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Calgary, Alberta – TECTERRA Inc. announced today that it had committed $4.9 million of funds to support the geomatics technology sector in Canada during the last fiscal year, which ended on March 31, 2016. This additional commitment brings TECTERRA’s investment in the geomatics industry to over $37.3 million to date.

The investment sum represents commitments to support geomatics companies and applied research projects for technology commercialization, new job creation and Highly Qualified Personnel (HQP) training and development across the country, with total matching private investments of more than $26.7 million towards the supported projects and initiatives.

“TECTERRA is pleased to continue supporting the growth of geomatics across our province and throughout Canada,” said Jonathan Neufeld, Interim Chief Executive Officer for TECTERRA. “With a focus on the commercialization of environmental monitoring, management, and protection solutions for the Alberta resource industries, we are able to proactively contribute to the Canadianeconomy.”

“Since our inception in 2010, we have contributed to the economic growth through our suite of investment and grant programs that have a proven track record and are reflected through the number of portfolio companies we support.”

The following is a summary of TECTERRA’s commercialization support, and job creation activities, from the beginning of TECTERRA’s operation in June 2010 through the end of March 2016.

Project/Activity Type # Of Units Investment $
Small and medium geomatics companies supported through project investments and various business support programs 199 companies $23,498,298
New HQP jobs (including those within funded projects) 310 HQP $2,165,071
University applied research projects 25 projects $4,660,302
HQP trained on state-of-the-art geomatics technology 640 HQP $254,715
TECTERRA Geomatics Lab investment for product development and HQP training 31,833 equipment days ; 100 training days $6,741,768

TECTERRA continues to develop new programs that support the geomatics industry and help broaden the horizons for geospatial technology companies.

To meet with some of TECTERRA’s supported companies, learn more about the organization’s programs and activities, and to stay up-to-date on the newest innovation in geomatics technology, register today to attend TECNOVATE, the evolution of TECTERRA’s annual Geomatics Showcase on June 22, 2016 at the Calgary TELUS Convention Centre. Visit www.tecnovate.ca for event details and to register.

About TECTERRA:

TECTERRA Inc. is a Canadian geomatics technology innovation support centre that supports the development and commercialization of geomatics technologies for integrated resource management. With funding from the province of Alberta, TECTERRA invests in technology solutions for the following: agriculture, energy, environment, forestry, land management, and development applications. The organization also focuses on small to medium enterprises that specialize in geomatics technology geared towards environmental monitoring, management and protection. The first centre of its kind, TECTERRA works with industry, entrepreneurs, researchers, and government partners to enable the use of geomatics technologies in addressing local, national and global challenges in resource management. As a non-profit organization, TECTERRA is governed by an independent Board of Directors who represents the key industry sectors associated with TECTERRA’s focus markets. For more information, visit: www.tecterra.com

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In May 2016, 17 CubeSats were released by the NanoRacks CubeSat Deployer on the International Space Station. The Dove satellites are part of a constellation designed, built and operated by Planet Labs to take Earth images for humanitarian and environmental applications ranging from monitoring deforestation and urbanization to improving natural-disaster relief and agricultural yields in developing nations.

Unlike traditional satellite missions that carry a significant number of custom-built, state-of-the-art instruments, CubeSats are designed to take narrowly targeted scientific observations, with only a few instruments, often built from off-the-shelf components. The Planet Labs satellites, now with more than 100 in space, fit the CubeSat 3U form factor of 10 by 10 by 30 centimeters and weigh approximately four kilograms.

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by Taylor Soper on May 31, 2016. German chemical and pharmaceutical giant Bayer today inked a memorandum of understanding with Planetary Resources as part of a deal to utilize satellite images collected by the Redmond-based space startup.

Bayer will use information from the crop-specific images to develop agricultural products as part of its Digital Farming Initiative. Bayer said the data can improve how farmers time their irrigation systems or assess their soil’s water-holding capacity, for example. The idea is to optimize how crops are grown, saving both time and money for farmers.

“The sensors from Planetary Resources can become a powerful tool that can provide a new level of information on crops anywhere in the world,” Liam Condon, member of the Board of Management of Bayer AG and head of the Crop Science Division, said in a statement. “The combination of Bayer’s scientific and agronomy expertise and Planetary Resources’ unique sensor capability will greatly improve our ability to deliver truly practical intelligence to growers anywhere on the planet.”

Planetary Resources, which last week announced a $21.1 million investment round, was founded as an asteroid mining company but has recently turned its focus toward an Earth observation program known as Ceres. By 2019, the company plans to have a constellation of Arkyd 100 microsatellites in low Earth orbit, equipped with thermal infrared and hyperspectral sensors that can track water content, crop growth, oil and gas leaks and forest fires.

