Throughout the week-end students and young professionals had the opportunity to explore break-through ideas, interact with experts, work in teams, and structure them into feasible business cases.

Competition is an extremely powerful innovation tool, it favours a thinking-out-of-the-box approach, stimulates cooperation and creativity, ensuring the strengthening of analytical and critical thinking, prioritisation of tasks, and the development of new skills serving the achievement of the best possible outputs.

This competition offered to the participants a realistic test ground to assess the viability of their ideas and to form the next generation of astropreneurs.

After three previous editions, the ISSC moved to Naples, where about 20 participants with diverse backgrounds gathered to transform their ideas into potential commercial products.

Partners and sponsors – from Eurisy, Telespazio to AIDAA, DAC, IngeniArs, CNS and GroundSpace – have been asked to present how they respond to the challenges selected by the organisers with their portfolio of solutions, products, and services. Among the topics identified, special attention was paid to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the contribution of space technology to the fulfilment of the objectives of the goals, in particular climate change, less than a week away from the COP27 Global Conference.

Special reference was made to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and to the monitoring of major pollutants deriving from road freight transport. Other challenges proposed to the competing teams concerned the monitoring of natural hazards and agriculture, to observe biochemical and physical variables of the land, such as temperature, nutrients, and soil moisture, among others.

Eurisy contributed with its own peculiar approach, challenging the participants to shift their mindset from a technology-development to a user-centred method, focused on a market-oriented perspective and aiming at addressing actual users’ needs. Through the presentation of three success stories on the topics of agriculture, disasters and climate change impacts in urban areas, we urged participants to engage in a co-design process starting from the translation of the needs into technical requirements and, eventually, into actionable information. Such a perspective was greatly appreciated: it allowed to understand how crucial it is to develop a dialogue with end-users to help them understand how space can help them meet their needs, providing them with additional elements to further develop their solutions.

Eurisy served also as a Jury member, and was asked to gauge the 6 finalist teams against a set of evaluation criteria, such as the team composition and the background diversification; the value proposition of their ideas, in terms of services and/or products to potential customers; the commercial approach/business plan; the clarity and quality of the presentation; the medium/long-term feasibility of the business idea; the topic awareness and their knowledge of the state-of-the-art of the identified market; and the originality of their ideas .

Each of the Jury Members assigned a special award to the team they evaluated with the highest score. Eurisy selected as its own winner the “Space Sleep Walkers” team.

The team, composed by 3 aerospace engineering students and a medical doctor, develop their business idea starting from previous medical studies that highlighted how astronauts on extended space missions lose on average more than 1% of bone mass per month developing osteoporosis and osteopenia. A similar condition can be developed on Earth by patients with serious illnesses, bone traumas or the elders. In order to help astronauts to reduce the effects of osteoporosis, the team came up with a solution that could be used in microgravity and, at same time, on Earth: the Space Sleep Walker. It entails two sensors applicable in the lower part of the body that apply a gradual compression between the tibia and fibula, and on the femur in an alternating manner…while sleeping! The devices activate during the body’s resting phase to ensure a smooth and gradual adaptation to the stimulations produced with no body stress increased. Such a solution aims at innovating through a space technology spin-off the existing tools to cure similar illnesses, testing them earlier in microgravity.

The final prize includes a mentoring scheme offered within the Eurisy team and the opportunity to present the Space Sleep Walker at a future Eurisy conference to boost the case, explore synergies with partners and, why not, find investors!

This fourth edition of the Italian Space Start-up competition was the occasion for many students to develop solutions that, in the future, could have an impact on the space sector. These competitions represent a great exercise to strengthen the start-up ecosystem, create new start-ups, and support astropreneurship.

The post The 4th SGAC Italian Space Start-Up Competition appeared first on Eurisy.

So far, the adoption of telemedicine has been pretty limited to specific cases and for basic consultations. The current necessity to respect social distancing, together with the overall limitation of the movements in the cities, have lately provided momentum to a rapid and global development of telemedicine.

The vast majority of the governments are now turning to telemedicine as an outstanding solution to provide general consultations avoiding patients to move from their places and potentially get exposed to a risk of contamination but also as a decisive support tool to identified home quarantined COVID-positive patients with mild symptoms.

Although telemedicine exists since quite some years now, it is not yet regarded as an official medical act. In most cases, the adoption of telemedicine has been slowed down by the lack of national regulatory frameworks, IT infrastructures and trained doctors. At the same time, patients were also reluctant or deterred by such technological solutions, in particular because of the major changes it implies on the doctor-patient relationship.

