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Inventory of African EO Companies

The African private sector involved in remote sensing (RS) and geospatial technologies to address scientific, practical and policy aspects has immensely grown over the past 20 years. However, there is no comprehensive information to fully understand how companies operate and what challenges they face. It is therefore difficult to harness their expertise and to assess state and health of the sector.

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Yet, in the context of the Europe (EU)-Africa cooperation in Space, the 4th Africa-EU Summit has approved the implementation of GMES & Africa in 2014. At the 6th EU-Africa Space Troika meeting the GMES & Africa Road Map was adopted and it was agreed to convene stakeholders for launching the implementation process in several crucial thematic areas under the Pan African Programme. In particular, the final communiqué calls upon the application of approaches developed in the European EO Programme, Copernicus (space infrastructure and information services), for the implementation of GMES & Africa, notably by adopting a free and open data policy, by focusing on operational services and by involving the private sector in the services development.

AARSE in cooperation with EARSC are embarking on an inventory of the African private EO and Geospatial industry. Our survey targets all companies registered in Africa which are engaged in business related to the supply of geospatial products and services concerning or using EO data. These may be satellite operators, EO service providers or internal service departments inside companies engaged in different business e.g., oil & gas, land use, environmental assessment, etc.

We would like to capture as many African companies as possible and look forward to the kind participation of your company in our survey. So far we have enlisted several companies registered in Africa and we are certain there are many more not known to us. We leave no stone unturned however, until those whom we are not aware off, come forward to participate in this continental effort.

We have already sent invitations to more than 150 companies registered in Africa to participate in our survey. We call upon all African private EO and Geospatial companies not contacted so far, to immediately send us the name of their organization, contact person and email if interested to participate.

Tsehaie Woldai: (Tsehaie.woldai@africanremotesensing.org)
Elisabeth Zeil-Fahlbusch: (elisabeth.zeil-fahlbusch@africanremotesensing.org)