About
From Sudan to Global Geoscience
Born and trained in Sudan, I built my career at the Hydraulics Research Center — one of East Africa's leading water and land research institutions. Over eight years, I grew from a field surveyor into a senior remote sensing expert managing FAO- and IFAD-funded projects that span millions of hectares.
My M.Sc. at Karadeniz Technical University in Turkey deepened my expertise in machine learning for geospatial analysis — combining SVM, OBIA, and deep learning with WaPOR satellite products to monitor the Gezira Irrigation Scheme, the world's largest irrigation project.
Education
Educational Foundation
M.Sc. Geomatics Engineering
Remote Sensing & GIS
Karadeniz Technical University
Trabzon, Turkey · Aug 2024 · GPA 3.50 / 4.00
- Thesis: Remote Sensing for Agricultural Monitoring in the Gezira Irrigation Scheme
- SVM + OBIA crop classification methodology
- WaPOR accuracy enhancement by 15%
- FAO-aligned water productivity assessment framework
B.Sc. Surveying Engineering
First Class Honours
Omdurman Islamic University
Omdurman, Sudan · 2017 · First Class Honours
- Core geodesy, photogrammetry, and land surveying curriculum
- GPS, total station, and level instrument proficiency
- GIS fundamentals and cartographic principles
- Foundation for professional career in geomatics
Experience
Career Journey
B.Sc. Surveying Engineering
Omdurman Islamic University
First Class Honours. Foundation in geodesy, photogrammetry, GPS-RTK, GIS, and land surveying — the technical bedrock for everything that followed.
Land Surveyor
Ministry of Infrastructure & Transport
Precision GPS-RTK and total station surveys for national road infrastructure. Topographic mapping, boundary demarcation, and AutoCAD Civil 3D processing.
Joined Hydraulics Research Center
HRC Sudan
Joined East Africa's leading water research institution. Began expanding into satellite-based water resource monitoring and remote sensing — a pivot that defined the next eight years.
IFAD & ZOA International Projects
IFAD / ZOA International
Dual international engagements: IFAD water productivity baseline for ~300,000 ha spate scheme and ZOA emergency hydrology achieving 40% flood risk reduction across 6 catchments.
FAO Remote Sensing Analyst
FAO / HRC Sudan
FAO-funded crop monitoring for 8.4 million hectares. Delivered 15% monitoring accuracy improvement and 9% water productivity gain using SVM classification and WaPOR biomass products.
M.Sc. Geomatics Engineering
Karadeniz Technical University
Remote Sensing & GIS specialisation. GPA 3.50/4.00. Thesis on satellite monitoring of the Gezira Irrigation Scheme. Released two open-source QGIS plugins adopted internationally.
GIS & Remote Sensing, Water Management
HRC Sudan
Ongoing WaPOR + Sentinel-2 water productivity monitoring at scale. Released wapor-water-productivity QGIS plugin and GeoAccuRate plugin to the open-source geospatial community.
Founded Sudan Scholars Hub
deltaroots.store
Built and launched a free bilingual scholarship platform for Sudanese students worldwide — solo, zero funding — because access to international education shouldn't depend on who you know.
References
What Colleagues Say
Osman demonstrated exceptional capability in applying advanced remote sensing methods to real-world irrigation management challenges. His thesis work on WaPOR-based water productivity assessment produced results that are directly applicable to FAO field programmes.
His technical contributions to our FAO and IFAD-funded projects were outstanding. Osman's ability to translate satellite data into actionable management insights — and to communicate results clearly to non-technical stakeholders — is a rare combination in our field.
Technical Depth
Core Skills
Open Source
GitHub Activity
Partners
International Partners
Projects and research conducted in collaboration with leading UN agencies, academic institutions, and international NGOs.
Approach
Values & Approach
Evidence-Based Practice
Every decision is grounded in data. Whether classifying crops from 10-meter Sentinel-2 imagery or selecting river gauging sites, rigorous statistical validation underpins all outputs.
Field-to-Pixel Integration
Remote sensing without ground truth is speculation. Years of field work with GPS-RTK and ODK Collect inform how satellite products are interpreted and validated.
Open & Reproducible Science
All major tools and pipelines are released as open-source QGIS plugins and GitHub repositories — making geospatial science accessible to practitioners across Africa and beyond.
Let's Work Together
Open to research collaborations, consulting projects, and positions in remote sensing, GIS, and geospatial data science worldwide.