Yifang Ban

Educator/Teacher, Idea generator, Parent, Scientist, World traveler

Yifang Ban is a Professor and Director of the Division of Geoinformatics at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, and an Associate Director at Digital Futures in Stockholm, Sweden. She earned her PhD from the University of Waterloo and joined KTH as the Chair Professor in Geoinformatics in 2004 after serving as a tenured Associate Professor at York University in Canada. Her research focuses on Earth observation (EO) big data analytics and machine learning/deep learning for monitoring global environmental changes such as urbanization, wildfires, and flooding. Recognized among the world’s top 2% of scientists in Geological and Geomatics Engineering (Stanford/Elsevier), she leads impactful projects including EO-AI4GlobalChange, EO4Urban, and SAR4Wildfire. She is an invited expert for the UN Habitat’s Technical Committee on SDGs, leads GEO’s AI for Earth Observation Working Group and co-chairs the ICA Commission on Sensor-Driven Mapping. She serves on editorial boards of major remote sensing journals and contributes to key international conferences.

Satellite images, environment, AI, and space.

Earth Observation Big Data Analytics, Environmental Impact Analysis, Machine Learning/Deep Learning, Urban Mapping and Urbanization Monitoring, Wildfire and Flood Monitoring

In 2019, I attended my first TEDxISU event in Strasbourg, France, where I was deeply inspired by talks like David Mauro’s "Exploring Life: A Journey from the Seas to the Stars," Shawna Pandya’s "Discovering Exploration," and Daphne de Jong's "Climbing Chomolunga - Why Equality Matters." These talks, along with many other TED videos I've watched, ignited my passion for sharing transformative ideas. Motivated by this experience, I decided to organize TEDxKTH: Our Digital Future on September 3, 2024, to explore how digital innovation is shaping our world and inspire others as I was once inspired.