Author: gaiamaggi

Spotlight on climate and the New Space economy

Posted on by gaiamaggi

Kicking off with a bold flourish, Φ-week 2021 promises to bring space even closer to the forefront of addressing society’s biggest challenges, namely issues associated with the climate crisis, while boosting the economy through transformative New Space, artificial intelligence, and quantum and cognitive computing.

ESA’s Φ-week is now in its fourth edition, and each year this forward-looking event is increasingly relevant to society, business and the economy.

In his opening address, Josef Aschbacher, ESA’s Director General said, “Europe faces unprecedented societal, economic, and security challenges. Space has enormous untapped potential to play in tackling pressing current and future crises, while simultaneously providing new impulse for the European space sector. We need to develop smart, automated services and applications to protect lives of people and to increase the protection of assets and natural resources.”

Read the full article on www.esa.int

Photo Copyright: Valentina Stefanelli

Watch live: ESA Φ-week

Posted on by gaiamaggi

Focusing on the New Space economy and innovations in Earth observation, ESA’s fourth Φ-week kicks off on Monday 11 October. Join us live for two of the main sessions: the Opening session on Monday at 10:30 CEST and the Blending New Space Technologies and Services session on Tuesday at 16:00 CEST.

As the world starts to return to normality in the wake of the COVID pandemic, this year’s Φ-week is a hybrid event, with registered participants attending virtually and invited speakers present at ESA’s Centre for Earth Observation in Italy.

However, part of this not-to-be-missed event can be enjoyed by all – simply tune into ESA’s Web TV and following the live transmission links. 

Read the full article on www.esa.int

Mayday.ai develops its AI-automated platform under InCubed programme

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Mayday.ai GmbH will launch a new AI-automated platform in Europe developed with the support of the ESA InCubed programme and the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) for its next-generation disaster and risk information services.

Mayday.ai GmbH will deliver a centralised and AI-based platform providing real time and near real time disaster and risk information services. This German-based start-up provides early warning and (geostationary, polar), camera imagery, audio as well as social media sentiment analysis.

The solution, which runs on an agnostic AI fusion engine, will be available for government agencies, international organisations, first responders, insurance and utility for up to 18 disaster types with native language support.

Mayday.ai’s proposal was selected under the ESA’s programme InCubed Investing in Industrial Innovation with the support of the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), and was kicked-off in July 2021.

The development aims at further enhancing Mayday.ai’s disaster management platform and adapting it to the European setting and its neighbouring regions. It also supports the development of additional disaster management products as well as accelerating Mayday.ai’s global expansion.

“We are delighted that ESA and DLR have recognised our technological edge and potential, and grateful for their continuing support in our global growth out of Europe as we build our platform on the Sendai Framework principles. Our innovations will cater to the nuanced community needs globally, with the support of a community-owned model, as well as scenario-based automated notifications. Climate resiliency is within reach in case of many disasters with a culture shift towards proactive prevention, as opposed to the currently fragmented and highly reactive one. More importantly, in addition to saving lives, property, cultural and natural heritage, it also costs remarkably less to accomplish” states Mayday.ai’s Founder and CEO, Kian Mirshahi.

Bertrand Le Saux, ESA Technical Officer, added: “The Mayday.ai platform will provide a next-generation, centralised solution to organise a timely and coordinated response to natural hazards. It will leverage real-time satellite imagery and AI-enhanced predictive analytics to provide automated detection, early warning and integrated two-way communication services for various types of incidents.”

After a number of successful global pilots, the Mayday.ai team will be releasing its enterprise version of its platform in a partnership with Esri, the Environmental Systems Research Institute. In autumn 2021, the company aims to officially launch its efforts to boost community-based resiliency through various global campaigns.

More information on Mayday.ai GmbH InCubed activity can be found here.

Mayday.ai Real Time Disaster Information Web based Platform in Esri.

To know more: Resilient Europe 2.0, Mayday.ai, Mayday.ai Linkedin, German Aerospace Centre (DLR)

InCubed releases a dedicated call for Danish companies

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Are you a Danish start-up or company working in Earth observation and using satellite data? Apply now for the InCubed Denmark call here. The deadline is 22 August.

InCubed stands for ‘Investing in Industrial Innovation’ and is a Public Private Partnership co-funding programme run by the ESA Φ-lab that focuses on developing innovative and commercially viable products and services that exploit the value of Earth observation imagery and datasets. InCubed has a very wide scope and can be used to co-fund anything from building satellites to ground applications and everything in between as well as the development of new EO business models.

The programme works in  very close cooperation with its participating Member States and can issue dedicated country-oriented calls as the one just published for Denmark.

In 2021, Danish companies and commercially focused research institutions can apply for up to 3.4 million Danish Kroner in co-funding for the development of innovative and commercially sustainable technology, products and services using Earth observation data through ESA’s InCubed programme.

The call and application form are available online on: link.

The deadline for submitting project pitches to ESA and the Danish Agency for Science and Higher Education is Sunday 22 August.

Idea pitches and proposals are assessed by the Danish Agency in an open competition, based on specific criteria including growth and competitiveness, level of innovation and societal impact. Once evaluated, successful applicants will receive a Letter of Support, which is required to finalize the application process with ESA.

Read more about the national process at the Danish Agency for Science and Higher Education website.

To know more: InCubed – How to Apply, Danish Agency for Science and Higher Education, UFM article promoting the call (in Danish)

Luxembourg-based company RSS-Hydro joins InCubed family

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With a project called FloodSENS, the Luxembourg-based company RSS-Hydro is now part of ESA’s InCubed programme. The project aims to develop an algorithm that efficiently identifies flooded areas under partial cloud coverage in optical satellite images, using Machine Learning and auxiliary high-resolution data from drones, digital elevation models, as well as water flow algorithms.

