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The first Copernicus open data hackathon is taking place in Austria on the 4th and 5th November 2016 with 7500€ in prizes. We asked the organizers to tell us more about the Copernicus uptake situation in Austria and hackathons.

The Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) is the national funding agency for industrial research and development in Austria. Additionally, FFG fulfills all the tasks of a national space agency. Working for FFG since almost 10 years, Thomas GEIST is in charge of Satellite Earth Observation and in particular of Copernicus. He will be part of the Jury during the Hackathon.

INITS is the biggest high-tech university business incubator in Austria. Eva AHR works with high-tech startups and projects at INITS and is organising the hackathon.

What are in your opinion the main challenges faced by Copernicus uptake in Europe?

Thomas Geist:
Copernicus is now up and running with four Sentinel satellites in place (and more to come in the next years) and operational services offering information products on a regular basis. Copernicus offers data and information under a free and open data policy and the programme is promising a continuity of services over a long time. These are fundamental elements for a sustainable use of Copernicus. However, there are still manifold challenges for a successful user uptake.

First of all, a prerequisite for the uptake is the safeguarding of access to Copernicus data and products in an easy and reliable manner. Secondly, the buildup of expertise among the multifaceted and partly fragmented (potential) stakeholder and user communities in public and private sector is of high importance. This is partly connected with access to suitable financing and funding mechanisms, but also to tailor-made training opportunities. Finally, a big challenge is still the lack of awareness that Copernicus exists and what can be done with the data, information and tools already available.

You see, there is a huge potential in terms of supporting Copernicus uptake. Therefore, the deployment of an effective user engagement strategy must have a high priority. The European Commission is starting to tackle this with the launch of a variety of initiatives, such as the set-up of a Copernicus support office, the Copernicus relays, the Copernicus academy network and the provision of information and training material.

Is there an „Austrian approach“ for User Uptake in Copernicus?

Thomas Geist:
Austria has to face the same challenges of raising awareness of Copernicus and stimulating user uptake as other countries. Therefore, a structured exchange of best practices between states and regions could help much and should be strengthened.

There are several elements of an „Austrian approach“. As a more top-down approach addressing the public sector on national and regional level, the Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology (bmvit), which has the political responsibility for Copernicus in Austria, has set up an inter-ministerial group for Copernicus. This body is involving all entities relevant for the use of Copernicus on national level, such as the Federal Environmental Agency or the Ministry of Interior Affairs.

For a couple of years, as a more bottom-up approach, FFG has tried to prepare the Austrian industry (mostly SMEs) and science community for Copernicus via the funding of collaborative R&D projects through the Austrian Space Applications Programme (ASAP). With the compulsory and active involvement of user groups in these collaborations a certain level of awareness could be accomplished among selected communities. As a next step the real uptake of Copernicus into business processes must be tackled, beyond showing the pure technical feasibility. Other elements to mention are for instance the establishment of a national access to Sentinel data, operated by ZAMG (= Austrian meteorological service) and the foundation of the Earth Observation Data Center (EODC) providing collaborative IT infrastructure for archiving, processing, and distributing EO data.

Next to the well-known instruments for promoting research, development and innovation, we think that a couple of unorthodox formats might help to unlock new user groups. One idea was the implementation of a Copernicus hackathon, and here with INiTS we have found the perfect partner.

Can you briefly describe the background of the initiative?

Eva Arh:
As the Copernicus data is made available in an open and free way, Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology and Austrian Research Promotion Agency saw a great chance to raise the awareness about the Copernicus open data by organizing a hackathon. The aim of the hackathon is to generate exciting ideas how Copernicus data can be used in valuable applications as well as promote the project as such. In order to create meaningful ideas and implement data into applications, we will have mixed teams that consist of developers, data scientists, geographers, physicists, entrepreneurs etc. If in other hackathons it is enough to have developers on board, we also need experts in the Earth observation to shed a light what these data mean. We at INITS, the biggest and most experienced high-tech incubator in Austria, have organized hackathons before and we know that such an event is very efficient way to educate attendees about the topic and simply generate a lot exciting use cases. Some of the ideas could turn into companies that we can support after the hackathon. Earth Observation Data Center is enabling the hackathon technically – they are already working with Copernicus data and have prepared them to an extent that attendees can create applications within 2 days.

