing and building small satellites as a supervisor of various missions and worked as an advisor and reviewer for several other satellite programs. He has also actively contributed to the development of novel approaches for processing remote sensing data for a wide range of applications. Dr. Marpu has been a Council member of the International Society of Digital Earth since 2020 and has been part of several international committees related to Earth Observation technologies. He has contributed to more than 150 publications in various journals and conferences and has been actively involved in the space and remote sensing activities globally.