Skip to content

By Robert Bell, Executive Director, SSPI and WTA. In 1988, a meeting of the World Health Assembly set a mind-boggling goal: to eradicate the ancient scourge of polio.

At the time the goal was set, the polio virus was endemic in 125 countries and about 350,000 people, mostly children, were paralyzed by polio each year.

This was an audacious goal; however, 24 years later, the number of polio cases worldwide had fallen by more than 99 percent, saving more than 10 million children from paralysis.

How To End A Plague

The near-eradication of polio required big public investment in vaccine. Polio is highly infectious, and entire villages and districts had to be vaccinated to stop the chain of transmission.

Stamping polio out meant recruiting and training hundreds of thousands of vaccinators and sending them into the field with millions of doses of vaccine, which had to be kept cold in foam-plastic boxes. The goal was to vaccinate every child in the country several times, with a month or so between each round.

This was an unprecedented effort that allowed India to declare itself polio-free in February of 2012. India was long considered one of the most unlikely places to eradicate polio because of that nation’s high population density, high rates of migration, poor sanitation, and low rates of route immunization. Data-driven planning, well-trained and motivated staff, rigorous monitoring and political will at all levels, that made the difference.

As did satellite technology… according to Bill Gates, whose Gates Foundation is funding the battle against polio in nations around the world, satellite imagery and mobile phones equipped with GPS are instrumental in the fight.

India is now sharing their best practices with Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan—countries where polio remains endemic—and the Nigerian experience reveals just how technology can help a person-to-person effort achieve national scale.

Satellite Maps & Cell Phones
Mr. Gates outlined the basics in a 2012 interview with author Rick Smolan.

“The Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) creates these incredibly detailed satellite maps for governments,” he said. “They found that there were villages in Nigeria, which has the highest rate of polio resurgence in the world, that have never shown up on any map. No one in the government knew they were there. ESRI can recognize the shape of huts and pathways. They updated the satellite maps and handed out 10,000 GPS-enabled cell phones to polio workers. They could see where the workers were in real-time, and make sure they got to each of the houses.”

Satellite technologies feed into many steps in the process. Space-based imaging is used to update geographical information systems (GIS) that generate maps for the field workers.

Using GIS as a tool, supervisors plan how to deploy their teams in order to cover every village and settlement. Each morning, the teams receive their GPS-equipped phones and start their visits. In the villages, with the help of local guides, they visit health facilities, schools, markets and mosques, where they vaccinate both children and adults.

At the end of the day, the phones are collected for charging, which lets supervisors download their tracking data and match that information to the GIS system. The results are tracks showing where every vaccinator has been, as well as updated map coordinates for important buildings. Every few days, the teams receive summaries of missed or partially-covered settlements that need a return visit.

Winning The Final Prize
As impressive as this effort has been, the battle is not yet won. The 2012 World Health Assembly declared that the complete eradication of polio was “an emergency for global public health.” That is because the disease is making a comeback in nations where civil unrest and war are making it impossible for vaccination programs to function.

This is a battle worth fighting—in addition to the relief of human suffering, experts believe that eradicating polio will generate US$40 to $50 billion in benefits, with most of that money going to low-income countries. Winning that prize is a cause to which the satellite business is proud to contribute.

“The Final Battle to End Polio” is part of SSPI’s Better Satellite World campaign, which educates end-users, policymakers and the next generation on the indispensable contributions of satellite to our world.

More stories and videos are available at www.bettersatelliteworld.com.
www.sspi.org/

Sources
Polio: Strategy Overview, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 2012. The Human Face of Big Data, by Rick Smolan and Jennifer Erwitt, Against All Odds Productions, November 2012.
“Use of GPS Tracking of Vaccination Team Activities in Polio NIDs in Nigeria,” by Dr. M.Z. Mahmud, project presentation.

Source

Broadly, the AWS Cloud Credits for Research Program supports researchers who seek to:

  • Build cloud-hosted publicly available science-as-a-service applications, software, or tools to facilitate their future research and the research of their community.
  • Perform proof of concept or benchmark tests evaluating the efficacy of moving research workloads or open data sets to the cloud.
  • Train a broader community on the usage of cloud for research workloads via workshops or tutorials.

For this specific Call for Proposals, we are looking for applications related to the usage of Earth on AWS datasets.