The rapid spread of the SARS-Cov-2 coronavirus and its high degree of contagion are leading governments to reconsider their approach to remote and connected health options. The health systems are today brought to their limits: hospitals, are facing important shortages of medical equipment (from ventilators to masks, gloves and hydro-alcoholic solutions), overcrowded ER and ICUs, and finally a shortage of healthcare professionals, who are among the most exposed to the virus. Digital solutions can definitely help mitigating the risks of contamination and favouring the flattening of the transmission curve.

Under these circumstances, accelerating the adoption of telemedicine at legal and regulatory levels is becoming a compelling need.

Telemedicine around the world

All around the world, there are various approaches to telemedicine. In developing countries, as well as in regions short of medical aid, the use of telehealth proved its effectiveness in the care of populations in remote and rural areas. In the Asia-Pacific region, the telemedicine market is expanding and it is expected to further develop in the future, given the on-going growth of the aging population and the spread of chronic diseases such as diabetes.

In the United States, 82% of the population does not use telemedicine services due to a lack of adequate infrastructure and reimbursement schemes. The situation in Europe is quite similar. Across the region, most of the policy makers are hesitant to include telemedicine in their reimbursement schemes, in particular for privacy related concerns. The most advanced countries with regarding telemedicine services around Europe are UK, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands and France. The others have not yet elaborated national policies in this matter.

However, with the outbreak of the COVID-19, many barriers seem likely to be overcome. Indeed, the United States and China have actively promoted the uptake of telemedicine solutions to tackle the emergency by lifting previous restrictions. In India, the government is looking for remote solutions to avoid the overwhelming of hospitals, limit the movements around the country and cover the majority of the population.

Remarkable is the recent evolution of telemedicine in France, where the practice is considered a legal medical act only since 2018 and therefore subject to reimbursement by the national Social Security. Before COVID-19 outbreak, the digital services were barely used, except in few cases. But, over the last few weeks, the number of accesses to these services skyrocketed: between the 1st and the 28th of March, 601 000 consultations have been conducted across the country. Such dramatic growth has also been fueled by the decision made by the Assurance Maladie, the French Health Insurance, to increase the reimbursement of the practice from 70% to 100%.

Ireland is also implementing its national approach, thanks to the support of Enterprise Ireland, the start-up WELLOLA launched an app and a portal for teleconsultation to respond to the current health emergency, and to favour the interactions between doctors and patients. Such an example is raising interest of other European countries, as for Italy where the vice minister of Health, Pierpaolo Sileri, recently presented to the government an amendment to boost telemedicine practice in the country.

What about space-based technologies and health in this moment?

As pointed out in our previous posts (What we can learn from the corona crisis with satellite data, and Call for space assets in response to COVID-19) the space sector is actively trying to respond to the emergency by inviting start-ups and SMEs to propose solutions to tackle the COVID-19, with a specific focus on telemedicine and e-education. Indeed, space-based technologies can be adopted to enhance the control of infectious diseases such as COVID-19. Especially satellite navigation and communication can be exploited on a large scale to help containment strategies and to assess the treatment of the patients while protecting the medical staff. Also, Earth observation satellites have been put to work during multiple health crises. In 2014, the Copernicus Emergency Management Service (EMS-rapid mapping) was activated during the Ebola epidemic crisis. The Italian Ministry of Interior and the Civil Protection recently asked for the activation of the EMS service during the month of March 2020 and beyond. The main driver for activation was the urgency of mapping stable and temporary health facilities, such as triage, and so on.

Moreover, the SES satellite-based eHealth communication platform, SATMED, is now available free of charge for the healthcare professionals’ community to fight the pandemic. The Government of Luxembourg, that owns the platform, is giving free access to the eHealth applications available, offering also cloud storage capabilities in compliance with data protection and regulations.

The European Space Agency also deployed Tempus Pro devices in response to COVID-19. These lightweight all-in-one monitors are normally used by doctors at ESA’s European Astronaut Centre (EAC) to assess and communicate the condition of astronauts when they return to Earth.

What’s next?

In Europe, apart from specific cases where telemedicine has been successfully adopted, in general terms, it can be rightfully affirmed that the lack of supporting policies, awareness, and training are limiting the revamp of the health sector. Even if EC adopted a series of measures and initiatives to respond to the vacuity of the legal schemes in the field, still at the national level the legal and policy bottlenecks are burdening the implementation of new solutions and impeding the scale-up of telemedicine providers’ solutions.

However, in the very near future things might radically change. The novel coronavirus confronts Europe with the need to re-invent and re-organise the health sector. In 2018, the European Commission estimated that by 2021 the global telemedicine market would reach €37 billion value, with an annual growth rate of 14%. After the emergency, these numbers are poised to evolve. Indeed, the business of telemedicine might face a much stronger acceleration that should encourage the governments to better take advantage of this practice for more efficient national health policies.

