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European Unicorns?

In May this year, GP Bullhound has published its second report [1] on the European “unicorns” and comparison with others around the world. A unicorn is a start-up company which has managed to reach $1b in valuation and GP Bullhound is looking particularly at those engaged in internet technology.

The findings are interesting in that they show the gulf between Europe and the US in particular. They find a total of 40 unicorns in Europe compared to 30 (net gain of 10) for the same survey conducted in 2014 with 13 new ones appearing and 3 having dropped off the list. In the US, there was a net gain of 22 unicorns.

Then, taking the 3 top valued companies in the US, their total valuation is $0.75t. This compares with $0.5t for the top 3 in China, $50b for the top three in Africa, but only $25b for the top three in Europe. Furthermore, whilst the total value of the unicorns in Europe is around $120b; Apple alone has a value of $750b, Facebook is at $240b and even Uber is valued at $50b. Clearly Europe has a long way to go to catch up.

What can we learn? I was reminded of the two acquisitions last summer where Urthcast bought Deimos Imaging and PlanetLabs bought Blackbridge/Rapideye. Europe is good at research and innovation and even early development but is less good at exploiting the results. It seems that European owners sell out early rather than running their winners to achieve bigger gains later. CartoDB is another example where this happened along with a well-known example, Skype. Developed in Europe; Commercialised in the US.

Our goal at EARSC is to help develop the industry. 2016 promises to be a significant year when maybe we can start to see some of the potential being realised.

[1] http://www.gpbullhound.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/GP-Bullhound-Research-Billion-Dollar-Companies-2015.pdf

Commercialised in Europe?

Just before Christmas, Google and the UN-FAO announced that they are to collaborate to make geospatial tracking and mapping products more accessible, providing high-technology assistance to countries tackling climate change and much greater capacity to experts developing forest and land-use policies. “For FAO, this is not just a partnership. This is a strategic alliance,” said FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva.

This partnership will see Google Maps providing 1200 trusted tester credentials on Google Earth Engine to FAO staff and partners, while also providing training and receiving feedback on users’ needs and experiences. Ironically, the software which FAO bring to the partnership (Open Foris) has been developed with the financial support of Finland, Germany and Norway.

The agreement shows the power of geo-information to transform lives; in this case by enabling FAO workers in the field to quickly get access to key information. It is a powerful reminder of the public good benefits which EO technology can bring.

It also shows once again how European investment and innovation is not fully exploited to the benefit of the European industry and this chimed with the recent report which I read from GP Bullhound looking at the relative performance of Internet companies in Europe and the US (see my previous blogpost). It is clear that we do not lack innovation in Europe but we do somewhere lack the ability to turn this into global business – as Google has done and of course the other “FANG’s” (Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Google) which have dominated the US market over the last year, not to mention Uber and Airbnb.

Space Innovation Congress is the UK’s new space industry conference and expo, on April 7-8 2016 at St Paul’s, Aldersgate in London.

Space Innovation Congress is the UK’s new space industry conference and expo, on April 7-8 2016 at St Paul’s, Aldersgate in London.
This event will feature dedicated conference content and case studies covering the leading issues across the space exploration and Earth observation industries.

It will feature innovators and thought leaders representing Satellites, Big data, Crop monitoring, Earth Observation, Space debris, Maritime surveillance, Space weather and its impact on banking systems, Biomedical, Commercial space collaboration and Telecoms.

If the future of your business is in space, this event is for you.
Some of the speakers already confirmed include:

• Magali Vaissiere, Director of Telecommunications and Integrated Applications
• European Space Agency
• Michele Franci, CTO Inmarsat
• Dr David Kendall, Chair United Nations COPUOS, 2016-17
• Mark Rawlins, Director of Communication System Operations, Eutelsat
• Jonathan Firth, Executive Vice President of Spaceport and Program Development, Virgin Galactic
• Dr Alice Gorman, Space Archaeologist, Flinders University, Australia
• Professor Chris Welch, Professor of Spacecraft Engineering – International Space University, Vice-President – International Astronautical Federation
• Tony Azzarelli, Vice President Regulatory Affairs, OneWeb
Space Innovation Congress will also include an exhibition featuring a innovative products and businesses already making headway in the space industry.

Innovation Incubator: A platform to access business support
An Innovation Incubator, sponsored by SETsquared, Global #1 business incubator, will see start-ups, self-employed developers or businesses with new products or services pitching to a panel of experts for a chance to access funding and investment.

For more information, visit: www.spaceinnovationcongress.com/innovation-incubator/

The Space Innovation Congress Innovation Incubator is sponsored by Set Squared, the world’s no.1 universities incubator.
Simon Bond, Set Squared Innovation Director said: “Working with the UK Space Agency, we are looking for innovative space applications and technologies. The best will get the opportunity to attend our award winning Entrepreneurship Programme and be supported in our incubation facility.”