“We are currently conducting airborne Research and Development campaigns over a variety of agricultural targets,” Planetary Resources CEO Chris Lewicki said in a statement. “Bayer is interested in supporting these activities with scientific and agronomic expertise in order to accelerate R&D, product validation and creation.”

Financial details of the MOU were not disclosed.

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TEHRAN — The Iranian Space Agency (ISA) signed a memorandum of understanding with the Department of Environment (DoE) on Tuesday setting out on lunching three environmental monitoring satellites.

To enhance the environmental safety in the country the MOU was signed between ISA director Mohsen Bahrami and DoE deputy director Farhad Dabiri.

The three satellites are designed for detecting forest fires, observing the Earth’s vegetation, and monitoring riversides etc., said an official with ISA.

Homayoun Sadr noted that “we have already cooperated with agriculture, energy, and communication and information technology ministers and we are entering into cooperation with the Department of Environment as well.”

Food and water safety, sustainable development, environment assessment, and earth monitoring are of the issues the two organizations have agreed upon by signing the aforesaid MOU, Sadr highlighted.

Environmental monitoring satellites are kinds of Earth observation satellite that can assist environmental monitoring by detecting changes in the Earth’s vegetation, atmospheric trace gas content, sea state, ocean color, and ice fields. By monitoring vegetation changes over time, droughts can be monitored by comparing the current vegetation state to its long term average.

ISA is an organization affiliated with the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology.

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SANSA, together with Airbus Defence and Space, hosted a World Café at The Innovation Hub in Pretoria, the culmination of an OpenIX open innovation challenge through which over two dozen small companies, entrepreneurs and scientists developed innovative technologies and applications using earth observation data.

These respondent organisations developed a range of solutions across various industries including in forestry and agriculture, urban planning, insurance and computer gaming.

The World Café directly assisted the entrepreneurs in further commercialising their ideas by creating relationships between these entrepreneurs and representatives of almost 40 different client and investor groups. In total, 74 stakeholders from organisations including Hollard, Absa Capital, Eskom, Tom Tom and the South African Maritime Safety Authority were on hand to discuss the merits and opportunities presented by a select group of entrepreneurs.

The World Café approach itself allowed direct, conversational exchanges between parties, much in the same way “speed dating” introduces individuals to each other.

As an outcome, the organising team has helped to empower and support multiple new entrants to the earth observation industry in South Africa, with the potential for bringing to life new innovations, new products and new companies that can create lasting change in society.

The winners of the original OpenIX open innovation were also announced at the event.

The main prize – site visits to Airbus Defence and Space’s operations in Toulouse, France as well as introductions to Airbus Defence and Space’s global organisation – was won by Drone Clouds, which provides farmers with data and insights about plant stress to increase crop yields.

All finalists, with solutions ranging from insurance for emerging farmers, and artisanal mining to data analytics are being considered for incubation with The Innovation Hub in Pretoria.

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Sentinel-2 is the optical satellite of the Copernicus programme. It can be compared to Landsat, although it has a better resolution, of 10 to 20 meters. We’ll be using it for crop monitoring with simple vegetation indices.

Overview

Sentinel-2 is the high-resolution optical satellite of ESA and the EU. The images have a resolution of 10 to 20 meters, higher than Landsat, and, as always with the Copernicus programme, the data are free and open.
In this tutorial, we’ll download an image, make it look good, and create maps of vegetation indices to show the general health of crops and other vegetation. This is a basic tutorial, but even for those with experience in remote sensing, it is a good starting point for working with Sentinel-2 data.

Getting the data and the tools
Although all Sentinel-2 data are available on the Copernicus data hub, they are also HUGE – 5 to 6 GB for an image. So in this tutorial we’re using a plugin in QGIS called
“Semi-automatic classification plugin”. It can download tiles of 100 by 100 km, instead of the entire image, plus it processes it for you, and has some nice other tools.

More info

“Source”: http://www.ecopotential-project.eu/

South Africa-based Space Commercial Services Aerospace Group (SCS AG) has acquired the imagery distribution rights for sub-Saharan Africa from UrtheCast. Under the agreement SCS AG provides imagery products from UrtheCast’s two cameras on board the International Space Station (ISS) as well as its two Deimos satellites.

UrtheCast takes high-resolution satellite images and video footage, which are applicable for private sector and government projects. Space Commercial Services Global Information (SCSGi), a subsidiary of SCS AG specialized in imagery and geospatial information solutions, will be the master distributor for the African continent imagery.

“We are looking forward to utilizing the data to support a wide range of applications such as crop assessments, forestry management, environmental protection, insurance risk assessments, infrastructure monitoring, urban and rural development, border control and maritime security. Our image rights acquisition from UrtheCast has increased our capacity to provide customers with value-added information services to the point of decision-making,” said Retief Gerber, CEO of SCSGi.

