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The European GNSS Agency (GSA) is set to announce the winners of the 2016 Farming by Satellite Prize on 23 January 2017 during the International Green Week exhibition in Berlin.

The GSA will announce the winners of its 2016 Farming by Satellite Prize on 23 January 2017 during the International Green Week exhibition being held at Messe Berlin. The prize awards students and young farmers submitting the most innovative ideas for using satellite technology to improve agricultural production, efficiency and profit. Entrants compete for a share of a EUR 13 000 cash prize, sponsored by key agriculture stakeholders, Claas and Bayer CropScience.

Over 85 individuals and teams registered for the contest, ultimately leading to 45 eligible submissions coming from 13 European and eight African countries (a separate, special prize is awarded to projects submitted by students and young farmers from Africa). From these submissions, an independent judging panel selected the following projects to make the final round:

• Cleverlrrig (Portugal): software development to support agricultural water management using remote sensing data.
• Eyecrop (Portugal): scanning pivots with multiple features, including irrigation decision support, plague and disease detection, weather monitoring and crop measurement.
• Glorify (Italy): a new forecasting system, tested in Italy, combining Earth observation and crop modelling to provide both quantitative and qualitative estimates for rice production.
• ISA Lille (France): connected cover crop, a technological application related to the optimisation of cover plants.
• Logic Farm (Belgium): a wide-ranging project using satellite data to address municipal green spaces and the loss of carbon and organic matter in agricultural soils.
• Niessen (Germany): add-on for implements enabling autonomous driving and optimal working depths.
• TTT Solutions (Czech Republic): web-based service providing temporal analysis, spectral indices, crop behaviour, and control and support for the payment of subsidies.

For the special Africa prize:

• Digifarm (Kenya): digital farm information access system that leverages mobile technology to provide farmers with real-time information on rainfall, wind patterns, plant health and the best crops to plant and market.
• Munzansel (Morocco): geological mapping and soil characterisation in identifying agricultural related hazards using freely-available Copernicus and Sentinel data, leading to best-practices for sustainable agriculture.
• 7 Saros (Kenya): using satellite technologies to optimise irrigation and fertiliser application. Project will support decisions on when to irrigate, which areas of a field to irrigate and whether or not conditions are optimal for applying fertiliser.

An expanding focus

The focus of many of this year’s entries was on the use of satellite information, remote sensing and GNSS for mapping in conjunction with geological, soil and vegetation data. “Entrants showed a good understanding of the potential for using the normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI) as a simple graphical indicator to analyse remote sensing measurements and to show the health and productivity of crops and other biomass,” says Judging Panel Chair Dr Andrew Speedy.

The judges also noted their pleasure in seeing some projects address novel crops, including rice in Europe and cocoa beans in Africa. The projects also covered a wide use of satellite information. “Projects covered irrigation requirements, insecticide use and soil organic matter remediation,” says GSA Market Development Officer and fellow judge Reinhard Blasi. “There were also several entries related to fisheries and aquaculture, all of which demonstrates another fertile field for the application of satellite systems, particularly remote sensing and resource mapping.”

In making their decision, the judges looked for relevance, feasibility, innovation and potential marketability. And although there can be only one winner, the entire judging panel agrees that all of the finalist projects clearly demonstrate the enormous potential that applying GNSS and Earth observation to agriculture can bring. “All of these excellent finalists make it clear that satellite information systems are being included in many university and college curricula throughout Europe,” says Dr Speedy. “The potential for engineering applications needs further encouragement and can only be achieved through the public-private collaboration seen in this prize.”

About the prize

The prize, an initiative of the GSA and the European Environment Agency, is open to students and young farmers across Europe and Africa with innovative ideas for using satellite technology to improve agricultural production, efficiency and profit, or to reduce the sector’s environmental impact.

Launched in 2012, the Farming by Satellite Prize, is held every two years.

The award ceremony is scheduled for 14:00 on Monday, 23 January 2017 at the European Commission’s Stand (number 3.2) in Messe Berlin. The announcement is being held as part of the GSA’s participation in International Green Week, a global tradeshow for the food, agriculture and gardening industries. Feel free to join the competitors.

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European GNSS Agency (GSA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the GSA website (http://www.gsa.europa.eu).

The European GNSS Agency (GSA) is set to announce the winners of the 2016 Farming by Satellite Prize on 23 January 2017 during the International Green Week exhibition in Berlin.

