Brand-new Copernicus App Lab Tools Boost the Platform for Easy Data Access Connecting the Scientific EO Community with Mobile Developers and Enhance Winning Earth Observation (EO) Application.

Gilching 26 September 2017 –The European Space Agency (ESA) Space App Camp 2017 – the event where coding meets big data from space – awarded on 18 September in Frascati, Italy, ESA’s centre for EO, the winning team:

Limoncello and their app AiRthat uses satellite imagery to give flight travelers an interactive, bird’s-eye view of their routes. The developer team makes use of augmented reality and the Copernicus programme to display an interactive projection of the world for users to see information about cities and landmarks they fly over, without disruptions like clouds or the plane itself getting in the way.

Their application for iOS devices won the sixth edition of the ESA event, supported by AZO Anwendungszentrum GmbH Oberpfaffenhofen and RAMANI. The Space App Camp also set the environment for the beta-phase of the Copernicus App Lab powered by unique tools provided by the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.

Thorsten Rudolph, Managing Director AZO explains: „We are very happy that the Copernicus App Lab Linked Open Data Tools accelerated the winning application. This shows how important future-oriented approaches are in order to develop added-value services with benefits for space, non-space industries and fundamentally for citizens around the globe.”

The overall objective of the Copernicus App Lab data access platform is to merge the scientific EO community and mobile developers’ applications. Its core assets include data from the Copernicus Land -, Marine Environment -, and Atmosphere Monitoring Services as linked open data to promote the inclusion of EO data into value-added services and/or applications. Thereby, the incorporation of Copernicus data in mobile applications and the use of proper tools will drive future linkage efforts of the Copernicus Services and developers. In order to create tools that meet user needs, the Copernicus App Lab directly involves users in the development process.

During the ESA Space App Camp, 24 developers coming from 14 European countries competed in developing the best mobile app using Copernicus data for eight days. For the first time, participants were able to use the tools that are being developed in the Copernicus App Lab, the Copernicus App Lab Linked Open Data Tools.

After assessing the feedback of the beta-phase, the Copernicus App Lab consortium will improve detected challenges and further drive the platform to foster the Copernicus User Uptake in the mobile developer community and push added-value services for business and society. The international Copernicus App Lab consortium consists of the following partners contributing their high-level of expertise and experience in national and/or European and industrial projects: AZO, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (UoA), Terradue Srl, RAMANI and VITO.

AZO – Your Partner in Competition & Innovation

AZO (Anwendungszentrum GmbH Oberpfaffenhofen) is an international networking and branding company for space-related innovation competitions with more than 15,000 participants, over 200 industrial & public - and 400 international stakeholders. AZO has been supporting entrepreneurship with more than 130 company foundations and the creation of 1,800 high-tech jobs in Bavaria with an annual turnover of about EUR 150 Mio. Additionally, AZO runs a very successful business angel network which invested more than EUR 130 Mio Venture Capital in 2016/17 as well as the ESA Incubation Centre (ESA BIC) Bavaria. For more information, please visit www.space-of-innovation.com. 

National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (UoA), Greece
The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens was founded in 1837 and it is the oldest university in Greece. The UoA group participating in Copernicus App Lab comes from the Dept. of Informatics and Telecommunications (http://www.di.uoa.gr)

which is widely recognized as the top Computer Science department in Greece. More information about the group and its Linked Open Data tools can be found at http://kr.di.uoa.gr/

Terradue Srl, Italy

Terradue Srl is addressing the Earth Sciences research & education sector, with core competencies aimed at engineering distributed systems & Cloud services, providing consultancy for international organisations, and developing partner programs for Terradue’s Open Source Software & Open Standards strategy. Terradue is a leading Cloud Services provider with current developments focusing on empowering researchers within seamless eScience infrastructures, for curating and delivering scientific information, and to create Cloud marketplaces for environmental data analytics and promoting a vision where scientific publications are fully reproducible, verifiable experiments and part of an interoperable ecosystem. www.terradue.com

RAMANI B.V., The Netherlands
Ramani B.V. (RAMANI), after the Swahili word for ‘Map’, was founded as spin-off company of the Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation of the University of Twente (ITC) with support from the Knowledge Park Twente. RAMANI has made significant contributions to advancement of public usage of EO-data by co-organising multiple international innovation competition events. RAMANI’s expertise as key-technology provider for some of Europe’s largest innovation competition for Earth monitoring data – the Copernicus Masters – and various App Developer Camps was funded under contract with ESA. https://ramani.ujuizi.com/

https://ramani.ujuizi.com/index.html

VITO NV, Belgium

VITO is a leading European independent research and technology organisation in the areas of cleantech and sustainable development, elaborating solutions for the large societal challenges of today. VITO provides innovative and high-quality solutions, whereby large and small companies can gain a competitive advantage, and advises industry and governments on determining their policy for the future. VITO has 750 highly qualified employees who work on international projects all around the world. VITO’s headquarters are located in Mol, Belgium, and the company has a subsidiary in China. The total turnover of VITO amounted to about 140 million euros in 2014. https://vito.be/en

About Space App Camp

ESA’s Space App Camp brings programmers together to develop creative and innovative apps. The objective is to make EO data, particularly from Copernicus, accessible to a wide range of businesses and citizens. To achieve this, the Space App Camp seeks to introduce app developers to Copernicus, creating awareness for the numerous possibilities EO data offers as a means of enriching mobile apps. In order to make satellite data accessible on smartphones, the Space App Camp each year brings programmers from across Europe to exchange ideas with like-minded people and tackle some of the world’s greatest challenges. Participants learn about the many ways in which big data from space can be used for mobile apps. Additionally, they will make contacts all over Europe and gain insights into how ESA operates. 



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