The space sector has a role to play in this process. The technical and budgetary involvement of the European Space Agency and national space agencies can favour the integration of space technology within the health sector. Additional support could be granted to users by providing training and education to professionals in the field. Institutional space actors and service providers should interact more with users and with governments to support and contribute to the decision-making process.

In conclusion, this crisis may lead to a reorientation of the health sector and to eventually speed-up the adoption of telemedicine practice. In this sense, the exploitation of telemedicine should not be considered as a by-product but a mainstream solution.

The post The strengthening of the health sector after the COVID-19 outbreak appeared first on Eurisy.

European Space Agency (ESA)

While ESA isn’t really placed to help forecast the progression of the virus, it is responsible for developing and operating the family of Copernicus Sentinel satellites on behalf of the European Union, ensuring the flow of data for the Copernicus-enabled services. These sophisticated satellites, as well as new artificial intelligence technologies, can be used to understand and monitor some of the societal shifts happening right now.

To see how Earth-observing missions could be further used to explore the effects of COVID-19, ESA has issued two new initiatives. The aim is to see how satellite data can be used, for example, to map changes around transport networks, commercial ports and heavy industry such as oil refineries, to understand the effects that COVID-19 is imposing on society, the economy and the environment.

• Space in response to Covid-19 outbreak

In cooperation with the Italian Minister for Technological Innovation and Digitalization (MID), ESA launched an Announcement of Opportunity to respond to the emergency that Europe, and especially Italy, is facing because of the spread of the coronavirus. Companies are invited to propose Demonstration Projects dedicated to the deployment and demonstration of pre-operational services, addressing healthcare or education. The scope is to support the realisation and deployment of digital solutions to help citizens and communities which are facing the extraordinary consequences of the COVID-19 outbreak. This call closes on 20 April 2020, 13h00 CET.

• Submit an innovative proposal for characterising COVID-19 impacts

This new call has been added to the Permanently Open Call, part of ESA’s Earth Observation Science for Society programme. Proposals which address the monitoring of Covid-19 impacts on society with Earth observation data will be considered. The closing date is 17 April 2020 at 13h00 CET.

European GNSS Agency (GSA)

• Precise location is a key requirement when attempting to monitor and map the spread of a disease and GNSS is one of themain tools supporting this. Galileo, currently embedded in over 1.3 billion smartphones and devices worldwide, is helping to increase GNSS accuracy and availability, especially in urban areas. Since the outbreak of the coronavirus earlier this year, many apps have been developed that use GNSS precise location to monitor the global spread of the virus and to map outbreaks of the COVID-19 disease. GNSS-apps are also proving their usefulness by helping people to implement social distancing in queues and other public spaces. The GSA is looking for apps that are already working and available in app stores. Submit details of your solutions in writing to market@gsa.europa.eu and they will be featured on www.useGalileo.eu/GNSS4Crisis. The goal is for this page to become a toolbox to help authorities, emergency response services, citizens and app developers to understand what resources are currently available and what needs remain unmet.
• It is also possible to develop new applications by submitting innovative ideas to solve pressing societal challenges with the help of satellite data. For Earth observation there is the Copernicus Masters, and for satellite navigation there is the Galileo Masters.

Copernicus Hackathon

• The Copernicus Hackathon Sofia 2020, organised by the Risk-Space Transfer Technology Transfer Office (RST-TTO), will be a virtual Hackathon between 24-26 April with the motto “Space Hacking of COVID19”. The Hackathon will cover topics such as the monitoring of air pollution, assessment of water quality, assessment of geographical distribution during this pandemic. Topics can also be suggested by participants.

• Eurisy, the National Space Centre and the Blackrock Castle Observatory of the Cork Institute of Technology organise the Copernicus Hackathon Cork online on 9-13 June 2020 on the issue of “Natural and Cultural Heritage”. A special challenge is dedicated to the impacts of Covid-19. The hackathon will challenge students and IT professionals to use the data made available by the Copernicus Earth Observation System to better protect, manage and promote natural and cultural heritage. A webinar will be held on May 18th.

COVID-19 Custom Script Contest

The European Space Agency, in coordination with the European Commission, is launching a special edition of the Custom Script Contest, focused on the support of space assets during the COVID-19 crisis, managed by Euro Data Cube group. It is a quest for ideas and new algorithms on how satellite data could help monitor and mitigate the situation for the upcoming months, as the world will get back to business and will need to adapt from this crisis. The contest will be running until end of May with weekly prizes. Due to importance of the matter, the best ideas will be selected on a continuous basis and will be presented to the European Commission in the context of the dossier ESA is preparing on space as a support to Covid-19 situation.