The GSA will announce the winners of its 2016 Farming by Satellite Prize on 23 January 2017 during the International Green Week exhibition being held at Messe Berlin. The prize awards students and young farmers submitting the most innovative ideas for using satellite technology to improve agricultural production, efficiency and profit. Entrants compete for a share of a EUR 13 000 cash prize, sponsored by key agriculture stakeholders, Claas and Bayer CropScience.

Over 85 individuals and teams registered for the contest, ultimately leading to 45 eligible submissions coming from 13 European and eight African countries (a separate, special prize is awarded to projects submitted by students and young farmers from Africa). From these submissions, an independent judging panel selected the following projects to make the final round:

• Cleverlrrig (Portugal): software development to support agricultural water management using remote sensing data.
• Eyecrop (Portugal): scanning pivots with multiple features, including irrigation decision support, plague and disease detection, weather monitoring and crop measurement.
• Glorify (Italy): a new forecasting system, tested in Italy, combining Earth observation and crop modelling to provide both quantitative and qualitative estimates for rice production.
• ISA Lille (France): connected cover crop, a technological application related to the optimisation of cover plants.
• Logic Farm (Belgium): a wide-ranging project using satellite data to address municipal green spaces and the loss of carbon and organic matter in agricultural soils.
• Niessen (Germany): add-on for implements enabling autonomous driving and optimal working depths.
• TTT Solutions (Czech Republic): web-based service providing temporal analysis, spectral indices, crop behaviour, and control and support for the payment of subsidies.

For the special Africa prize:

• Digifarm (Kenya): digital farm information access system that leverages mobile technology to provide farmers with real-time information on rainfall, wind patterns, plant health and the best crops to plant and market.
• Munzansel (Morocco): geological mapping and soil characterisation in identifying agricultural related hazards using freely-available Copernicus and Sentinel data, leading to best-practices for sustainable agriculture.
• 7 Saros (Kenya): using satellite technologies to optimise irrigation and fertiliser application. Project will support decisions on when to irrigate, which areas of a field to irrigate and whether or not conditions are optimal for applying fertiliser.

An expanding focus

The focus of many of this year’s entries was on the use of satellite information, remote sensing and GNSS for mapping in conjunction with geological, soil and vegetation data. “Entrants showed a good understanding of the potential for using the normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI) as a simple graphical indicator to analyse remote sensing measurements and to show the health and productivity of crops and other biomass,” says Judging Panel Chair Dr Andrew Speedy.

The judges also noted their pleasure in seeing some projects address novel crops, including rice in Europe and cocoa beans in Africa. The projects also covered a wide use of satellite information. “Projects covered irrigation requirements, insecticide use and soil organic matter remediation,” says GSA Market Development Officer and fellow judge Reinhard Blasi. “There were also several entries related to fisheries and aquaculture, all of which demonstrates another fertile field for the application of satellite systems, particularly remote sensing and resource mapping.”

In making their decision, the judges looked for relevance, feasibility, innovation and potential marketability. And although there can be only one winner, the entire judging panel agrees that all of the finalist projects clearly demonstrate the enormous potential that applying GNSS and Earth observation to agriculture can bring. “All of these excellent finalists make it clear that satellite information systems are being included in many university and college curricula throughout Europe,” says Dr Speedy. “The potential for engineering applications needs further encouragement and can only be achieved through the public-private collaboration seen in this prize.”

About the prize

The prize, an initiative of the GSA and the European Environment Agency, is open to students and young farmers across Europe and Africa with innovative ideas for using satellite technology to improve agricultural production, efficiency and profit, or to reduce the sector’s environmental impact.

Launched in 2012, the Farming by Satellite Prize, is held every two years.

The award ceremony is scheduled for 14:00 on Monday, 23 January 2017 at the European Commission’s Stand (number 3.2) in Messe Berlin. The announcement is being held as part of the GSA’s participation in International Green Week, a global tradeshow for the food, agriculture and gardening industries. Feel free to join the competitors.

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European GNSS Agency (GSA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the GSA website (http://www.gsa.europa.eu).

Professor Vidal Ashkenazi, who in 2003 helped lay the groundwork for what would become Galileo, was recently named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his service to science.

Professor Vidal Ashkenazi was recently named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his service to science. The news, which was published in the recent New Year’s Honours List, is in recognition of his commitment to developing the geodetic aspects of positioning by using satellites – a commitment that goes back to the field’s earliest days.