Application Process

AWS will evaluate academic research support proposals from researchers at accredited institutions throughout the year. Awarded amounts will vary depending on the research proposal and usage requirements documented in the proposal, and will be in the form of credits applicable to AWS services. EC2 usage supported by credits will be for on-demand and Spot Instances only.

Decisions are typically communicated 30 days following submission. Note that decisions are sent from “aws-research-credits [AT] amazon.com” and sometimes get routed to spam.

If you are awarded Research Credits for free usage of AWS, the credits will be good for the earlier of 1 year or until the credits have been fully utilized. Please make sure to account for the duration of the credits in your project timeline, as the end date cannot be extended and credits will expire if unused.

Cloud Credits for Research

For guidance on how to complete this application, please see our FAQ page

An app that uses satellite data to evaluate the quality of wine took home the top prize at this year’s Space App Camp at ESA’s centre in Frascati, Italy.

In its fifth year, the App Camp offers access to the latest space data to app developers, who work to make the information accessible to a broad audience.

As Europe’s Copernicus programme continues to launch the Sentinel satellites, transforming their information into useful products poses both a challenge and an opportunity.

The week-long ‘camp’ culminated today with presentations of the seven projects to a jury, followed by a presentation by ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano.

Source

Smart mapping leader Esri announced it is engaging students all over the world in a new contest called the Global Content Challenge. With the power of Esri content at their disposal, students will tell their own compelling scientific stories using the Esri Story Map Journal app. Entrants will use personal geographic analyses, visualizations, predictive models, and more, to explore a variety of scientific themes.


“Esri views science as helping us to understand not only how the earth works but also how the earth should look,” said Esri chief scientist Dawn Wright. “Science is the study of how we should look at the earth. GIS places scientific data in a visual context.”

Judges will select the best map journals to be awarded prizes. Esri will share the winning map journals on its Collaborative Resource portal and feature them at Esri’s Federal GIS and Education GIS Conferences as well as Esri Young Professionals Network events.

Esri’s Global Content Challenge is open to undergraduate or graduate students at colleges or universities and to high school students enrolled in an advanced-placement human geography or environmental science course. Esri’s land, ocean, and population categories of premium content libraries will be made available so that entrants can enrich their stories.

Three winners will be awarded their choice of a cash prize or Esri software in each category. The first-place winner will receive $10,000 or software of equivalent value. Second- and third-place prizes are $5,000 and $2,000, respectively, or software of equal value. The competition will open on August 29, 2016, and entries will not be accepted after November 11, 2016, at 5:00 p.m. (PST). Winners will be announced on December 5, 2016.

For more information about Esri’s Global Content Challenge, visit go.esri.com/pr-gcc.

Since 1969, Esri has been giving customers around the world the power to think and plan geographically. The market leader in GIS, Esri software is used in more than 350,000 organizations worldwide including each of the 200 largest cities in the United States, most national governments, more than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies, and more than 7,000 colleges and universities. Esri applications, running on more than one million desktops and thousands of Web and enterprise servers, provide the backbone for the world’s mapping and spatial analysis. Esri is the only vendor that provides complete technical solutions for desktop, mobile, server, and Internet platforms.
bq. Visit us at www.esri.com.

Source

(13 July 2016) MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) has signed a four year contract with a ceiling of 31 million euros to provide Radarsat-2 information to the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA).

Under this contract, MDA will provide Radarsat-2 information to support EMSA in the areas of maritime safety, law enforcement, border security, fisheries control, and marine pollution monitoring.

Supporting a broad base of European users, the Radarsat-2 information will be used in detecting and monitoring oil spills as part of EMSA’s CleanSeaNet program. EMSA will also expand on its utilization of Radarsat-2 information to increase the vessel detection and monitoring services that are supplied to FRONTEX, a European agency responsible for European border management. Additionally, EMSA will also broaden its use of Radarsat-2 information to include support for the Copernicus Security Services for Maritime Surveillance (CSSMS) program.

David Belton, MDA’s manager responsible for this business said, “MDA has been closely working with EMSA for over a decade and we are very pleased that EMSA continues to increase its usage of Radarsat information, including expansion into multiple maritime surveillance application areas. We are committed to working closely with EMSA to support their mission and we look forward to continuing this cooperation for many more years.”

About MDA

MDA is a global communications and information company providing operational solutions to commercial and government organizations worldwide.

MDA’s business is focused on markets and customers with strong repeat business potential, primarily in the Communications sector and the Surveillance and Intelligence sector. In addition, the Company conducts a significant amount of advanced technology development.

