Rakibun Athid

I build digital twins of neighbourhoods. They bring energy, greening, heat and mobility into one place, so planners can compare choices before making them.

The method from my MSc now runs in two EU projects, and I am turning it into a multi-domain digital twin recipe that other cities can reuse.

Co-founder and Chief Technical Officer
ClarionIQ B.V., the Netherlands
Digital Transformation Lead
TwinLink.eu, building the Aadorp energy twin and the Kanaalfront redesign twin
See current work Read the paper

Enschede, the Netherlands, 52.22° N, 6.89° E

Layers of a neighbourhood digital twin An isometric illustration of one neighbourhood split into five stacked layers: ground and streets, surface heat, trees, buildings and rooftop solar.
Illustration of how a twin stacks one neighbourhood's data. Select a layer to show or hide it.

Now building

Two twins I am developing as Digital Transformation Lead at TwinLink.eu. Both are live and still in progress.

In progressOnline

Aadorp energy twin

A neighbourhood energy twin for Aadorp in the EU project 3DxVERSE. It puts energy labels, carbon, rooftop solar, mobility, and satellite heat and greenness on one map, and lets you test measures on the buildings you select.

  • Select buildings with a shape or brush and apply insulation, heat pumps, solar panels or batteries
  • An optimiser for CO2 saved, energy poverty relief, routes to gas-free heating and CO2 per euro within a budget
  • Tree carbon set against sun and shade for any hour and month
  • Checks for grid congestion, heat network cells, energy-positive districts and energy communities
  • A section on how well the twin matches reality and how each figure was made
Open the Aadorp twin

Illustration of the twin's layers, not Aadorp's real data. Open the live twin for that.

In progressOnline

Kanaalfront redesign twin

A digital twin for redeveloping an urban area. Planners edit the layout of a design variant, save scenarios and compare them, with live sensors and measured roof shapes on the same map.

  • Existing and planned buildings, planned trees and measured roof shapes on aerial and BRT base maps
  • Edit the layout, undo, save scenarios and recalculate them
  • Compare scenario A with B on a difference map of solar change per building
  • Click a sensor to read its latest measurements
  • Dutch and English interface, with an open-source release planned under EUPL-1.2
Open the Kanaalfront twin

Illustration of the comparison view, not real results. Open the live twin for those.

One map, many domains

Geospatial work is what lets my twins cross domains. Every dataset lands on the same buildings, trees and streets, so a change in one domain can be traced into the others. Choose a twin or a connection to see where each link runs.

A method for neighbourhood digital twins

I developed it in my MSc thesis with the Province of Overijssel, inside the Interreg project FutureBEEing, and published it in the ISPRS Annals in 2026. It turns 3D, LiDAR and satellite data into choices a neighbourhood can act on, and it keeps every assumption visible.

  1. Gather the neighbourhood

    Airborne LiDAR from AHN, 3D BAG LoD2.2 buildings, municipal datasets and Landsat 9 imagery, harmonised in one GIS workflow.

  2. Compute indicators for every building

    Energy demand from building archetypes, rooftop solar from SEBE roof irradiance, tree indicators from a LiDAR canopy height model, and satellite-derived surface heat.

  3. Write each intervention as an editable rule

    Insulation, rooftop PV, tree planting and green roofs become explicit scenario-response functions that anyone can read and change.

  4. Compare scenarios across domains

    Multi-criteria decision analysis and cost indicators rank scenarios side by side, so trade-offs between energy, greening, heat and spatial equity become visible.

  5. Audit the results

    800 Monte Carlo runs show what drives the economics, and the rankings hold when criteria weights change by 20% (median Spearman's ρ ≈ 0.998).

  6. Validate and share

    Stakeholders reviewed the browser-based CesiumJS twin and confirmed its practical value for neighbourhood planning. It runs as static files, so a municipality can host it itself.

Where the method runs now

3DxVERSE

EU project on digital twins for sustainable mobility and living, coordinated by ERTICO, 2024 to 2027. I apply the method there as Digital Transformation Lead at TwinLink.eu, including in the Aadorp energy twin.

LDT4SSC

Local Digital Twins for Smart and Sustainable Communities, an EU initiative for federated local digital twins. I apply the method there through TwinLink.eu.

Next: a multi-domain digital twin recipe

I am turning the method into a documented recipe: the same data steps, indicators, scenario rules and checks, extended to more domains so any neighbourhood or city can build its own twin.

  1. ProvenTwekkelerveld, EnschedeMSc thesis twin, published in 2026
  2. Implementing3DxVERSE and LDT4SSCWith TwinLink.eu

Earlier work you can open

Two live tools from my MSc work with the Province of Overijssel, and four projects from the University of Twente.

Twekkelerveld Digital Twin

A live CesiumJS twin of Twekkelerveld in Enschede. Test tree planting, rooftop solar, insulation and green roofs, and compare their costs, cooling, emissions and energy effects.

  • CesiumJS
  • Scenario planning
  • MCDA
  • Energy and ecology
Open the twin

FutureBEEing Point of Interest System

A map tool for collecting and managing points of interest, with categories, tags, priorities and images, and export to CSV, Excel, PDF or ZIP.

  • Participation
  • Web mapping
Open the tool

MSc projects

  • Zwolle Solar Dashboard

    Energy

    Rooftop solar potential for Zwolle from WMS building footprints and irradiance data, mapped in QGIS and checked against CBS energy statistics.

