left to right: Christian Hoffmann, Geoville (Winner 2014 EARSC achievement Award), G. Sawyer (EARSC Secretary General), Stefan Saradeth and Markus Probeck (GAF AG and Winner 2015 EARSC achievement Award) and Han Wensink (EARSC Chairman)
EARSC has thereby recognised GAF AG as the company to have made the most significant contribution to the development of the Earth Observation sector in Europe.
The criteria used for the selection of the winning company were:
- Has successfully developed EO services for a target market (sector or geographic)
- Has made a strong contribution to a defining European programme (eg. Copernicus, Inspire, ESA GSE
projects, etc)- Has exhibited good revenue and/or employment growth.
Nominations for the award were collected from EARSC members who then vote and the winner has been selected by an international, independent jury of EO sector representatives.
GAF AG is a leading geo-information company with an international reputation as a skilled provider of data, products and services in the fields of geo-information, spatial IT and consulting for private and public clients. As a result of a merger with its former subsidiary Euromap GmbH, GAF has become the exclusive supplier of optical Indian Remote Sensing data in Europe. The company’s archives contain systematic coverages of Europe and northern Africa from 1996 onwards, and include satellite raw data from the high and medium resolution IRS missions IRS1C, IRS-1D, Resourcesat-1, Resourcesat-2 and Cartosat-1. GAF is also specialised in the production of orthoimage mosaics and digital elevation models from different high and very-high resolution satellite missions. The company is part of the Telespazio Group, which belongs to Finmeccanica and Thales, two major European technology firms. www.gaf.de
EARSC represents the Earth Observation geo-information services companies in Europe. Today EARSC has 75 members coming from more than 22 countries in Europe. Our members include both commercial operators of EO satellites, IT, downstream and value-adding companies. The sector plays a key role in providing value-added geo- spatial information to its customers in Europe and the world. In 2014, the revenue of the European EO services sector is estimated to be around €900m for approximatively 450 companies and giving work to over 6500 highly skilled employees. www.earsc.org