Luiz Motta

Luiz Motta

Luiz Motta has been involved with information technology from an early age, having completed a technical course in data processing in 1984 at the age of 17 in the city of Rio de Janeiro. In his adolescence, his passion was nature, with a strong connection to the beaches and mountains of his city. Due to this passion, he decided to pursue Forestry Engineering, and during his undergraduate studies at the Federal University of Viçosa in the state of Minas Gerais, he developed computer programs in his research projects. These projects later resulted in a master's thesis, one of the first theses in the field of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), titled "Use of a Geographic Information System in the Optimization of Forest Transportation" (1995).

After leaving academia, he worked with GIS in a research center (Embrapa, 1996), public companies (IEF-MG, 2001), environmental consulting firms, and finally, in 2003, he fulfilled his lifelong dream by joining the career of Environmental Analyst at Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama). In Ibama, his workplace was in the Amazon, where he could see how the occupation of the Amazon region was carried out. Later, he was transferred to the Ibama headquarters in Brasília (the capital of Brazil), where he dedicated himself to the development of Geoprocessing in the institution. His work had a global reach, as his GIS software plugins and scripts were shared on the Internet. 

His expertise in GIS development, especially in QGIS, where he was a contributor (with more than 10 plugins), provided experiences beyond Ibama, such as participating in the Planet Explorer program (2015) and the MapBiomas project (2019). In these projects, QGIS plugins were developed to access the data. His desire to help people in the Geoprocessing field has always marked his professional trajectory, serving as an instructor for various courses and providing assistance to other GIS users. Currently, Luiz Motta is with Prevfogo (National Center for Prevention and Combat of Forest Fires), being part of the Sisfogo (Fire Management System) development team. In addition to his environmental work, he is passionate about off-road adventures and is a member of the "Endurance Without Destination Motorcycle" Club.