In 1976, the US National Geodetic Survey (NGS) invited Prof. Ashkenazi to assist with the development of geodetic coordinate systems, work that resulted in a framework that is still used by satellite navigation and mapping systems today. Building from this experience, he founded Nottingham Scientific Ltd, one of the leading space geodesy research institutes in Europe and where he currently serves as Chief Executive Officer. It was here that he began to focus on the power of global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), noting that although GPS was designed as a military system, its main advantage to the USA was in fact economic.

In 2003 he went to Brussels to share these findings with the Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy (ITRE) Committee of the European Parliament. Here he stressed the economic benefits that GNSS could bring to Europe and the need for the EU to build its own satellite navigation system – thus laying the groundwork for what would become Galileo.

On 15 December 2016, just weeks before receiving the OBE honour, he saw his idea became a reality. With the Declaration of Galileo Initial Services, for the first time ever, users around the world are being guided using the positioning, navigation and timing information provided by Galileo’s global satellite constellation.

As Prof. Ashkenazi predicted, with Galileo, Europe is poised to promote substantial economic growth. This is because the use of satellite navigation has helped drive many advancements, particularly in the transport sector. The additional accuracy and availability provided by Galileo is expected to enable a range of new applications and services that will benefit from increased positioning reliability, thus further driving economic growth in Europe and beyond.

“Twenty years ago, Professor Ashkenazi recognised the need for a European-controlled satellite system,” says GSA Executive Director Carlo des Dorides. “Thanks to his foresight and ongoing work with the European Union, today the EU has successfully launched and implemented the world’s first GNSS programme completely under civil control. I am very pleased to see that we live in a society that values professional excellence and vision. On behalf of everyone at the GSA, I congratulate Professor Ashkenazi on this well-deserved award.

“I am absolutely delighted to have been awarded an OBE,” adds Prof. Ashkenazi. “But more importantly, this award recognises the contribution of scientists and technologists to society in terms of satellite positioning, navigation and timing.”

Prof. Ashkenazi will soon be invited to London to receive his OBE from a member of the British Royal Family.

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European GNSS Agency (GSA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the GSA website (http://www.gsa.europa.eu).

Professor Vidal Ashkenazi, who in 2003 helped lay the groundwork for what would become Galileo, was recently named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his service to science.

Professor Vidal Ashkenazi was recently named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his service to science. The news, which was published in the recent New Year’s Honours List, is in recognition of his commitment to developing the geodetic aspects of positioning by using satellites – a commitment that goes back to the field’s earliest days.

In 1976, the US National Geodetic Survey (NGS) invited Prof. Ashkenazi to assist with the development of geodetic coordinate systems, work that resulted in a framework that is still used by satellite navigation and mapping systems today. Building from this experience, he founded Nottingham Scientific Ltd, one of the leading space geodesy research institutes in Europe and where he currently serves as Chief Executive Officer. It was here that he began to focus on the power of global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), noting that although GPS was designed as a military system, its main advantage to the USA was in fact economic.

In 2003 he went to Brussels to share these findings with the Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy (ITRE) Committee of the European Parliament. Here he stressed the economic benefits that GNSS could bring to Europe and the need for the EU to build its own satellite navigation system – thus laying the groundwork for what would become Galileo.

On 15 December 2016, just weeks before receiving the OBE honour, he saw his idea became a reality. With the Declaration of Galileo Initial Services, for the first time ever, users around the world are being guided using the positioning, navigation and timing information provided by Galileo’s global satellite constellation.

As Prof. Ashkenazi predicted, with Galileo, Europe is poised to promote substantial economic growth. This is because the use of satellite navigation has helped drive many advancements, particularly in the transport sector. The additional accuracy and availability provided by Galileo is expected to enable a range of new applications and services that will benefit from increased positioning reliability, thus further driving economic growth in Europe and beyond.

“Twenty years ago, Professor Ashkenazi recognised the need for a European-controlled satellite system,” says GSA Executive Director Carlo des Dorides. “Thanks to his foresight and ongoing work with the European Union, today the EU has successfully launched and implemented the world’s first GNSS programme completely under civil control. I am very pleased to see that we live in a society that values professional excellence and vision. On behalf of everyone at the GSA, I congratulate Professor Ashkenazi on this well-deserved award.

“I am absolutely delighted to have been awarded an OBE,” adds Prof. Ashkenazi. “But more importantly, this award recognises the contribution of scientists and technologists to society in terms of satellite positioning, navigation and timing.”

Prof. Ashkenazi will soon be invited to London to receive his OBE from a member of the British Royal Family.

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European GNSS Agency (GSA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the GSA website (http://www.gsa.europa.eu).