Why is a hackathon the best tool to reach your aims?

Eva Arh:
Hackathon is an efficient way to generate different ideas and solutions within a very limited time frame. By gathering people with various skills and guiding them through the idea generation process, we make sure that we have teams where members complement each other in order to achieve something within 2 days. The diversity and friendly atmosphere also should contribute to the creativity. Exciting prizes are also crucial to generate interested. We will award the winning team with 1500 € as well some teams will get a chance to present developed solutions at future events or on related websites which serves as a great reference. Furthermore, our partner EODC will provide access for the winning team to supercomputers and complete datasets so that the team can continue to work on the idea.

How would you describe a hackathon to a five year old?

Eva Arh:
What is a hackathon? Building something together with others in a short time. Imagine that you and your friends compete about having the biggest castle out of Lego. You have 2 days to build it. You have 4 other friends working on your castle and the other 5 kids are working on their own castle. Your big brother will help you in case you need some support.

What do you expect?

Eva Arh:
We expect motivated attendees that are ready to explore the data and work hard to have something that can be demonstrated and shows the potential of this open data. We know that this is challenging but therefore we will have good food and mentors that can support the teams. We also hope to attract people that have not been involved in the topic until now so that we grow the community of people and companies that deal with the Copernicus data. To summarize, we expect lots of fun, hard work and exciting use cases of the Copernicus data!

Horizon 2020’s Societal Challenge “Climate Action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials” Information Day & Brokerage event took place in Brussels on 14 September 2016.

The sessions included presentations and discussions on:

  • Policy framework of Societal Challenge “Climate Action, Environment, Resource Efficiency & Raw Materials”
  • Cross-cutting issues & best practices in writing proposals
  • Open data
  • Questions & Answers

The presentations and video recordings from the sessions are now available on the European Commission’s website. The hashtag from the event #H2020SC5 can be also followed to see the participants contributions from the event in social media.

Read more

Space-related R&D

In autumn 2016, the calls for proposals under Horizon 2020’s Societal Challenge “Climate Action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials” will be launched with deadlines of proposal submissions in February and March 2017.

Among other, the calls will include a topic directly targeted at the EO solutions.

The Fourth EU-Africa Summit of 2-3 April 2014 agreed on a roadmap for 2014-2017 including actions specifically targeted at delivering Earth observation services in priority domains for Africa such as food security.

This topic aims to contribute to this roadmap by providing food supply projection and agricultural risk assessment for Africa.

Funded projects should lead to substantially increase the use of Earth observing capabilities and supporting application systems to produce timely, objective, reliable, and transparent crop and livestock production projection at the national and regional level for the African continent. Deadline for proposals submission is 14 February 2017 at 17:00 (Brussels time).

The list of all planned topics under H2020 Societal Challenge call is available on the European Comission’s website.

More info

The overall objective of this workshop was to explore Research and Innovation (R&I) actions needed for the development of a dynamic Earth observation (EO) market in Europe in relation to the Copernicus and GEO initiatives (Group on Earth Observations).

The three main themes of the workshop were the following:

  • To characterise the current EO market in Europe and globally and its future trends (new EO services and products);
  • To identify R&I actions in support to the delivery of new EO services and products g. within Copernicus and GEO (Group on Earth Observations), and definition of appropriate measures to accelerate their uptake by industry;
  • To elaborate a mechanism for consulting/involving the European commercial sector towards GEO and Copernicus taking into account the dialogue already initiated between the two programmes.

For more details, please consult this page

The Joint Research Centre of the European Commission presented on 18 October 2016 at the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) a series of numbers extracted from a new global database which tracks human presence on Earth.

The datasets are based on more than 12.4k billions of individual image data records collected by different satellite sensors in the past 40 years.