Notes:
For more information about Space Innovation Congress, please contact Rita.andrewsspaceinnovationcongress.com or on 0117 318 0643

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After two rounds of judging, a grand-prize winner has been selected for the Fall 2015 Virtual Poster Session (VPS) contributed by NASA’s DEVELOP National Program. The contest included 105 researchers conducting 26 projects across 13 DEVELOP locations.

The grand prize goes to A Changing Landscape: Monitoring Cheatgrass with Satellite Imagery conducted by a team of four participants at DEVELOP’s location in Fort Collins, Colorado. The project used remote sensing to study cheatgrass cover across the area burned by the Arapaho Fire in south central Wyoming.

The virtual posters were scored by a 13-member panel based on content clarity, scientific merit, substantial dialogue, and creativity. The winning Wyoming Ecological Forecasting team scored highest among four teams who won best-in-category honors in the first round of judging.

Each member of the winning team will receive a one-year trial version of ArcGIS software, furnished by competition sponsor Esri. The company creates geospatial and Geographic Information System (GIS) software that can incorporate NASA remote-sensing data.

Thanks to all the teams, Earthzine readers and Esri for participating in the VPS.

For more information about DEVELOP, visit the DEVELOP website. Previous DEVELOP Earthzine Virtual Poster Sessions are listed in the DEVELOP VPS Archive.

EarthZine

The World Bank and ESA signed an agreement on using information from Earth observation satellites in support of sustainable development. The agreement was signed at COP21 Climate Summit in Paris.

The World Bank is one of the world’s largest sources of development assistance. It provides financial support to projects especially in low and middle-income countries through loans and grants.

ESA’s partnership with the World Bank is anchored within the Bank’s Sustainable Development Cluster, which is the largest network of Global Practices in the World Bank. The collaboration started in 2008, with over 35 projects already carried out.

The MOI signed on December 3 takes these initial experiences and expands the partnership to explore on a larger scale how satellite information can be integrated and mainstreamed into the projects and research of the World Bank. This expanded collaboration will focus on ten areas: water, agriculture, urban growth, oceans, disaster risk management, energy and extractives, forests, fragile states, and climate, according to the World Bank.

“Earth observation is key to the sustainable development goals,” emphasised Laura Tuck, World Bank Vice President for Sustainable Development, at the signing of the Memorandum of Intent in Paris.

By using Earth observation, organisations in developing countries will increase their technical capacities and will be able to collect a wide range of information from satellites. This will also strengthen their development plans and initiatives.

“This collaboration with the World Bank opens a new user community for the geospatial information our satellites are delivering from space,” says ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programmes, Volker Liebig.

“It will also support the development of investment projects to boost prosperity and inclusive growth. This is an excellent initiative for ESA and the World Bank, but especially for ensuring sustainable growth in the future.”

This strategic partnership will lead to new opportunities throughout the development sector while using the satellite capabilities developed for better management of our planet’s resources.

Source

The Indian space agency is soon opening a 100-acre Space Park in Bengaluru where private industry players would be allowed to set up facilities to make subsystems and components for satellites.


“The Space Park is coming up near Whitefield for the private industry. It is over 100 acres. It is likely to be inaugurated this month,” Indian Space Research Centre’s (ISRO) satellite centre director M. Annadurai told IANS at the science congress in Mysuru.

With the space agency launching more satellites for various communication and earth observation services like remote sensing and navigation, the park will enable the industry to manufacture and supply their subsystems and vital components faster for spacecraft assembled at its satellite centre in the tech hub.

“We have told them (private firms) to increase their capacity building or join us at the Space Park and make components and other parts for our satellites, as they have been already using our own facilities,” Annadurai said

As India plans to launch at least 10-12 satellites a year using heavy rockets to deploy them in the earth’s lower or geo-stationary orbits for various applications and services, demand for subsystems and vital components for spacecraft to carry scientific instruments or transponders as payloads has shot up manifold.

“The space industry has to invest and build modular capacity to enable the country to launch as many satellites to meet the growing demand of the user industry, including the government, private organizations and overseas users,” said Annadurai.

The satellite centre also plans to allow the private industry to make satellites end-to-end, including integration and testing for launching them from its spaceport at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, about 80 km northeast of Chennai.

“The Space Park will also contribute to the government’s ‘Make in India’ initiative, as the private industry and (state-run) firms like HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd) have been helping us in making rockets and satellites over the years,” Annadurai added.

The senior space scientist, who involved in the country’s maiden lunar and Mars missions, addressed delegates and students on ‘Space Science, Technology and Applications’ at the plenary session of the five-day science congress in the campus of the University of Mysore.

