Somaliland Engineer Launches Geospatial Intelligence Company

By: Mohamed Duale

HARGEISA, July 14 (Horndiplomat) — A Somaliland-born engineer with more than seven years of experience at international technology and engineering organizations has launched a geospatial intelligence company based in Stockholm, aiming to develop surveillance, mapping and digital security technologies for governments, including Somaliland.

Shakir Mohammed Ahmed, founder and chief executive of Numtera Intel, said the company is a Stockholm-based defense and geospatial intelligence firm that develops intelligence systems, unmanned aerial systems and software combining satellite imagery, sensors and mapping technologies to help governments monitor and understand activities across land, sea and air.

Shakir said he founded Numtera Intel after more than seven years working at ScandiNova Systems, Saab, Siemens, CERN and Stanford University. He described Numtera as a Stockholm-based defense and geospatial intelligence company operating in the European market while working to apply its expertise to Somaliland.

“The tools that protect wealthy nations should not be a privilege reserved for them,” Ahmed said in an interview with Horndiplomat. “Every serious country in Europe knows where its ships, its borders and its skies are at every moment. Somaliland deserves nothing less.”

1 of 5

Ahmed said Somaliland’s location on the Gulf of Aden gives it strategic importance, but added that monitoring its coastline, territorial waters and borders requires modern geospatial intelligence capabilities.

“I see one of the most strategically positioned nations on earth,” he said. “Its coastline is long, rich and largely unwatched. Its waters hold fisheries, trade and energy that belong to its people.”

He said maritime domain awareness systems can provide authorities with a real-time picture of vessels operating in Somaliland’s waters.

“A country that can see its sea can protect its sea,” Ahmed said. “We give the coast guard and the government a live picture of who is in their waters, where they are and whether they belong there.”

Ahmed said the company is also developing technologies for border monitoring, digital mapping and secure government systems. He said unmanned aerial systems could support border surveillance, infrastructure inspection, agriculture and emergency response.

“We are not here to make Somaliland dependent on a foreign vendor,” he said. “We are here to make it independent. The measure of our success is the day Somaliland no longer needs us.”

“It became impossible to accept that the knowledge I was building would only ever serve others,” Ahmed said. “Numtera is how I bring it home.”

Numtera Intel is a Stockholm-based defense and geospatial intelligence company specializing in intelligence systems and unmanned aerial systems for land, maritime and air operations.

(Reporting by Mohamed Duale; Editing by Horn Diplomat Desk)