MDA’s established global customer base is served by more than 4,800 employees operating from 13 locations in the United States, Canada, and internationally.

The Company’s common shares trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol “MDA.”

(source: MDA)

Pipeline operators are responsible for the safe transport of oil and gas through high-pressure transmission pipelines. In the Western world, these transmission pipelines are buried in the public space at a depth of about 1.5 metres. Operators are concerned with monitoring the integrity of their pipelines on a continuous basis, as pipeline failures can cause severe damage to people, infrastructure and the natural and built environment. This article discusses the use of Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite radar imagery to provide pipeline operators with a continuous source of information for monitoring and managing their assets from space.


Project Background

In densely populated countries such as the Netherlands transmission pipelines for gas, oil and products have a length of over 13,000 km, which is more than 3 times the length of the public motorway network. Although transport via pipelines is the safest transport modality, operators continuous monitor their pipeline routes since failures in transmission pipelines are high-impact events, with a large risk of severe damage. In Europe, the single largest cause for failures are so-called third party interferences (TPIs). Examples of TPIs are excavations, deep ploughing, construction activities and city encroachments.

Issues & Needs

HELICOPTER SURVEYS

To minimise the threats caused by TPIs, as a mitigating measure pipeline companies survey their pipeline routes regularly using helicopters. Depending on the risk profile of the pipeline route, these surveys occur with a frequency of once per one to three weeks. Normally the helicopters fly at an altitude of 300ft and at a speed of approx. 200km/h. In general, helicopter surveys have a number of drawbacks, such as low visibility or no flight being possible at all due to bad weather conditions (rain, fog), safety concerns, noise, emissions and the high costs associated with helicopter surveys in general. Pipeline operators therefore require other information sources that can reduce their need for helicopter surveys.

COPERNICUS

To detect threats to the integrity of transmission pipelines, a new method based on synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite data has been developed by Orbital Eye, a Dutch start-up in the space industry and alumnus of the ESA Business Incubation Centre in Noordwijk. The method – named PIMSyS – uses images that are acquired by Sentinel-1, one of the European Copernicus programme’s Earth observation (EO) satellites. The Sentinel-1 satellite was launched in April 2014 and became operational in June 2015. Sentinel-1 mainly features a 12m-long C-band SAR instrument which operates day and night in all weather conditions. The satellite orbits the Earth at an altitude of 693km and has a repeat cycle of 12 days. Sentinel-1 is part of a constellation of two satellites, the second one of which is launched in April 2016 and became operational 29 September 2016. Together they will revisit every place on Earth every six days.

EVIDENCE-BASED INSPECTION

The proposed satellite-based method is a cloud service to support pipeline operators with additional information about possible TPI threats to their pipeline infrastructure. The service facilitates evidence-based inspection: it supports the optimisation of the scheduling of inspections by providing information about the location of potential TPI threats so that real threats actually have a higher probability of being detected. Potential threats are identified through change detection based on amplitude and phase information in two radar images of the same area (that are acquired successively in time). The observed changes are then evaluated and filtered according to their probability of being a change in reality (in order to avoid a large number of false positives). The resulting change information can be complementary to other surveying methods or can partly – or even completely – replace current methods.

Solution

PROCESSING CHAIN

So far, a fully automated processing chain has been developed for Sentinel-1, TerraSAR-x and RadarSAT-2 images. The chain detects when new satellite images are available for areas with pipeline systems that are currently being monitored. The data is then automatically downloaded and processed. TPI threats are detected by comparing sets of two images for the same area. The time interval between two successive images depends on the satellite used. The intervals for Sentinel-1, TerraSAR-X and RadarSAT-2 are respectively 12, 11 and 24 days. The detected TPI threats that are not in the vicinity of the pipeline are filtered out to reduce data storage and transfer. All reports are sent via a secure internet connection to a client system located at the pipeline company. The client system consists of a spatial database, a mobile application (for tablets used by field operators) and a desktop application (for use at the office). The client system supports the display of maps, the location of pipelines, and display and interactive retrieval of detected TPIs, helicopter reports, vehicle reports and other observation reports. This information can be further combined with additional information about municipalities and landowners (where available).

