Copernicus App Lab is open for registration

Gilching, 26 June 2017 - The Copernicus App Lab provides an easy data access platform that brings together the scientific Earth observation (EO) community and mobile developers. A proof-of-concept provides data from the Copernicus Land -, Marine Environment -, and Atmosphere Monitoring Services as linked open data to promote the inclusion of EO data into value-added services and/or applications. Hereby, app developers bridge the digital divide between the established, science-driven Earth observation community and the innovative and entrepreneurial world.

In order to participate, app developers are able to register now until 24 July 2017 at app-lab.eu. Registrations are automatically part of an exclusive beta-community with a free travel to the European Space Agency (ESA) App Camp to Frascati, Italy.

“Copernicus will deliver an unprecedented volume of available data, provide new operational services, and foster new business opportunities and job creation.” explains Elzbieta Bienkowska, European Commissioner for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs.

The overall objective of the Copernicus App Lab is to demonstrate a user-driven evolution in services that can be integrated seamlessly into the existing service architecture. This means, that Copernicus contributes to the development of innovative applications and services, by making the vast majority of its data, analyses, forecasts, and maps freely available and accessible, in order to make our world safer, healthier, and economically stronger. Thus, the simple data access every downstream service developer requires, must be combined with in-depth knowledge of EO data processing.

Space App Camp
ESA’s Space App Camp brings programmers together to develop creative and innovative apps. The objective is to make EO data, particularly from Copernicus, accessible to a wide range of businesses and citizens. To achieve this, the Space App Camp seeks to introduce app developers to Copernicus, creating awareness for the numerous possibilities EO data offers as a means of enriching mobile apps. In order to make satellite data accessible on smartphones, the Space App Camp each year brings programmers from across Europe to exchange ideas with like-minded people and tackle some of the world’s greatest challenges. Participants learn about the many ways in which big data from space can be used for mobile apps. Additionally, they will make contacts all over Europe and gain insights into how ESA operates.

Anwendungszentrum GmbH Oberpfaffenhofen (AZO), Germany
AZO has established a global network for innovation and entrepreneurship. It supports product innovation and company foundations in the field of commercial space applications along the entire value chain – from the idea all the way to market entry. AZO has extensive experience in organising innovation competitions such as the European Satellite Navigation Competition, the Copernicus Masters (Earth observation), the STARTUP WORLD Awards (laser photonics and robotics), as well as the INNOspace Masters (New Space Economy), app developer camps and conferences, and manages ESA BIC Bavaria. www.space-of-innovation.com

National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (UoA), Greece
The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens was founded in 1837 and it is the oldest university in Greece. The Department of Informatics and Telecommunications (http://www.di.uoa.gr) has been active since 1986 and it is widely recognized as the top Computer Science department in Greece. For the years 2009-2011, the department has been ranked among the top-100 departments in Computer Science internationally by the Academic Ranking of World Universities founded and compiled by the Shanghai Jiaotong University.

Terradue Srl, Italy
Terradue Srl is addressing the Earth Sciences research & education sector, with core competencies aimed at engineering distributed systems & Cloud services, providing consultancy for international organisations, and developing partner programs for Terradue’s Open Source Software & Open Standards strategy. Terradue is a leading Cloud Services provider with current developments focusing on empowering researchers within seamless eScience infrastructures, for curating and delivering scientific information, and to create Cloud marketplaces for environmental data analytics and promoting a vision where scientific publications are fully reproducible, verifiable experiments and part of an interoperable ecosystem.

RAMANI B.V., The Netherlands
Ramani B.V. (RAMANI), after the Swahili word for ‘Map’, was founded as spin-off company of the Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation of the University of Twente (ITC) with support from the Knowledge Park Twente. RAMANI has made significant contributions to advancement of public usage of EO-data by co-organising multiple international innovation competition events. RAMANI’s expertise as key-technology provider for some of Europe’s largest innovation competition for Earth monitoring data – the Copernicus Masters – and various App Developer Camps was funded under contract with ESA.

VITO NV, Belgium
VITO is a leading European independent research and technology organisation in the areas of cleantech and sustainable development, elaborating solutions for the large societal challenges of today. VITO provides innovative and high-quality solutions, whereby large and small companies can gain a competitive advantage, and advises industry and governments on determining their policy for the future. VITO has 750 highly qualified employees who work on international projects all around the world. VITO’s headquarters are located in Mol, Belgium, and the company has a subsidiary in China. The total turnover of VITO amounted to about 140 million euros in 2014.