    With Joan WaithiraCode on GitHub

  • Map2Carbon

    Ecology

    Above-ground carbon on the University of Twente campus from Sentinel-2 NDVI calibrated with field biomass, with a Habitat Modification Index to test a student housing scenario.

    Team of fourUniversity report

  • Green vs Fast Routes, Utrecht

    Mobility

    Fastest and greener walking and cycling routes, with greenness scored as Sentinel-2 NDVI within 30 m of OSM streets, built with OSMnx and NetworkX.

    With Nawwar F. ProchetaCode on GitHub

  • Sustainable Tailings, Neyshabur

    Environmental management

    NDVI time series, DEM hydrology and multi-ring buffers feeding a weighted multi-criteria analysis that selected hydraulic dewatered stacking for a turquoise mine in Iran.

    Team of fourNovember 2024

Papers and talks

All of it comes from the Twekkelerveld twin.

  1. Sep 2026

    Peer-reviewed paper

    A Digital Twin to Improve the Sustainability of Neighbourhood Scenario Planning

    ISPRS Annals XII-4/W2-2026, pp. 17–24, from the 10th International Conference on Smart Data and Smart Cities, Sofia. With Mila Koeva, Pirouz Nourian and Ulla-Britt Krämer.

    DOI
  2. Jun 2026

    MSc thesis, grade 9.0

    Digital Twin for Improvement of the Sustainability of Neighbourhoods through Scenario Planning

    University of Twente, Faculty ITC. Supervised by Mila Koeva and Pirouz Nourian, with Ulla-Britt Krämer at the Province of Overijssel.

    Live twin
  3. May 2026

    Oral presentation

    Digital Twin For Improvement of The Sustainability of Neighbourhoods Through Scenario Planning

    EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, abstract EGU26-7450. With Mila Koeva and Pirouz Nourian.

    Abstract
  4. Apr 2026

    Featured case

    Geospatial World Forum 2026, Amsterdam

    The Twekkelerveld twin was featured in Mila Koeva's presentation on digital twins.

  5. Apr 2026

    Presentation

    4TU – 14 UAS Research Day

    Urban and city planning domain, University of Twente.

  6. 2026

    Accepted abstract

    IGARSS 2026, Washington, D.C.

    The twin prototype and its workflow, for the IEEE geoscience and remote sensing community.

Experience and education

Experience

  1. 2026–now

    Co-founder and Chief Technical Officer

    ClarionIQ B.V., the Netherlands

    Builds client-focused digital twins that support decisions on energy, ecology, mobility and water.

  2. 2026–now

    Digital Transformation Lead

    TwinLink.eu

    Builds the Aadorp energy twin and the Kanaalfront redesign twin, and applies the neighbourhood method in the EU projects 3DxVERSE and LDT4SSC.

  3. 2025–2026

    Intern and MSc thesis researcher

    Province of Overijssel, FutureBEEing (Interreg Germany-Netherlands)

    Built the Twekkelerveld twin, from municipal and open data to a live 3D web prototype with scenario planning, MCDA and stakeholder documentation.

  4. 2025–2026

    Chair, Education and Research

    Green Hub Twente

    Coordinated sustainability education and research between the university and community partners in Twente.

  5. 2025–2026

    Student member, Programme Committee

    Faculty ITC, University of Twente

    Programme quality reviews and student and staff feedback.

  6. 2019–2024

    Development and disaster risk reduction professional

    ActionAid Bangladesh, Solidarités International, SAJIDA Foundation

    Led field teams and coordinated disaster risk reduction and community development programmes across Bangladesh.

Education

  1. 2024–2026

    MSc Spatial Engineering

    University of Twente, Faculty ITC

    Final grade 8.28, thesis 9.00. Also completed the Master's Honours Programme in Change Leadership and Management (15 ECTS), open to the top 10% of students university-wide.

  2. 2020–2021

    MSc/MSS Development Studies

    Bangladesh University of Professionals

    GPA 3.69 of 4.00, graduated with distinction.

  3. 2015–2018

    BSS Disaster and Human Security Management

    Bangladesh University of Professionals

    GPA 3.64 of 4.00.

Toolkit

GIS and spatial analysis

QGIS, vector and raster analysis, spatial joins, QA/QC, map production, WMS and WFS, coordinate systems.

Digital twins and 3D

CesiumJS, CityGML and LoD2, 3D Tiles and glTF, BlenderGIS, FME basics, scenario planning, MCDA, indicator design.

Remote sensing

Google Earth Engine, raster indices, time series, solar irradiance and shadow analysis, GeoTIFF and COG.

Programming

Python, GeoPandas, Rasterio, Jupyter, OSMnx and NetworkX, Streamlit, Git and GitHub, automation.

Web and deployment

HTML, CSS and JavaScript, Cloudflare Pages and R2, API integration.

Communication

Stakeholder reports, scientific writing, conference talks, non-technical documentation, policy alignment, change leadership.

Contact

Write to me about neighbourhood and local digital twins, research collaborations or ClarionIQ projects.

rakibun.athid@twinlink.eu
Personal email
rakib.athid@gmail.com
Phone
+31 6 8645 0137
LinkedIn
Rakibun Athid
GitHub
RakibAthid
Based in
Enschede, the Netherlands