Initiated by the European Space Agency (ESA), the Bavarian Ministry of Economy, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and T-Systems ( and supported by the EU), the new innovation competition will reward the best projects and business ideas for a GMES commercial service in five categories:
Ideas Challenge
Best Service Challenge
ESA App Challenge
DLR Environmental Challenge
T-Systems Cloud Computing Challenge
Dedicated experts are currently assessing the submitted proposals while for the Best Service Challenge the winner has already been selected by the online audience: SRRS – Satellite Rapid Response System, submitted by Luca Mellano from the Italian company CHELYS. SRRS performs real-time processing of satellite data from ESA and NASA missions, making these data available only 2 minutes after acquisition. SRRS ‘ strength is instant availability: raw data are processed without waiting for them to become higher level products, meaning no reliance on processing times in reception centres, and instant access to images and data for users and researchers on any type of client (mobiles, PCs, tablets, etc.).
All other winners will be announced at the Awards Ceremony on 19 October 2011.
The overall winner of the competition – the GMES Master – will be selected among the winners of the Ideas Challenge, ESA App Challenge, DLR Environmental Challenge, and T-Systems Cloud Computing Challenge. The GMES Master will receive a cash prize of 20,000 Euro.
The results of the first European Earth Monitoring Competition will be published on the competition website www.gmes-masters.com on 20 October 2011.
For further information on the GMES programme please refer to www.esa.int/gmes & www.gmes.info