For instance, since 1975, built-up areas have increased by 2.5 times globally, while the global population increased by a factor of 1.8. Today 7.3 billion people live and work in only 7.6% of the global land mass.

Nine out of the ten most populated urban centres are in Asia, while five out of the ten largest urban centres are in the United States.

Read more…

(Source European Commission)

(13 September 2016) It’s an exciting day at Planet—I’m pleased to announce that Planet has struck a deal with the innovative fintech company, FarmDrive. Based in Kenya, FarmDrive parses data from a variety of sources to provide financial services to a traditionally underserved market: smallholder farmers.

Specifically, FarmDrive applies data analytics and machine learning technologies to agricultural markets data and in-field observations to create comprehensive credit profiles and tailored loan products for farmers across Africa. Planet’s frequent satellite imagery provides a new insight-rich layer of data that can contribute to FarmDrive’s super-accurate credit profiles.

Planet and FarmDrive aren’t in this alone, however. We’ll be working in cooperation with the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) and Chicago-based firm, The Impact Lab, to assess satellite imagery’s validity as a data source for risk assessment on small farms.

I can say without a doubt that the Planet team is thrilled to have FarmDrive as a partner. Together, we’ll harness the power of frequent satellite imaging, and the latest automated analysis methods to help smallholder farmers succeed.

Learn more about Planet’s imagery products

Cambridge, On, Aug. 16, 2016 – exactEarth Ltd. (TSX: XCT), the leading provider of Satellite AIS data services (Joint-venture of Hisdesat and COMDEV) announces that it has been selected by the Fisheries Commission (West Africa Regional Fisheries Programme), an agency of the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development (MOFAD) of the Government of Ghana, for the provision of Satellite AIS data services as well as a small vessel tracking solution. The contract value is in a range of $1.0-$2.0 million for a 12 month period and will enable Ghana to acquire the technology necessary to monitor its expansive coastlines and deter illegal fishing in its national waters.

Along with a comprehensive Satellite AIS data feed, exactEarth will provide MOFAD with 450 Class B AIS transceivers to be installed on inshore fishing vessels which will be tracked via satellite utilising exactEarth’s exactTraxTM small vessel tracking technology. In order to address the rampant Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) fishing around Ghana’s Exclusive Economic Zone, MOFAD have provisioned this small vessel tracking solution to gain access to detailed fishing vessel positions and movement analysis services through the exactEarth ShipView™ platform. exactEarth ShipView will be upgraded to include a SOS alerting facility in an effort to support Ghana’s government in their “safety of life at sea” initiative, which is intended to help its fishermen. exactEarth will be working with a local partner and academic institutions in Ghana to provide vessel movement analysis and reporting to help inform policy decision making and also to engage the next generation maritime professionals in coastal surveillance to protect and preserve Ghana`s fish stock for the future.

“This is an important strategic win and a major step forward for our small vessel tracking initiative,” said Peter Mabson, exactEarth CEO. “MOFAD needs a high performance, reliable and compliant maritime monitoring solution to protect their critical fishing industry and our small vessel tracking capabilities will be an integral part of helping them achieve that objective. This reflects the growing opportunity for both our large and small vessel tracking solutions and our reputation for having the leading Satellite AIS solution on the market.”

About exactEarth Ltd.

exactEarth is a leading provider of global maritime vessel data for ship tracking and maritime situational awareness solutions. Since its establishment in 2009, exactEarth has pioneered a powerful new method of maritime surveillance called Satellite-AIS (“S-AIS”) and has delivered to its clients a view of maritime behaviours across all regions of the world’s oceans unrestricted by terrestrial limitations. exactEarth has deployed an operational data processing supply chain involving a constellation of satellites, receiving ground stations, patented decoding algorithms and advanced “big data” processing and distribution facilities. This ground-breaking system provides a comprehensive picture of the location of AIS equipped maritime vessels throughout the world and allows exactEarth to deliver data and information services characterized by high performance, reliability, security and simplicity to large international markets. For more information, visit exactearth.com.