The space agency outsources about 80 percent of its requirements for rockets and satellites to the private industry comprising about 500 small, medium and large units across the country for supplying structures, subsystems, components and parts.

(IANS)

Beijing: China Today launched its most sophisticated observation satellite, Gaofen-4, as part of the country’s high-definition (HD) earth observation project, Xinhua reported.

Gaofen-4 was launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in the southwestern province of Sichuan at 00:04 a.m. (local time) aboard a Long March-3B carrier rocket.

It was the 222th flight of the Long March rocket series, according to the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND).

Gaofen-4 is China’s first geosynchronous orbit HD optical imaging satellite and the world’s most sophisticated HD geosynchronous orbit remote sensing satellite, according to Xu Dazhe, head of SASTIND and China National Space Administration.

The successful launch of Gaofen-4 was the 19th space mission in this year. It will be used for disaster prevention and relief, surveillance of geological disasters and forest disasters, and meteorologic forecast, according to Tong Xudong, the chief designer of the Gaofen project with SASTIND.

Gaofen-1, the first satellite of the project, was launched in April 2013.

The Space Placements in INdustry scheme (SPIN) has been designed to provide an introductory link for undergraduate students considering employment in the space sector and space sector organisations looking to find the most talented and enthusiastic people to ensure the future success of their businesses.

The value of practical experience in the workplace has long been recognised to offer benefits to the student, providing valuable experience of the work environment and the skills that are crucial to a successful career, and benefits to the sponsor or host organisation who can identify a project that might otherwise not be achievable, carried out with a fresh pair of eyes and perhaps a fresh perspective on their own organisation and possibly provide an informal extended interview of a potential employee.

The Scheme has been running since 2013 and is growing in popularity. It will run again in 2016 and we would very much like to hear from potential host organisations who have a short-term project (typically of eight weeks duration) in mind, and who would like to offer students the opportunity to gain new skills and an insight into their business. We will welcome applications from students of all disciplines who are enthusiastic to work in the space sector and are keen to develop new skills, applying and building on the knowledge they’ve acquired in their studies to date.

Timeline

Each 2016 placement will be publicised on this website for four weeks, commencing in or before January 2016 or whenever you send it to us. All applications go through the SpIN office to ensure eligibility before being forwarded to the project host for consideration / acceptance on closure of this period. Selection is through normal processes, and all applicants should be notified either way, within 4 weeks of the closing date. We request that all hosts are kind enough to follow this nicety. The relationship is then between host organisation and student. We ask that hosts inform ALL applicants of their status as soon as selection is made.

We will host a group Induction Day at the Satellite Applications Catapult, Harwell on Monday 27th June 2016. This is an opportunity for all students and their hosts to meet each other and hear about the breadth of opportunities there are within the sector, develop their own networks, and find other like-minded people they can explore ideas with in the future. This event has proved to be one of the most important opportunities for all students over the past three years. The eight-week project can be carried out at any time during the summer vacation, by mutual agreement between student and host.

Students are then asked to produce a short report in agreement with the host for presentation at a Showcase Event in November 2016. This event gives the student the opportunity to demonstrate what they’ve got out of the placement and show off their ability to communicate in a professional scenario, not to mention waving the flag for your organisation.

If you may be interested in hosting a SpIN student, please email k.e.bowden@reading.ac.uk. For other questions regarding SpIN, please email spin@reading.ac.uk.

Much time is spent this time of year looking forward. Sensors & Systems has been doing this for the past nine years now, and we’ve taken another stab with this latest list. We did some reflecting on emerging issues, innovative approaches and technology trends to come up with the following predictions for 2016. On the list are hardware advancements, policy decisions and directions, and a whole lot more inputs to mapmaking.

1. New Reality – This year is set to kick off a whole new level of virtual reality adoption given the wide number of new platforms from major players that include Microsoft (HoloLens), Samsung (GearVR), Oculus (Rift), Sony (Project Morpheus), and more. Given this explosion of hardware with relatively low price points, and the obvious extension of these viewing environments into geospatial application space, this could be the year that virtual reality becomes real. It’s not a big leap from there to augmented reality, and that’s where it starts to get really interesting.

2. Automated Mapping – The rise of machine learning is just getting started in terms of interesting map-related applications. The research team at Bentley Systems recently presented technology that takes street level imagery and classifies road type, turn lanes, curbs and other street-related details. This is an exciting application with a whole new level of attributes that are determined automatically and accurately. We can expect similar efforts that do much to reduce the cost of geospatial data while also improving its timeliness and accuracy.

3. Drones (or UAV, UAS, etc.) – The commercial race is on now that the Federal Aviation Administration has made a great deal of 333 exemptions for commercial drone data capture. Thousands of exemptions have been granted to date, with many focused on aerial photography and surveying applications. With the door open for serious applications, the types of reality capture applications are set to explode, with much more frequent flights. Geospatial software will take some time to adapt to these readily available inputs, and a great many new players will enter the market in this space.