NASA International Space Apps Challenge

Join the special edition of the International Space Apps Challenge on May 30-31 and tackle the COVID19 challenge in this global virtual hackathon!

The post Call for space assets in response to COVID-19 appeared first on Eurisy.

The Polish Space Strategy translated on the ground into several initiatives. The Sat4Envi initiative, among others, is an operating system for gathering, sharing and promotion of digital satellite information about the environment. This national initiative aims to provide civil servants with better tools to manage public services, contributing to the public administration’s transition towards a digital economy. Its design ensures easy satellite data access and promotes satellite data utilisation in public administration at various levels. The initiative includes a satellite data archive, a training centre, and a centre for sharing scientific information concerning satellite imagery. This newly established online platform will enable constant storage and processing of data. The aim is to distribute it for a broad range of scientific, strategic and civil security purposes, such as environmental protection, development of transport networks, or emergency management.

The project, led by the Institute of Meteorology and Water Management – National Research Institute (IMGW-PIB) will provide the constant collection and processing of data from weather and environmental satellites such as the European Copernicus Programme. Sharing a huge amount of data is not an easy task. The European Union’s Copernicus Sentinel satellites alone produce over 16 Terabytes per day, thus data volume and size can hinder usage and accessibility. Sat4Envi is supposed to bring a solution to that problem. Specialised receiving stations enable data accumulation in real time. All of the collected data is then transferred to a computer archive where it can be converted according to the users’ needs on request. Following an open data policy, the newly established platform is freely available to citizens, public administration and scientists interested in up-to-date satellite data.

The Sat4Envi project is co-financed by European Union funds in the framework of the Operational Programme Digital Poland. The project is conducted by the Institute of Meteorology and Water Management – National Research Institute in cooperation with the Polish Space Agency, the Space Research Centre – Polish Academy of Sciences, and the Academic Computer Centre CYFRONET AGH.

What is the purpose of Sat4Envi?

Sat4Envi promotes the use of satellite data in various environmental fields. For example, satellite data helps to make accurate predictions or can monitor the effect and assess the damage of natural disasters. Serving urban areas, as well as forestry and agriculture, orbital imagery can give new insights into land management. These range from monitoring changes in terrain, to the detection of illegal logging of forests. Emergency management, land use planning and environment management are fields of national interest under the responsibility of Polish public administration. Whilst decision-making processes in these fields benefits from satellite-based services, public administrations face organisational and technical challenges in adopting such services.For this reason, POLSA is developing an educational and training programme concerning the use of imagery and services based on satellite data. It is specifically designed for public administrations officials.

How did Eurisy contribute to this project?

In 2015, Eurisy supported POLSA with a study on the operational uses of satellite-based services by Polish public administration offices across the country.

Following the report, based on the information collected through surveys and feedback provided by 45 Polish public administrations, a user forum took place in Warsaw. To favour the uptake of satellite-based services within the public sector in Poland, one of the most important outcomes was the training of staff. In 2018, building upon the recommendations of the report and the event, POLSA performed an additional extended survey of the digital competences of Polish public administration bodies. It examined the status of satellite data utilisation, its potential use to support public tasks, existing barriers and perceived needs regarding training course curricula.

What will the training programme look like?

Taking into account the scope of tasks and requirements of each specific public administration, the training programme will provide hands-on competences for satellite data use. These courses will last two days and will cover training on searching, downloading, visualising, presenting, processing data and more. Furthermore, data analysis and interpretation of processing results are on the agenda, as well as using model practices to save public administration official time and financial expenses. The courses will also cover practical aspects regarding satellite data and related products procurement practices.

The training courses consist of two different levels. A basic level course, dedicated to the management, and an advanced level course, dedicated to specialists. The advanced training modules are divided into eight separate thematic sections: spatial development, agriculture, road infrastructure, water management, forestry, environment, emergency management, and historical buildings and monuments protection. The budget of the project will allow for the training of 300 public sector employees. Since the application opened in early January, more than 150 trainees have already registered. Among the participants are local civil servants, as well as public government representatives along with institutions under their authority or supervision.

Eventually, POLSA’s objective is to set-up a permanent training service due to open in November 2020. Until then, its mobile element, established by the Crisis Information Centre is already in place for emergency and rescue management. This part of the training programme delves into satellite data use to forecast and monitor natural and construction disasters, road accidents, pollution and contamination.

Will it remain a national project?

