Description :
EARSC, the European Association of Remote Sensing Companies, is a membership-based, not for profit organisation which coordinates and promotes the activities of European companies engaged in delivering Earth observation-derived geo-information services. EARSC represents this sector in its broadest sense, creating a network between industry, decision makers and users and covering the full EO value chain from data acquisition through processing, fusion, analysis to final geo-information products & services. This session will be looking at challenges faced by the European Value Add industry, driven by recent changes and developments in the Global Earth Observation landscape. New and innovative satellite operators are entering the market especially in the US. But also new and relevant non-space geo-spatial data sources are emerging, including UAVs and crowd or citizen sources using mobile technologies. At the same time large IT companies such as Google and Amazon are seeking to establish themselves in the marketplace. What are the impacts of these changes, and which opportunities and challenges do they bring to the European industry?

Speakers:
Emmanuel Pajot, EARSC
G. Sylos Labini, EARSC/Planetek
Ana Rita Azevedo, FEUP
David Cordeiro, Deimos
Lorenzo Zirulia, University of Milan