Results & Perspectives

VALIDATION PROJECT

The satellite-based service was validated during an eight-month project executed together with a pipeline operator. During this project the identified threats were compared to the results of helicopter surveys. The validation project was executed in 2014–2015 in an area measuring 30km by 50km in the western part of The Netherlands. The original plan was to utilise Sentinel-1 data for this project. However, Sentinel-1 was not yet operational in this period so TerraSAR-X imagery was used instead. The total length of the pipeline route monitored during the project was approx. 238km, with a total pipeline length of approx. 366km (some routes contained more than one pipeline). For the eight-month period, six satellite images were available which were acquired at intervals varying from 22 to 66 days. For this time period, all reports of helicopter surveys (with a surveying frequency of once per three weeks) were also provided by the pipeline operator. In addition, a list was made available of all locations in the vicinity (within 50m) of the pipeline route where third-party excavation activities were planned. The pipeline company selected four locations in the project area where its own activities were planned during the validation project. For these four locations, the detected changes showed a perfect match with the actual start and end dates of the activities. However, these locations together represented no more than approx. 1km to 2km of the total pipeline route. For that reason, a statistical analysis was made for the entire validation period and for the total project area. This analysis proved a strong correlation of the results with other activities executed by the pipeline company for extension and maintenance of the pipeline system.


Figure 1, Transmission pipeline in a small area in Netherlands © Aerodata International Surveys


Figure 2&3, Individual SAR satellite images for the change detection image shown in Figure 4. The radar images were acquired on 12 December 2014 (a) and 14 January 2015 (b)


Figure 4, Satellite-derived differences between 12 December 2014 and 14 January 2015 for a small area in The Netherlands. The transmission pipeline is shown in green. The colour scale runs from blue (no change) to red (relatively large change)

CORRELATION

For approximately 90km of pipeline route, the correlation was investigated between detected TPI threats and the results of the helicopter surveys and planned third-party excavation activities. In The Netherlands, planned excavations are registered through a mandatory central system, known as KLIC. During the validation project, the helicopter and satellite based method detected events at 152 unique locations. For 80 of those 152 locations (53%) there was information available via a helicopter report and for 134 of the 152 locations (88%) information was available via the PIMSyS satellite-based method. Table 1 shows the number of locations for which a certain combination of data sources was available. For example, only 4.6% of the 152 unique locations were covered by all available information sources. In 7.2% of the number of locations, a helicopter report matched with a KLIC registration (the sum of the number of locations in rows ‘Helicopter + Satellites + KLIC’ and ‘Helicopter + KLIC’ in Table 1). Similarly, the correlation between KLIC and the satellite-based method was 23.7%. One of the reasons for the relatively low correlation is that most third-party excavation registrations are active for only a short period of time (a few days up to two weeks) while the surveying frequency is once per three weeks for helicopters and 22-66 days for the radar satellites.


Table 1, Number and percentage of detected TPI threats based on the various combinations of available information sources, which shows the correlation between different TPI detection methods

FURTHER INTERPRETATION

There are 14 helicopter reports for locations that were not detected by the radar satellites. Analysis of these 14 reports showed that 10 reports were related to short-lived events that most likely both started and ended in the period between two satellite images. In addition, two helicopter reports showed no activity (false alarms) and two reports showed longer-lived activities that were not detected with satellite imagery. Of the 43 locations that were only reported by the satellite-based method, 33 were related to a major pipeline extension activity executed by the pipeline company. The helicopter did not report these events, even though the helicopter observer is instructed to report all activities including the activities of the pipeline company itself. In conclusion, the correlation between KLIC and PIMSyS was roughly three times higher than for helicopter reports. Furthermore, 88% of all locations were detected in total. This shows that the satellite-based TPI detection method is more reliable and provides pipeline operators with a valuable source of additional information for monitoring and managing their pipelines.

Related Info

Please contact us via the contact details below for general inquires, business opportunities or to request a demo of PIMSyS.
Orbital Eye B.V.
P.O. Box 608, 2600 AP Delft
www.orbitaleye.nl
Email: info@orbitaleye.nl. Telephone: +31(0)15 262 98 89. Fax: +31(0)15 262 95 67

The new Eurisy publication “Satellites for Society: Reporting on operational uses of satellite-based services in the public sector” analyses more than 100 replies submitted to the Eurisy survey for public authorities in 2015.

Public managers were asked why they started using satellite-based services, how much the services cost and how the uptake was financed, which challenges they face, and how the satellite solutions help them saving time and resources while improving the quality of public services.

