However, this is not really the case.

If we were to measure societal change in relation to technological innovation, we would need to look at how technology has actually changed our behaviour and the way we do things. Very few of today’s technological leaps are actually altering or significantly changing our behaviour. What technology is doing however is providing us with better, more efficient tools to do… exactly what we were doing before. This also applies to the satellite-based services sector. Scientists and public authorities have been gathering data about our surrounding environments for 100 years or more. What we are introducing now is a better and faster way of doing it.

Having recently joined this community of downstream space applications market, I’ve had the opportunity to attend several events and conferences addressing satellite driven innovation. And while some of the technicalities of the field escape me, there is one common denominator linking the various companies providing these services and that is that very few actually know who their customers are going to be.

There is a simple truth in commerce: if you can’t sell it, you can’t succeed. And there is another self-standing rule to a free market system – you’re always competing with someone else. Whilst many venture capitals funds may choose to look into the technical nitty-gritty details before deciding to invest in a business, I look at whether the product is set in accordance with the needs of the customers whose budgets the company wants to claim.

Yet, despite the obvious benefits of using satellite data, in contrast with more time-consuming and at times more expensive data collection methods, satellite based applications are still at an R&D stage.

There are two critical questions that any businesses, no matter the industry, should ask themselves before approaching a new market: who are my customers and who am I competing against?

The answer you provide to these questions can define not only whether your business will succeed or fail, but also whether you’ll obtain the venture capital you need. At the Green Angel Syndicate, the only UK network of small investors specialised in green economy, we thus focus not on the technology behind the service, but on market needs and trends. How does the market you want to target look like? Who are your customers and what influences them?

When a client, whether public or private, procures a service it does not ask about the technology used or the types of data behind the product. For the end customer, it makes no difference where the data is coming from. What somebody cares about however, is how the service responds to his or her current needs or how it can help them improve their services. Therefore, the decision to spend their budgets on a new service will not be driven by how great or innovative the technology is, but rather by what it can do for them.

Now, how is your product going to help a prospective customer achieve their vision? How can it help them achieve their goals?

In my experience, an incorrectly positioned product is the most frequent reason behind a company’s failure. Your vision needs to be a shared with your customers. This means listening to markets’ and clients’ need to produce viable products and break a vicious R&D cycle.

The post From idea to market: the questions behind a successful satellite based application appeared first on Eurisy.

The expected results of the C3 initiative – that is, innovative applications relying on data and emerging from the collective intelligence of citizens, companies, start-ups, civil society, students – will feed into the COP21, the 21st Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

As far as initiatives of this kind go, C3 is exemplary in making climate change, but also innovation, everyone’s business.

C3’s federative qualities are obvious when looking at the impressive range of partners. These include Météo-France, CNES – the French Space Agency, IGN – the French National Geographic Institute, Etalab – owner and manager of data.gouv.fr on behalf of the Prime Minister’s Cabinet, the Natural History National Museum (MNHN), as well as La Mêlée and Cap Digital – two French IT clusters. Many others – too many to mention – support the initiative.

What do these organisations have in common? Well, more than one could guess from a first glance. In particular, they all produce, exploit and manage Big Data: geographic data, satellite data, statistical data, in situ data… you get the picture. They also understand that none of them will be able to provide solutions to global challenges on their own. This is why they put Big Data and open innovation at the heart of C3: to stimulate the emergence of new solutions based on data in areas such as land planning, energy, health, the economy, biodiversity and others.

In practical terms, C3 consists of a series of workshops organised in Paris, Nantes, Toulouse and Lyon. In the first two stages – the Vision Camps and the Challenge Workshops – citizens, public institutions, companies, students, start-ups imagine together a vision for the future of climate change and what could challenge that vision.  The third and final stage – the Innovation Jams – are 48-hour marathons for start-ups to come up with useful applications, based on the good ideas emerging from that collective intelligence and relying on data ressources made available by the partners and not only. The results will be reported during the COP21 in Paris at the end of the year.

Henry Chesbrough, the “father” of the concept of Open Innovation, noted that “useful knowledge today is widely distributed, and no company, no matter how capable or how big, could innovate effectively on its own”. C3 has been admirable in harnessing the ideas “from the outside”, in mutualising Big Data – the gold of the knowledge society – and in making the most of the momentum of the COP21. We’re looking forward to seeing it bear fruit.

The Innovation Jams will kick off on 6 November 2015. To participate and for more information, go to c3challenge.com

The post The Climate Change Data Challenge – open innovation for the COP21 appeared first on Eurisy.