By Anthony Wallace on 11 October, 2016 in 3D & BIM, Company & Industry, GIS & Data, Surveying

In 1998, then vice-president of the United States Al Gore called on the need for a ‘Digital Earth’ – a virtual representation of the Earth that is georeferenced and connected to the world’s digital knowledge archives.

Fast forward almost 20 years to 2016, and advancement in spatial technologies have boldly advanced upon that definition. In recent decades the concept has evolved thanks to the development and adoption of technologies such as earth observation, geo-information systems, global positioning systems, communication networks, sensor webs, electromagnetic identifiers, virtual reality and grid computation.

Dr Zaffar Sadiq Mohamed-Ghouse, chair of the upcoming International Society for Digital Earth’s ISDE10 Symposium and Locate17, sees that Digital Earth is a global strategic contributor to scientific and technological developments. Moving ahead, he also believes it to be a catalyst in finding solutions to the world’s biggest international scientific, environmental and societal issues.

Digital Earth… a catalyst in finding solutions to international scientific, environmental and societal issues.”
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Dr Zaffar Sadiq Mohamed-Ghouse

“Everyday life will be immersed in the internet of things,” Dr Mohamed-Ghouse says of the future. “From driverless vehicles to wearable devices, immersive reality and semantically web-enabled ‘thinking’ systems, new technology will anticipate our needs.”

According to Dr Mohamed-Ghouse, Digital Earth’s role in this digital future will be fundamental to overcoming our biggest environmental and societal challenges.

“Digital Earth should play a strategic and sustainable role in addressing such challenges to human society as natural resource depletion, food and water insecurity, energy shortages, environmental degradation, natural disasters response, population explosion, and, in particular, global climate change,” he says.

One of the most relatable example of Digital Earth can be found in Google Earth. It’s ability to compile multiple datasets anywhere on Earth, allows almost anybody to analyse complex geographic data at whatever scale they choose.

However, it is Australia’s role in digital earth that is Dr Mohamed-Ghouse’s focus as a director at the Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information (CRCSI). Closer to home, Digital Earth is realised by the NSW Globe, QLD Globe and Locate WA, which are leading the way interstate by compiling datasets as diverse as property values, shipwrecks and Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander boundaries. At federal level, the National Map brings together much of this data alongside additional continent-wide datasets.

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“Applying Digital Earth Technologies such as this will allow Australia to innovate and respond to challenges including food, water and energy security, disaster management and natural resource management,” said Dr Mohamed-Ghouse.

“Australia has strong research and industry sectors and a growing awareness by government, business and community of the use of the power of location underpinned by the Digital Earth information infrastructures for better decision making.”

Digital Earth will be a major focusses of next year’s ISDE symposium, this time held alongside Australia’s peak spatial conference, Locate 2017, between 3-6 April 2017 in Sydney at the newly reopened International Conference Centre.

Being an international forum, Dr Mohamed-Ghouse anticipates that some of the world’s strongest advancements in Digital Earth will come to a head in Sydney in 2017. While Australian-led research has lots to offer, Dr Mohamed-Ghouse also sheds light on some of our world-leading neighbours that are expected to participate.
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National Map depicting known shipwreck locations, based on Locate WA data.

“Singapore has a national strategy for moving to the 3D and virtual world, and China is strongly committed to Digital Earth at the government level,” he said. “USA, Europe and Canada, Japan, India and China and several other countries are developing advanced earth observations systems which are being coordinated by the Committee of Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS), which is currently being chaired by Australia.

Australia, he notes, is doing considering well when it comes to Digital Earth, thanks to a commitment to open data and because of the federal and state online Spatial Data Infrastructure and more recently the globes being implemented by state government agencies.

However Dr Mohamed-Ghouse also notes that Australia needs to continue to embrace a digital economy with a strong knowledge base of scientists and geo-professionals to invent and apply the next generation of technologies.

“Australia really needs to have a strong indigenous capability so that we can be industry creators, not followers,” he said.

“We want to be price setters not price takers.”

