Vice President Head of Engineering for Space Digital
Organization
Airbus Defence and Space
Quentin van de Geer is Vice President Head of Engineering for Space Digital as part of the Connected Intelligence business line. Quentin leads a multi-disciplinary team of over 550 engineers operating out of all of the Airbus Defence and Space home countries and is the Engineering representative in the Airbus Defence & Space Elancourt site management body.
Space Digital enables trusted space-related information superiority to support national security and business-critical operations through the provision of end-to-end solutions, delivering:
- Systems Integration
- Ground Segment
- Imagery & Analytics
- Advanced geospatial and communications solutions
As part of Airbus Defence and Space, the Connected Intelligence programme line focuses on a range of digital solutions related to Space, Defence, Public Safety and Cyber security.
Quentin started his career as a Research Officer of the Defence Science and Technology Organisation initially working on developing feature extraction algorithms for satellite imagery. From there he moved on to a long career with Thales primarily in Naval systems starting in Australia and then moving permanently to France in the late 9O’s. During this time he worked in a variety of areas starting in Sonar Signal processing and moving to complex end-to-end systems engineering
After his time with Thales took the opportunity to join Airbus (EADS at the time) to work as a systems engineer and project manager for Public Safety including VSAT applications. He progressively moved to systems engineering roles for large deployed solutions in a variety of security and defence related areas. After a role as head of R&T for the precursor of the Connected Intelligence business line, he established and lead the Chief Engineering organisation.
Quentin also established a laboratory specialised in Artificial intelligence and Quantum communication in the Paris region.
Prior to taking on his current role of Head of Engineering Space Digital he lead the Engineering activities related to secure communications with a specific focus on Military Satcom ground segment solutions for the major national projects in Europe as well as some key export programmes.
Having double nationality (Dutch & Australian), Quentin holds a First-class Honours degree from Australia in Computer Science & Mathematics and a Graduate Certificate in Management Science & Engineering from Stanford University in the US.
In his spare time Quentin in known to continue to dabble in mathematics recently in getting to grasp with mathematical foundations of Quantum computing. He is also is an experienced private pilot with his favourite aircraft today being an ex-military PA-19 Piper Super Cub
Speaking
18September
11:45 / 12:45
Bibliothèque
Session
The Next Frontiers of Space-based Connectivity in Support of Military Missions
