GEO Week 2019: CCEO’s highlights – November 2019
Throughout GEO Week 2019, CSIRO has been involved in various events and activities including organising key events part of the Industry Track, but also fostering our international engagement (high-level bilateral meetings with space agencies and government representatives) around strategic priorities. Here are some of of the Centre’s highlights.
CSIRO received the inaugural 2019 GEO Sustainable Development Goals Award for Innovation. Led by Dr Neil Sims, a team including members of the Centre were involved in award-winning work to develop methods and guidance documents for indicator 15.3.1 as part of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD)’s Land Degradation Neutrality program. These efforts have enabled the advancement of this indicator to a higher standing and the development of EO integrated tools to scale the use of EO in support of SDG monitoring and reporting. Read more on GEO SDG Awards and CSIRO News.
CSIRO wins the 2019 GEO SDG Award for the special category, Innovation. From left: Flora Kerblat, Dr Neil Sims, Jennifer Zhu, Dr Alex Held
CSIRO hosted the GEO Week Ministerial Breakfast. Dr Larry Marshall, Chief Executive, outlined CSIRO’s world-leading expertise not only for the application of EO data but for building the sensors and infrastructure for calibrating sensors and validation of the data products. The Honorable Karen Andrews Minister for Industry, Science and Technology launched the report Current and future value of earth and marine observing to the Asia-Pacific region, which placed the current value of earth and marine observing to APEC economies is estimated to be US$372 billion.
Dr Larry Marshall, Chief Executive of CSIRO, presenting to a distinguished audience at the GEO Week Ministerial Breakfast
CSIRO, in collaboration with EOA (Earth Observation Australia Inc.) ran an Earth Observation 2.0 Workshop (Read more on Twitter) as part of the first-ever Industry Track at a GEO week. With an innovative approach, attendees heard quick fire ‘elevator pitches’ from several EO Big Data platform providers showcasing their technology and describing how it helps to addresses the challenges facing GEO and society globally. An interactive session followed where the providers demonstrated their technology to smaller rotating groups. Presenters included: CSIRO (EASI), ESRI, Google Earth Engine, Maxar, Satellite Applications Catapult and Sinergise.
Attendees interacting with the demonstrations from produce providers at the EO 2.0 Workshop held during GEO Week 2019 (Matt Hancher, Google Earth Engine here).