The Sat4Envi project highlights the importance of building capacity and fostering knowledge within public institutions so that they optimally benefit from satellite-based services. For now, Sat4Envi remains a national initiative with a focus on public sector users. Eventually, the initiative could also target private sector stakeholders – as the interplay between public and private sectors is key in order to boost a satellite-based services ecosystem. For example, services not dealing with national interest but with less sensitive data, could be outsourced to private companies.

The public administration’s feedback on their use of satellite-based services could also be a lucrative opportunity for service providers looking for ways to improve and validate their services. Furthermore, similar European and global platforms are already out there. The Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) provides a single-entry data point for the transformation of Earth observation data into services for citizens, industry, decision-makers and researchers. Europe’s contribution to this system is coordinated through E-SHAPE, a Horizon2020 project. With Sat4Envi, Poland gives another excellent example of cross-border data use. The available data from Sat4Envi already includes a 500 km buffer of Polish territory surroundings, serving cross-border cooperation and reporting on topics such as water management. Meanwhile, the Polish training programme has the potential to act as a catalyst for more regional cooperation amongst Central and Eastern European countries in the field of Earth Observation. It could serve as an example for other countries to replicate within their own administrations.

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The Arte-made documentary, aired in the beginning of April, featured Ben Scott, former Senior Advisor to Hillary Clinton on innovation matters, and Denis Cavalucci, Professor at the French Institute for Applied Sciences (INSA) and holder of 19 patents. Their views epitomised American and European standpoints quite well.

Mr Scott relishes recounting anecdotes about Europeans who came up to him to share a sense of wonder at everything that makes innovation in the US so much more successful on the market than everywhere else on the planet:  inventors’ a strong belief that they can change the world and get rich, tolerance for failure, and an immutable focus on the market. In addition, thriving innovation ecosystems, like Silicon Valley, account for America’s brain “magnetism” (notice the diplomatic euphemism by Mr Scott). This unique blend makes up for the aura of success so envied by Europeans.

But European innovation is more creative, more robust, more structured – the defence goes. A European Bill Gates will emerge, given the creativity of European engineers, the EU’s €80 billion investment in Horizon2020, and the introduction this year of a unique Europe-wide patent system. Europe is, after all, the home of the TGV and of Airbus. One of the most innovative technologies in recent times – 3D printing – was invented by a French engineer working for Alcatel.

We, Europeans, want to believe. For instance, the aerospace sector is one of Europe’s strong asset, especially if innovation there leverages the booming innovation occurring now in IT and Internet. And there seems to be plenty of scope for that.

Speaking of Airbus. When it comes to its traditional market – aviation – some argue that “aviation is stuck in the 60’s” (aviation in general). See for instance this blog post by respected blogger Martin Varsavsky, asking what seem to be reasonable enough questions such as, how is it technically possible that while an individual can be tracked 24 hours a day, a big bird like Flight MH370 can disappear without a trace? Are planes not permanently watched over by some of the 1000-odd satellites orbiting the Earth?

Moreover, when it comes to the internet, experts such as Ha Joon Chang – a leading economist – argue that the internet innovation revolution has yet to make its economic mark, unlike the life- and economy-changing innovations that emerged in transportation, or even in home appliances, in the 1900s. Then, the introduction of the washing machine reduced the time spent on household chores by a factor of six, for instance. By comparison, even though about one billion people on the planet use Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg is a billionaire, the jury is still out on the real economic value of the internet.

So there seems to be a great scope for innovation in aerospace, both on conservative markets, such as aviation, and on emerging ones, such as satellite services. Increasing aviation safety, developing satellites and satellite services, are surely the kinds of challenges that European engineers excel at.

With Copernicus, Europe’s new satellite programme about to launch this year, in Europe too the integration of satellite technologies with information and communication technologies has yet to fully deliver its expected economic impact. The €80 billion invested in Horizon2020, and the significant amount of innovation already produced under Europe’s Framework Programmes for Research and Innovation so far, should help.

But then again, innovation per se is not really Europe’s problem, if by innovation we mean inventing new ways of doing things. Indeed, the number of patents filed in the US and Europe every year are the same (57,000 versus 56,700 respectively in 2013).

Before the 2020 milestone, the real challenge for Europe is to turn innovation into technologies that make it on the market and benefit society. This is really what Americans are much better at: pitching their ideas, making technologies appeal to the public by listening to market needs and making them the starting point of any innovation process.

As Prof. Cavalucci points out in the Arte documentary, it should not escape anyone that even though 3D printing was invented by a Frenchman (under the sexy name of stéréolytographie), it only emerged as a product prototype in the US.

*Link to a description of the documentary, in French, on the Arte website

Photo: ©Melvin

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