This publication is disseminated by Eurisy with the aim of contributing to building a knowledge base on the uses of satellite-based services in the public sector. By taking into account the direct feedback of public managers, the report offers a distinctive insight into the work of European public administrations, which will be useful to policy and decision-makers to increase the potential benefits of satellites for society.

The Eurisy survey for public authorities remains open and accessible in nine languages at this LINK.

Source

hosted at the Circulo de Belles Artes in Madrid / Spain

Explore cutting-edge space applications in a wide range of key future topics
The conference will feature an outstanding blend of sessions, solution soundbites and roundtable discussions, centred on leveraging satellite-derived data and other space solutions for business and society.

Programme at a glance

Tuesday, 25 October

Opening Roundtable “Galileo and Copernicus – EU space programmes unite forces to tackle global challenges”
The dedicated roundtable with high-level institutional stakeholders and industry representatives will discuss the Initial Operation of EU Space Programmes.

Awards Ceremony 2016
Join the festive Awards Ceremony of Europe’s major innovation competitions for commercial space applications – the European Satellite Navigation Competition and the Copernicus Masters.

Wednesday, 26 October

Satellite Masters Conference
The conference is much more than a mere networking event: It is a unique marketplace for sharing ideas on space-based innovation and connecting with the world’s leading network for downstream satellite business

www.satellite-masters-conference.eu
#SatMaConf #AZOspace

After successful completion of in-orbit commissioning, ESA has handed over operations of the Copernicus Sentinel-3A satellite to EUMETSAT

During the five-month in orbit commission phase following the launch on 16 February, EUMETSAT supported ESA in the verification that the satellite, instruments and the prime functions of the ground segment perform as expected.

The first images from all three main instrument chains – the Ocean and Land Colour Instrument, the Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer and the SAR Altimeter associated to the Microwave Radiometer – were produced jointly and released to the public in March and early April, already showing the high potential of the Sentinel-3 mission.

The formal handover concludes a transition phase during which EUMETSAT, under the supervision of ESOC, took an increasing role in operating the satellite, sending its first command on 29 April, performing its first manoeuvre on 2 June and carrying out routine operations since 4 July.

José Morales, Head of Copernicus Flight Operations Office at ESOC, ESA’s Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt said: “After almost five months of intense work implementing the Launch and Early Orbit Phase, Commissioning and Calibration phases of Sentinel-3A, in parallel with the transition of operations responsibility to the EUMETSAT team working with us, it is now time to hand-over the ‘little baby’ to its final operator. The ESOC team will now concentrate on the preparation of its twin brother, Sentinel-3B, for the launch in 2017”.

Kevin Marston, EUMETSAT System Operations Manager said: “Thanks to the excellent cooperation with the ESOC teams, we are now ready to take over operations of the satellite and the Flight Operations Segment and to enter the operations ramp up phase during which we will start to deliver Sentinel-3 marine products to Copernicus users.”

The next milestone is to follow in autumn, when the Payload Data Ground Segment will be declared operational for an initial set of products, and its Marine component will be handed over to EUMETSAT. EUMETSAT will then deliver the Sentinel-3A marine mission on behalf of the European Union and in partnership with ESA.

The operations ramp-up phase will continue into spring 2017 and EUMETSAT and ESA will continuously increase the portfolio of operational products, capitalising on the joint calibration and validation programme.

Source

Earlier in May, the GEO-CRADLE project organised a dedicated session at the 10th GEO European Projects Workshop in Berlin, to discuss best practices for the sustainable exploitation of capacity building projects. The panel gathered experts from public, private and research sectors to share their lessons learned and present their recommendations for strengthening local EO value chains. From decision makers to the private sector, from data sources to the final user, each stakeholder has a vital role to play in the grander scheme of GEO. Read on…

Taking place under the auspices of the GEO-CRADLE project, the session gathered more than 60 participants from science, business and public administrations around capacity building efforts – both old and new. The main objective of the session was to present tools and methodologies that have been or are being put in place by capacity building projects to overcome the various challenges for the uptake of EO data and services at a regional level. Primary emphasis has been placed on understanding how the impact of such projects can be increased and how the project outputs can be sustainably exploited beyond their lifetime.

To shed light on these matters, GEO-CRADLE has invited speakers representing the private sector – GMV and Spatial Services Ltd, past or ongoing initiatives – AfriAlliance, AfriGEOSS, BalkanGEONet, ConnectinGEO, as well as public authorities such as Morocco’s Centre Royal de Télédétection Spatiale.

