On 18-19 October the first European Satellite Navigation Conference will take place in line with the ESNC Awards Ceremony in Munich. The conference provides the possibility for this year’s winners, experts and sponsoring partners of the ESNC to network and strengthen the international bounds between the regions.
On the first day a dedicated business matching will allow for pre-scheduled one-on-one meetings and a Baltic workshop will introduce companies and projects from new partner regions. The focus topics of the afternoon keynotes and plenary will then centre on Intelligent Transport Systems and conclude with an expert roundtable.
The day will reach its highlight with the ESNC Award Ceremony at the Allerheiligenhofkirche Munich, by revealing the regional and special topic winners as well as the GALILEO Master 2010. The subsequent state reception in the Munich Residence by the Bavarian State Minister for Economic Affairs, Infrastructure, Transport and Technology, Martin Zeil, will provide for another round of high-level networking.
Tuesday, 19th October, will be dedicated to presenting all winning ideas of ESNC 2010 along with information on the 3rd call for proposals on GNSS in FP7.
Registration for the conference will open shortly at www.conference.galileo-masters.eu
On 11 June the Italian Regional Kick-Off took place in the wonderful ambience of Lake Como. The successful event was started with “Italian punctuality” by the president of Navigate Consortium, Maurizio Fargnoli, who also moderated the subsequent programm. In the first part of the event besides general information about this year’s competition also some interesting success stories were presented by former participants. Both regional winners (ALLIX, Thales Alenia) and winners of one of last year’s special topic prizes (Altran) were covered. On the part of the special topic prize sponsors the GMES Masters Prize (T-Systems) as well as the GNSS Living Lab Prize (ESoCE-NET) were presented to the audience in detail.
After a little break in the second part of the programm, in line with the Navigation Workshop, representatives of ESA, European Commission, Italian Ministry of Defence, and the Region of Lombardy had their say, before networking opportunity was provided during a concluding buffet lunch.
Grazie per l’organizzazione e per l’eccellente cibo!
To promote communications between Taiwan and EU Satellite Navigation industries, for the first time, the Industrial Technology Research Institute cooperated with EU (Europe Union) to host the 2010 Galileo Executive Forum. The Forum invited Chunghwa Telecom, Quanta Computer, European Commission, Septentrio, the leading Geographic Information Systems (GIS) data company in the world- Navteq to share the progress and development of the Global Galileo Satellite system and the future prospective business opportunities it will bring to Taiwan’s upper, middle, and lower chains and EC Satellite Industries.
Chih-Kung Lee, Executive Vice President of ITRI pointed out, in the past Taiwan’s satellite navigation industries mainly focuses on the U.S. GPS system. Taiwan manufacturers should utilize its strong R&D background and productivity to prepare to be more involved with EU’s Galileo program. To this end, after participating in GGIA in April 2009, ITRI had been actively promoting the visibility of Taiwan suppliers in Europe; and with the assistance of the overseas office, screening and matching EU enterprises with Taiwan satellite industries for business cooperation for the related applications of Project Galileo.
Deputy Head of Unit, EU Satellite navigation programmes, Michel Bosco claimed, the Galileo satellite system would be the world’s most advanced satellite navigation system and also the first global positioning service under the operation of private sectors. Galileo would also be complimentary to U.S. GPS and Russian GLONASS satellite navigation systems. Galileo’s high precise measuring functions would not only advance satellite-related industries but also created a new industrial revolution through the related applications and brought a new height to the aerospace industry. Bosco predicted the commercial value of Galileo global navigation system to reach $36 hundred million Euro by 2020.
After the conclusion of the Forum, the European delegate came to Hsinchu Science Park visiting leading companies in GNSS industry and NSPO on April 29, 2010. Mr. Guy LEDOUX, the Director of EETO, and the guests highly praised NSPO’s FORMOSAT-2 remote sensing capabilities, especially the daily image capture for the event of the recent Iceland volcano eruption which impacted greatly on European air traffic. In addition, the guests also paid special attention to and were looking forward to the intended usage of Galileo signals of the Formosat-7 mission in which higher resolution Radio Occultation (RO) data will be collected for local and global weather and climate applications.
The well organized Kick-Off in Prague was held inside premises of Czech Transport Ministry on 12 May. After a motivating welcome speech by Deputy Minister of Transport, Eduard Havel, and some general information on the Competition’s 7th edition, regional winners of past ESNC rounds presented their successful solutions to the intrigued audience. Furthermore ESA’s European GNSS Evolution programme (by Martin Sunkevic) as well as the Galileo programme (by David Langr) was introduced. After all the event was a success and I personally was also happy to visit the beautiful city of Prague – thanks to Vaclav!
On 6 May the regional Kick-Off of Gipuzkoa took place in Miramon Technology Park, San Sebastian. All presentations were simultaneously interpreted into 3 Languages (English, Spanish, and of course Basque) and gave detailed information on the ESNC and how to submit an idea. While focus was on online registration to the ideas database (www.galileo-masters.eu) and its requirements in form and content, the audience also got a good overview on the incubation program of BIC Berrilan by Pablo Martinez. After the event, I guess, quite a few good ideas may be expected from this region.
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend the regionl kick-off in Madrid – but this link provides a nice glimpse of the event:
http://www.madrid.org/cs/Satellite?alias=1142593747863&c=Page&cid=1203409218998&language=es&op2=1203409068655&pagename=ComunidadMadrid%2FEstructura&pid=1109265463020&pv=Econom%C3%ADa+y+Hacienda&sc=6
The Kick-Off for a region which is established in the ESNC for about 5 years – South Holland – took place in Noordwijk on 28th of April. Speakers from AZO, T-Systems and GSA (European GNSS Supervisory Authority) gave lots of information about the ESNC. As winner in 2009 of South Holland, Snowmate was introduced by the founder. The location of the Kick-Off was also well chosen. It was the space expo (a space exhibition area) very close-by the ESA Noordwijk. There you had also the possibility to visit the exhibition. Like the motto from space to non space application.
The well visited Regional ESNC Kick-Off in line with the “jornada sobre el sistema de navegación por satélite galileo” on 30 april was a very informative event. Approximately 40 attendees were listening to various presentations inside premises of the politecnical university of Valencia. Representatives from ITACA, Galileo Geosystems, and Emxys – all participants of last year’s competition – gave good impressions of their solutions. With many students being attendant, the ESNC University Challenge was of particular interest, but also the FP7 Challenge No. 4 was covered in detail. Especially the presentation of Marina Martinez (Sost), who attended the session via video conferencing, left no question unanswered. To cap the event nicely we took a delicious lunch at a restaurant named “Galileo”. Where else?!
Many interesting applications have been presented at the launch of the „Aquitaine Challenge“, which was dedicated at presenting local GNSS projects on Monday in Bordeaux. Amongst others Arnaud Masson from Insiteo, winner of the ESA special topic prize 2008 presented his indoor GPS system for which he is currently producing the first 10 pseudolites. Another presentation was made by Xavier Beaulieu from TERA who introduced his invention Vitirover – a micro robot viticole géolocalisé, as Xavier is not only an entrepreneur but also a winemaker, which brought us the pleasure of a wine tasting at the end of the event. After all it was in Bordeaux.