Original article

Planet OS, the world’s leading provider of online geospatial environmental data, today announced Powerboard, a data intelligence solution that helps wind farm operators and renewable energy service providers to boost power output by up to 30%.

Powerboard provides wind farm operators with a rich, easy-to-use data visualization experience that allows them to significantly streamline daily operations and maintenance, leading to increased profitability and safety. The solution combines real-time operational and industrial data with a growing programmatic catalog of open and commercial data from external data providers into a single cloud-based solution. The result is a visually rich, interactive analysis tool that permits detailed optimization of a wind farm that replaces rooms full of distracting monitors that are not integrated at a software level. Furthermore, Powerboard allows stakeholders from operators, technicians to managers regardless of location to collaborate in planning and operating a wind farm to great effect.

Powerboard provides wind farm operators with a rich, easy-to-use data visualization experience that allows them to significantly streamline daily operations and maintenance, leading to increased profitability and safety. The solution combines real-time operational and industrial data with a growing programmatic catalog of open and commercial data from external data providers into a single cloud-based solution. The result is a visually rich, interactive analysis tool that permits detailed optimization of a wind farm that replaces rooms full of distracting monitors that are not integrated at a software level. Furthermore, Powerboard allows stakeholders from operators, technicians to managers regardless of location to collaborate in planning and operating a wind farm to great effect.

German energy giant RWE has joined forces with Planet OS as the launch partner for Powerboard. RWE International SE, one of the world’s large offshore wind farm operators, plans to use Powerboard on a number of wind farms in their portfolio. “Powerboard provides us with the potential for optimizing operations and increasing renewable energy production from our wind farms,” said Peter Terium, chief executive officer of the RWE Group. “We are currently using Powerboard at Gwynt y Môr, our largest offshore wind farm, to help increase our power output and improve operational efficiency. As we deploy Powerboard to other renewable energy sites, we hope to further improve our competitive position.”

Powerboard is built on the cloud-based Planet OS data infrastructure, which can process all major geospatial and Earth Observation data types and formats, in addition to supporting conventional industrial sensor data. Planet OS is also on a mission to deliver relevant external data by syndicating the world’s largest programmatic database of geospatial environmental data (see http://data.planetos.com) so clients can access a growing catalog of over 800 parameters via one consistent API. The company is a member of the NOAA Big Data Project (https://data-alliance.noaa.gov/) and the White House Open Data Roundtable (http://opendataenterprise.org/open-data-roundtables.html) to make open data more accessible for everyone.

“Uniting the right tools and relevant content together significantly reduces the effort needed by renewable energy companies to compete with coal, and natural gas” said Rainer Sternfeld, Planet OS chief executive officer. “Customers like RWE can leverage Powerboard to have a truly distributed, responsive and aggregated view of all operations on a single screen. Using our products allows renewable energy providers to see deep patterns and monitor performance in a way that allows them to better optimize operations, schedule maintenance and feed timely data to energy traders to perform without delay.”

Planet OS Powerboard is available now to customers around the world, starting with a proof-of-concept and value analysis to validate the implementation for both parties before engaging in a multi-year contractual relationship based on benefits gain-share. Learn more about Planet OS Powerboard at https://planetos.com/powerboard, and/or contact sales@planetos.com to schedule a demo.

About the Company
Planet OS Inc. is an energy-focused geospatial infrastructure data company based in Silicon Valley and Tallinn, Estonia. Founded by recognized Estonian technologists and entrepreneurs, the company develops data infrastructure for geospatial sensor networks, Environmental Intelligence and Earth Observation. Planet OS investors include Intertrust Technologies Corporation, Koninklijke Philips N.V., RWE and notable angel investors from the USA, Norway and Estonia.

rasdaman GmbH is world technology leader in Big Data Analytics on Earth Science data. Its flexible, scalable, open, and cost-efficient raster server technology allows to directly manipulate, analyze & remix any-size geospatial data. The unique true multi-dimensional data model supports all types of raster maps, such as x/y/t image timeseries, x/y/z geo tomograms, and x/y/z/t climate and ocean data.

Since 2003, we offer individual consulting, development, and support for Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs). In the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) we lead geo raster service standardization, being chair of the raster-relevant working groups and editor of the raster standards. In ISO we extend SQL with arrays. As external expert we support the European INSPIRE SDI harmonization. The open-source rasdaman software is included in the OSGeo Live DVD and, hence, branded as particularly recommendable geo database.

Built on the experience of world-leading Big Earth Data experts and the makers of the standards, the rasdaman geo server represents the best of breed for today and tomorrow.

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