WORKSHOP: Earth Observation for Smart Cities, Land & Sea for commercial added value and efficiency

Organised on 29 June 2023, the event is part of V World Congress of Latvian Scientists in Riga. The event will be focused on commercialisation and new cooperation between Earth Observation (EO) and its potential user communities.

EO is a digitalisation tool integral in most industries, be it in agriculture or forestry, logistics or urban development, marine environment or air quality monitoring, emergency or climate change risk management.

The workshop will focus on commercialisation and new links among the EO ecosystem of experts, decision makers as well as actual and potential users.

The aim is to make the event useful for everyone involved. Hence, the workshop’s highlight will be the three discussion tables on “SMART CITIES”, “LAND” and “SEA”. EO experts, geo data owners, data scientists and potential users will come together to exchange insights from the worlds they represent.

While the goal of this exercise is to facilitate communication and to drive cooperation, the results of the discussions will be used by the national space delegations to shape the future of EO in the Baltics.

Pictures the workshop are available at this link

The event is supported by the Technology Business Center of the Investment and Development Agency of Latvia (LIAA) and Norway Grants. Working together for a competitive Europe!

 

Agenda

  • 13:30-13:45 ARRIVAL & REGISTRATIONS

 

  • 13:45-13:50 Welcome

Pauls Irbins, President of the Latvian Space Industry Association

 

  • 13:50-14:15 Where is the EO industry moving to and what creates business in EO?

Aravind Ravichandran, TerraWatch Space

Governments and international institutions heavily invest into the downstream space sector that deals with satellite data used on Earth. As a powerful digitalisation tool, the sector will be creating increasingly more new business opportunities.

Aravind Ravichandran, the founder of the France-based strategic advisory TerraWatch Space, author of TerraWatch Space newsletter and the host of TerraWatch Space podcast will give a quick overview of the concept of Earth Observation as well as will deliver a seminar on the future of the EO industry, concentrating on its commercial part – for all actors of value chains.

 

  • 14:15-14:30 Commercial space data by Planet to enrich open-access satellite data-based solutions

Staffan Klingvall, Planet Labs

Planet Labs is an American public Earth imaging company. Planet provides the leading web-geo platform with the highest frequency satellite data available and foundational analytics to derive insights, empowering users across the world to make impactful, timely decisions. Planet has built and successfully deployed 450 satellites, currently operates 200+ satellites in orbit collecting 350M sq km of imagery daily.

Staffan Klingvall, Planet’s Director EMEA Civil Government, will talk about the organisation and its cooperation to digital solution to observe our activities on Earth.

 

  • 14:30-14:45 Airbus satellite data and international cooperation

Joe Cotti, Airbus Defence and Space

Airbus Defence and Space develops and manufactures defence and space products, while also providing related services. Airbus Intelligence is a division of the organisation delivering access to geospatial data and defence solutions - a global leading provider of commercial optical and radar satellite imagery and associated services and solutions.

Joe Cotti, Sales and Business Development Manager, Airbus Intelligence Business Line, will deliver a presentation on what type of data is accessible via Airbus and how the organisation approaches international cooperation.

 

  • 14:45-14:55 How to use and contribute to in situ data of the Latvian Environment, Geology and Meteorology Centre

Viesturs Zandersons, Latvian Environment, Geology and Meteorology Centre

In situ data of data from sensors on the ground, in the sea or air is an unsung hero of such satellite programmes as Copernicus - it helps validate and calibrate data supplied to us via satellites and ensure that satellite applications provide us with trustful and operational information. There is a vast amount of data collected from the surface of the Earth, but how to get access to it and contribute?

Viesturs Zandersons, Data Analyst at the Climate and Numerical Modeling Section of the Latvian Environment, Geology and Meteorology Centre will brief us about how the institution works.

 

  • 14:55-15:10 BREAK

 

  • 15:10-16:50 Three parallel workshops and networking

I. SMART CITIES. Facilitator: Viesturs Celmiņš, VEFRESH, Managing Director

II. LAND. Facilitator: Kristaps Banga, Accenture SPACE Ecosystem & Partnership Lead, Head of Innovation Accenture Baltics

III. SEA. Facilitator: Dāvids Štēbelis, European Space Agency Industrial Coordinator for Latvia

To shape the future development of EO and facilitate a wider cooperation, experts, data scientists and potential users will come together to exchange insights and answer questions on:

  • what EO can do of their aims,
  • what challenges the potential EO users have and how EO could address these,
  • what are the gaps in the free access Copernicus satellite data,
  • how to possibly fill these gaps.​

The results of the discussions will be used by the national space delegations to shape the future of EO in the Baltics.

 

  • 16:50-17:00 Conclusions and closing words

Andrejs Berdņikovs, Head of the Technology Business Centre of the Investment and Development Agency of Latvia and member of the Latvian Space Office.

 

Target audience: EO data experts, ICT community representatives, actual and potential EO data users from governmental institutions/large organisations.

Language of the event: English

Participation: free of charge

Venue: National Library of Latvia

Registrations: closed.

Organisers: Investment and Development Agency of Latvia in cooperation with the Latvian Space Industry Association and the Ministry of Education and Science.

Questions? Welcome at info@latvija.space

 

Working together for a competitive Europe!