Source

Over the last four years, Proteus Geo has worked in partnership with DHI to provide a vast range of customers with bathymetry data, derived from satellites.

This new and affordable service has allowed engineers, defence forces and environmentalists (amongst many other users) to remotely learn about the sea and lake beds under shallow water, where access has previously been difficult and expensive.

ESA has now awarded Proteus Geo and DHI with substantial financial backing to improve the efficiency of the data processing chain and encourage the wider use of this source of vital information.

Starting now, the companies will use high-accuracy, high-resolution satellite imagery captured by DigitalGlobe’s satellite constellation to create a dataset that will show the depth of water in over 100,000 km2 of both salt and fresh water coastlines.

Alongside the creation of the data, Proteus Geo will also develop an on-line portal that will allow simple and fast access for customers from all over the world.

Richard Flemmings, Director of Proteus Geo explains the advantages of providing affordable, off-the-shelf bathymetry data to anyone who needs it; “There is currently a lack of bathymetry data around the world due to the high costs, lead-time, and health and safety issues involved in collecting this data using boats and aircraft.This project and service will be a practical step to break down the barriers to easily accessing the data in a standardised format.”

“High-resolution imaging satellites are ideal for this purpose, as the data can be created quickly and consistently over large areas and leveraged for many applications. This exciting project presents a paradigm shift away from bathymetry data being delivered on a project-by-project basis, to data being available off-the-shelf through an instant online portal.”

The project is being supported by ESA’s ARTES 20 programme (Advances Research in Telecommunications Systems) which responds to users’ needs using a combination of different space assets such as Earth Observation, navigation and telecommunications.

For more information on the project pelase contact Richard Flemmings info@proteusgeo.com

Proteus Geo (www.proteusgeo.com) is a company dedicated to furthering everyone’s understanding of the world around them by providing information created from satellite imagery.

DHI (www.dhigroup.com) staff combine knowledge and experience of working to solve problems for their clients in water environments all over the world.

European Space Agency (www.esa.com and https://artes-apps.esa.int/) mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capaiblity and ensure that that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the continent’s citizens.

Bathymetry data provides the depth of water in oceans, seas and lakes and hence creates a map of the ground underneath the waves.

The 2016 GOFC-GOLD Data Initiative – Advanced Training in Earth Observations kicked off October 10, 2016 at the Sirindhorn Center for Geo-Informatics (SCGI), Space Krenovation Park (SKP), GISTDA, in Sriracha, Thailand. This training is organized by START, in collaboration with the Thailand Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA) and the Department of Earth and Environment, Boston University. It is funded by NASA, as part of a 3-year cooperative agreement between NASA and START on Global Observation of Forest Cover and Land Dynamics (GOFC-GOLD).

Mr. Boonchoob Boongthong, Director of Satellite Operation Office, GISTDA, officially opened the training with a welcome message from GISTDA. Dr. Garik Gutman from NASA provided general introduction of Earth observations programming in Asia, especially GOFC-GOLD and NASA’s Land-Cover and Land-Use Change (LCLUC) Programs. Dr. David Ganz, Chief of Party for SERVIR – Mekong at the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) also presented on SERVIR related programming in Asia. Senay Habtezion (START) and Dr. Tanita Suepa (GISTDA) introduced the training program, setting the stage for the advanced training, which started in the second half of the morning session.

2016-data-initiative3The 2016 Data Initiative is the fifth training in Earth observation and applications and the first ever to be held outside of the United States. Thirty fellows representing 10 countries in Asia are participating in this training, which will be led by Prof. Pontus Olofsson (Boston University) along with Prof. Le Van Trung (Vietnam University Institute of Technology) and seasoned trainers from GISTDA.

The training will run through the 14th of October and will combine hands-on lab work, lectures, group-exercises and technical visits to Thailand ground receiving Station (satellite signal receiving facility) and the Space Inspirium at GISTDA.

For more information about the GOFC-GOLD program please visit http://start.org/programs/gofc-gold or contact Senay Habtezion at shabtezion@start.org

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