Skip to content

Experience & Education

Work Experience

Founder — Spatial Thoughts

April 2020 – Present | Ahmedabad, India

  • Founded Spatial Thoughts to make modern geospatial technologies accessible to everyone worldwide.
  • Create and publish open-source learning materials on QGIS, Python, GDAL and Google Earth Engine — used by 1,000,000+ people each year and cited as a top learning resource globally.
  • Offer cohort-based online instructor-led courses attended by participants from 100+ countries.
  • Corporate clients include Google Inc, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), World Resources Institute (WRI), and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).

Staff Geo Data Strategist — Google

June 2013 – March 2020 | Bangalore, India

  • Managed the aerial imagery operations team of 150+ operators across India offices.
  • Led Google Earth Outreach in India — conducted technical workshops at top research universities and trained 750+ scientists and researchers on Applied Remote Sensing using cloud computing.
  • Mentored researchers on programming techniques for large-scale datasets in Ecology/Conservation and Water Resources.
  • Represented Google India in a capacity-building collaboration with the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Government of India.

Senior Geo Data Strategist — Google

November 2008 – June 2013 | Bangalore, India

  • Led the Google Maps Gallery partner support team.
  • Authored and launched the Google Maps Engine Connector, a Python plugin for QGIS.
  • Key role in setting up and scaling a 25-member 3D modeling team in Hyderabad.
  • Wrote a scalable QA system for large volumes of satellite imagery.

Senior GIS Specialist — Google

January 2007 – November 2008 | Bangalore, India

  • Expanded core imagery and vendor teams for large-scale imagery operations.
  • Built the GIS team in India, including hiring, onboarding, and running pilot projects.

Technical Account Manager — Google

June 2006 – January 2007 | Hyderabad, India

  • Piloted various outsourcing projects with a small team of contractors.

Google Earth Enterprise System Engineer — ABE Services (on contract at Google Inc)

August 2005 – December 2005 | Mountain View, CA, USA

  • Sales engineer for Google Earth Enterprise products.
  • Carried out two on-site deployments of Google Earth Enterprise Server.

Road Crew — Mandli Communications

January 2005 – June 2005 | Florida, USA

  • Mapped the state of Florida with high-accuracy GPS and photo logs.
  • Collected photo-logs, video-logs, and sub-meter GPS data across 5,000+ miles of state and interstate routes.

GIS Analyst — Upper Midwest Freight Coalition

September 2003 – September 2004 | Madison, WI, USA

  • Directed research on increasing cooperation among transportation agencies in the Midwest.
  • Provided GIS support to 20 researchers from 3 universities; presented findings to state governments and research organizations.

Summer Intern — Indian Institute of Remote Sensing

May 2002 – July 2002 | Dehradun, India

  • Part of a 9-student team developing a multimedia Remote Sensing tutorial for instructional use at India's premier remote sensing facility.

Education

Master of Science (MS), Geospatial Information Engineering

University of Wisconsin – Madison | 2003 – 2004

GPA 3.8/4.0. Student of the Year 2003 and 2004.

Bachelor of Engineering (BE), Civil Engineering

Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) – Pilani | 1999 – 2003

GPA 9.2/10.0.

Post Graduate Diploma, Intellectual Property Rights Law

National Law School of India University | 2009 – 2010

Distance Learning programme.

Certifications

Publications

  • Gandhi, U. (2024). JavaScript and the Earth Engine API, Aggregating Images for Time Series, Advanced Vector Operations. In: Cardille, J.A., Crowley, M.A., Saah, D., Clinton, N.E. (eds) Cloud-Based Remote Sensing with Google Earth Engine. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26588-4