Floods are one of the most devastating natural disasters, accounting for the highest insured and uninsured losses annually, as well as costing many lives. The climate emergency intensifies the hydrological cycle. Consequently, the frequency and magnitude of extreme hydro-meteorological events, and therefore the risk of floods, are increasing, as confirmed to be happening in many places around the world. This flooding increase has devastating consequences, among which are a greater strain on humanitarian response efforts and the financial risk of the global (re)insurance market.

With the support of ESA InCubed programme, RSS-Hydro has now started to work on FloodSENS, a service that specifically addresses these issues by developing a flood mapping application for the open market that overcomes one of the major limitations of optical EO imagery during floods and is capable of efficiently scaling between optical satellite and drone images. Therefore this novel application would be able to efficiently reconstruct flooded areas under partial cloud cover in optical satellite images.

Guy Schumann, RSS-Hydro CEO, said: “This type of application is especially important for disaster response agencies at regional, national, and international level, who are keen to utilize the proliferation of open satellite data for flood mapping during emergencies. Additionally, in the insurance and re-insurance markets, stakeholders are interested in EO data to map the flood hazard of a high-impact event and, on a historical basis, to understand risk exposure and the changing nature of it.”

Bertrand Le Saux, ESA InCubed Technical Officer, added: “FloodSENS integrates both drone data and EO imagery with Machine Learning, to offer the best support to emergency response activities, as well as to the re-insurance market. At ESA, we see a big potential in this activity and we are ready to support it until its entry into the market”.

For Europe, but also for many other countries worldwide, future innovative EO-based and Machine Learning-powered apps would add considerable benefits to the existing products and services of the free Copernicus Emergency Management Service (EMS) and beyond. RSS-Hydro’s FloodSENS will position itself at the intersection of these two fields (EO technologies and Machine Learning application tools) and at the forefront of future EO-enabled innovative solutions, enabling a much more effective disaster response.

More information on the FloodSENS InCubed activity can be found here.

Image caption: The first half of 2019 was a devastating period for many countries in southeast Africa. After Cyclone Idai destroyed many places, in particular the port city of Beira, at the start of the year, Cyclone Kenneth ravaged northern Mozambique. Entire villages were destroyed and almost one million people were put at risk in the area. This partial cloud-free subset of a Sentinel-2 image from 3 May 2019 shows large areas under water in Pemba, regional capital of Cabo Delgado state, which experienced over 2 m of rain and flooding. FloodSENS will render optical imagery like this more usable during floods by reconstructing flooded areas under cloudy skies.

Links: FloodSENS, RSS-Hydro, Company Linkedin

InCubed supports InfoSequia’s satellite-based Drought Early Warning and Forecasting System

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ESA’s InCubed programme is supporting the development and pilot implementation of FutureWater’s new InfoSequia module, dubbed 4CAST. InfoSequia-4CAST combines historical and up-to-date observations of satellite-based meteorological and agricultural drought indices with climate variability indices to generate seasonal outlooks of water supply and crop yield failure alerts.

Water and food security are at risk in many places around the world, at present and even more so in the future, with significant economic and humanitarian consequences. Risk managers and decision-makers, such as water management authorities and humanitarian-aid agencies, can more effectively prevent harmful drought impacts if timely and actionable information is available on how water and food availability is affected.

FutureWater, a Dutch SME specialist in water management solutions, is developing InfoSequia-4CAST to provide users with timely predictions on drought impacts on crop yield and water supply. Seasonal outlooks are computed by a novel, state-of-the-art Machine Learning technique, previously  tested in applications for crop production forecasting and agricultural drought risk financing. The module responds to needs identified in previous applications and is a major extension of FutureWater’s Drought Early Warning and Forecasting System, InfoSequia. Another module, InfoSequia-MONITOR, is also being improved by incorporating satellite data to create multi-sensor drought indices.

Using multi-sensor, state-of-the art satellite data fully integrated with predictive models, InfoSequia-4CAST provides location-specific 3-6 month outlooks and warnings of crop yield and water supply failures to end users through a simple, intuitive user interface.

After signing  the contract with ESA in February 2021, FutureWater Project Manager Gijs Simons said: “This ESA supported InCubed activity is a unique opportunity for FutureWater to transfer a highly promising technology from the academic domain to a market-ready, operational decision-support tool. We are very enthusiastic about collaborating with ESA and a range of regional stakeholders to realise this product, which we believe can make a crucial difference for water management authorities and humanitarian NGOs worldwide.” 

FutureWater works with one of the world’s leading institutes in sustainability science, the Institute for Environmental Studies of the Free University of Amsterdam (IVM), to develop InfoSequia-4CAST. The product is targeted to the needs of water managers who intend to alleviate and mitigate the impacts of forthcoming drought periods by taking well-informed water management decisions, as well as humanitarian NGOs aiming to trigger ex-ante cash transfers with policyholders and farmer communities.

The InCubed activity includes collaborations with stakeholders and future end users in Spain, Colombia and Mozambique in order to establish user requirements, inform system design, and achieve pilot implementation of the system in the second project year.

Anna Burzykowska , ESA InCubed Technical Officer, added: ‘’The Earth Observation market sees an increased uptake of different type of products providing drought indices and early warning systems. The development of the FutureWater’s-4CAST module will enhance the current offering by producing advanced regional drought impact models with important improvements such as fusion with climate data records, yield forecasting as well as monthly and quarterly seasonal outlooks to more effectively manage the disaster impacts. We look forward to facilitating the project’s R&D activities as well as to supporting the engagement with new institutional and commercial customers.’’.

More information on the InfoSequia-4CAST InCubed activity can be found here.

To know more: FutureWater, InfoSequia-4CAST, InCubed activity, InfoSequia-MONITOR, IVM