4. Improved Insights – Companies like Orbital Insight and Reality Analytics are forging new ground with big data analysis for automated decision support. They both use artificial intelligence with sophisticated algorithms that tease out patterns and return results from imagery, often with data rather than imagery as the final output. This trend had its start some years ago for military purposes, where it continues to thrive and expand for a situational intelligence edge. These companies and others are expanding the use and application for classification and detection of petabyte scale imagery for increased utility of ever-expanding imagery datasets, including all of the inputs from UAVs.

5. Alternative Positioning – The U.S. Secretary of Defense has been making clear he supports moving past GPS to a distributed network based on microelectromechanical systems or MEMS for position, navigation, and timing (PNT) information. He has expressed frustration with the high cost of GPS satellites, the fact that GPS doesn’t work indoors and under certain conditions. Instead, he sees the Internet of Things as the answer for positioning. With this high-level DOD endorsement, and his past role as undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, this dialogue is likely to spur action. Indoor mapping is the final frontier of geospatial data acquisition and could certainly use this push. It will be interesting to see if there are meaningful inroads in MEMS-based positioning in the coming year.

6. Disruption Wins — The millennials have taken over with a dramatic demographic shift. Doing things in a new way is a hallmark of market success with this generation, so disruption is the word of the decade. Expect more new in the coming year, with further hits to institutions and organizations that cling to business plans of the past.

7. Map Ecosystems — There’s a growing number of sensor-laden managed ecosystems from precision farming to more mechanized mining. Machine control benefits from an accurate map, so this sector will continue to drive field data collection efforts. We can expect more closed loops in this sector where the machines are constantly doing the mapping, and communicating to each other about ongoing change. The constant updates and the massive volumes of data that are collected in the process will provide new big data insights.

8. Government Investment – The 2016 spending bill passed just before Christmas. Early analysis of the outcome shows a nice boost for science, with the USGS seeing a nearly two percent increase, NASA earth science with a more than an eight percent increase and NOAA receiving an eight percent increase. The U.S. Census received a 31 percent boost as it prepares for the next decadal survey. Together, these significant increases will certainly benefit the geospatial marketplace. Notable is ongoing mineral mapping program funding and a rejection of a plan to develop a thermal imaging observation platform.

9. Making Models – In the infrastructure modeling and mapping space, we are seeing an incredible increase in efficiency for converting aerial imagery into realistic models. The automation of photogrammetric techniques is continuing and just in time to take advantage of the advancements that drone-based platforms provide.

10. Monitoring Baselines – The news late this last year that the National Science Foundation had lost confidence in Neon Inc. as the manager of the National Ecological Observatory Network was a bit shocking given that much of the construction phase is complete. Thankfully, the NSF is still committed in this continental-scale observation system and perhaps the injection of a new team will make more of the operational phase of this integrated big data effort. The readings from the sites are already impacting research and science and could certainly greatly aid our understanding of Earth systems.

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The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) have agreed to work together more closely in the application and promotion of standards and best practices for the location and geospatial industries.


“The advancement of standards and best practices in areas such as point clouds benefits from the partnership of key organizations,” said Mark Reichardt, OGC’s president and CEO. “We are deeply appreciative of the alliance recently established between ASPRS and OGC. This alliance encourages our respective members to join forces in collaborative activity that will result in benefits for the whole global community as photogrammetry and remote sensing grow in importance.”

“Both the OGC and the ASPRS have long-established roles in the expanding field of location and geospatial technologies,” said Michael Hauck, ASPRS’s Executive Director.

“The two organizations share a mission to advance technical interoperability in this field. They share many members and both have active and complementary standards processes.

“The organizations recognize the synergies that can accrue to their members and the general public if the organizations more closely align some of their activities and work together to promote interoperability in the geospatial technology industry.”

The OGC and ASPRS will work jointly to develop use cases and requirements for open geospatial standards in the domains of data acquisition and dissemination, image processing, and remote sensing science.

An early priority is to jointly assess the current state of adopted and de facto standards for Point Cloud data and consider collaborative publication of one or more standards where there is a mutual benefit of both organizations. The two organizations invite the public to participate in the Point Cloud standards discussion. The members of the OGC Point Cloud Domain Working Group DWG have made the Working Group open to members and the public by allowing open membership to the email list and all meetings.

The two organizations will identify the scope of future standards that will facilitate interoperability of other kinds of remotely sensed data besides point clouds, such as photogrammetric measurements and imagery data of various types.

They will also cooperatively promote and participate in relevant OGC and ASPRS initiatives, including working groups, committee activities, Testbed and Pilot initiatives, regional forums, and workshops.

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