Who we are

Paolo Cavallini cavallini@faunalia.it [CV]

Paolo has a strong scientific and environmental background with a PhD in Zoology. He has written more than 30 publications in international journals as well as conference proceedings and popular papers. Since 1996, Paolo has worked in the private sector providing consultancy primarily for public administrations and agencies. He is now Managing Director of Faunalia, working with Free and Open Source geographic information systems (GIS), wildlife conservation and management, environmental impact assessments and nature conservation plans.

Paolo has strong links with the academic world, teaching and collaborating with various universities and museums, both in Europe and abroad and regularly reviews manuscripts for international journals.

Paolo initially approached Free and Open Source software in 2000, and soon after migrated all of Faunalia's computer infrastructure exclusively to Open Source software. He actively participates (as a power user, tester, and sponsor) in the development of several Open Source software projects, particularly in the GIS sector, and is among the initiators of the DebianGis project, a project that aims to make the Debian GNU/Linux distribution the best platform for GIS use.

Paolo writes articles on free GIS for Italian and international magazines. His main interest is environmental modelling, especially in the fields of nature conservation and animal ecology. Paolo has been Chair of the Italian Geographic Free and Open Source Software Association and finance and marketing advisor in the Quantum GIS Steering Committee.

Vânia Neves vania.neves@faunalia.pt

Vânia Neves has a degree in Biology from the University of Évora since May 2002. 

After a few years working mainly in environmental education, she completed a Master in Conservation Biology.

The master thesis, developed in the Conservation Biology Unit, University of Évora, had the intent to evaluate the relative effects of habitat, density and characteristics of the roads in mammal carnivore roadkills, and evaluate the impact of roads in abundance and space use of mammal carnivores. This investigation led to the extensive use of GIS tools, in particular modeling, spatial analysis and geostatistics.

The contact with the philosophy of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) led her to try (and use ever since) Open Source operating systems and programs in general. This experience, along with the growing interest in the area of ​​GIS, caused the direct involvement in the organizations of events related to the Free and Open Source GIS.

Vânia is a founding partner and manager of Faunalia in Portugal since 2009.

Giovanni Manghi  giovanni.manghi@faunalia.pt

Giovanni Manghi has a degree in Biology from the University of Évora and worked for years in the field of conservation biology, particularly in the area of ​​management and conservation of small mammal carnivores.

Giovanni Manghi has over fifteen years experience in computing, particularly those related to Web technologies, having developed as a freelance programmer various web sites, some of which for the Portuguese Ministry of Education and the University of Évora.

Since 2004, embraces unconditionally the philosophy of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software), using exclusively GNU / Linux operating systems (particularly Debian and Ubuntu distributions) and Open Source GIS tools: QGIS, Grass, PostgreSQL / PostGIS, MapServer, p.mapper, OpenLayers, among others.

In recent years he is personally involved in the dissemination of free software, a task that led him to co-organize meetings and courses, as well as to be a part of the newly created Portuguese OSGeo chapter, which annually brings life to the "Jornadas de Software Aberto para Sistemas de Informação Geográfica" where Faunalia.pt has been participating actively.

Living in Portugal since 2002 and is a founding partner of Faunalia in Portugal.

Giovanni Manghi is:

Partner and charter member of the OSGeo "Open Source Geospatial Foundation"

Member of the "IUCN Small Carnivore Specialist Group".