Companies should not dismiss the added value of a user’s local knowledge

Dr Ana Sebastian Lopez, Senior Project Manager at GMV, presented their activities within Wall-to-Wall Environmental Habitat Mapping in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. Part of a broader project commissioned by the Abu Dhabi Environmental Agency, the project’s success can be attributed not only to the company’s rich experience, but also to a solid, established workflow. By adopting a bottom up approach, GMV was able to take advantage of the local expertise and thus better understand their client’s needs. Moreover, by building products and tools that concretely respond to local needs, their sustainability is increased. Local stakeholders should have a clear interest in using project outcomes on a long term basis. Ms Amal Layachi, Head of Department at the Centre Royal de Télédétection Spatial in Morocco also urged for a stronger support for partnerships between R&D, the private sector and universities. A stronger cooperation between the three stakeholder groups will ensure a better coordination of initiatives, cross-sector fertilization and support for greater data sharing. “If these three sectors actively work together, the structures created will become sustainable”, Dr Peter Zeil, Senior Project Manager at Spatial Services Ltd added.

“Capacity building begins with user empowerment”

Empowering local actors, whether they are universities or public authorities, is key when discussing sustainable capacity building initiatives. Local structures and national contact points should act as enablers to build upon. „Without such local structures, it is indeed difficult to ensure sustainability“, Dr Giovanni Rum, GEO Work Programme Coordinator argued. Capacity building should be done along the entire value chain, he continued. From policy to the final services, a harmonisation of activities around bilateral and multilateral projects with the European Commission (EC) is needed and this is what AfriGEOSS (GEO’s African EO community) strives to achieve. Whether through seed grants, twinning exercises or larger initiatives, the EC should continue to play a leading role in fostering know-how transfer to its neighbouring counties. Match-making EU to non-EU companies could also act as a catalyst for market development. Such pairing of skills and practices was highly recommended by both experts and participating delegates.

A new initiative carried out by AARSE and EARSC, which surveys the African private sector, highlights exactly this – the need for more EU-Africa joint projects and workshops, trainings and information exchange. Some delegates went even further to recommend directly replicating success stories across borders and countries. All in all, awareness raising proved insufficient to advance grassroots initiatives. Mapping gaps and making recommendations have also proven insufficient. But we should act on what we can, notably, by equipping local stakeholders with the right tools, tailored funding schemes and know-how. According to Dr. Uta Wehn, Assoc. Prof of Water Innovation Studies and AfriAlliance Project Director, UNESCO-IHE, such “African grass root initiatives, by being allowed to develop more freely, present more opportunities to ‘leap frog’ to smart management solutions, with the help of, for example citizen science”

“Greater awareness, more data sharing”

Programmes such as GEO and Copernicus do act as enablers in pushing for greater data sharing. However, data sharing remains an issue, even in Europe. Many end users of geo-information (public authorities and private sector) are still not aware of initiatives such as GEO, Copernicus and free, open and full access to satellite data (e.g. Sentinels). Furthermore, public raw data providers could be even reluctant to share their data. Such practices have lead to many cases of data duplication, not only at a regional level but also at a local one. When looking at the Balkan region, “sometimes the disconnection within countries is to a large extent greater than in-between countries” Mr Igor Milosavljevic, Senior Business Development Manager at InoSens argued. Mapping such duplications in order to prioritise capacity building needs will be amongst the key objectives of the ConnectinGEO project as Ms Ivette Serral, the project’s Technical Manager indicated. What’s more, the project will aim to build upon previous regional project expertise to offer a new set of recommendations to Copernicus and GEOs.

Amongst the many interesting takeaways from the session, one really stood out: For end-users to fully and sustainably reap the benefits of EO-based services, significant efforts need to be made in awareness raising, networking and capacity building at regional and local level. Capacity building projects such as GEO-CRADLE and ConnectinGEO should heavily promote data sharing principles, integration of regional capacities and concrete linkages with the strategic implementation of Copernicus and GEO in the EU’s neighbouring countries. The success of such projects relies on the strong involvement of all actors across the value chain, for which GEO-CRADLE – in cooperation with other initiatives in the region – will certainly strive. In that context, the next regional workshop of GEO-CRADLE takes place in Novi Sad from 14-15 July