This prestigious annual Earth Observation (EO) competition, Copernicus Masters, aims to develop innovative applications of remote sensing data that address the Earth’s current environmental, social and business challenges.
UP42, a platform and marketplace for geospatial developers, and its parent company Airbus are teaming up for the Copernicus Masters Challenge. Their sustainable urban planning challenge focuses on remote sensing for better decision making.
This prestigious annual Earth Observation (EO) competition, Copernicus Masters, aims to develop innovative applications of remote sensing data that address the Earth’s current environmental, social and business challenges.
The European Commission and other international public entities have implemented several urban development projects that will tackle issues related to sprawl, such as unemployment, segregation and poverty. UP42 and Airbus are now encouraging developers and researchers around the world to create algorithms and analytics that can provide decision makers with better quantitative information, and a particular focus on ecology.
“We are on a mission to democratize Earth observation data and information,” mentioned Sean Wiid, CEO of UP42. “We want to give urban planning experts and decision makers easier access to data to develop and scale solutions faster, removing technical and market barriers that can slow progress in making cities and communities greener and more livable by 2030.”
In the same topic of sustainability, last year’s winners, Thetaspace, has developed CloudlessEO – an algorithm that uses Deep Learning technology to remove clouds in optical satellite imagery and help solve environmental problems in tropical areas. The German company was recently awarded with the Global Geospatial Innovation Award 2022 in SAR-Optical Data Fusion with their CloudlessEO solution.
Qualitative and quantitative information
With a growing need for data points and quantitative analysis To help city planners make cities more sustainable by considering a city’s entire ecosystem, remote sensing is an essential tool for performing in-depth large-scale analysis. However, recent studies show that the the level of integration between remote sensing, urban planning and ecology is still limited“with only 12% of papers fully integrating ecology, remote sensing and planning while 24% of studies use single domain specific methods.
Developers participating in the UP42 Airbus Challenge have a significant opportunity to design solutions that will have a tangible impact on the race for sustainability by 2030.
“We are delighted to participate again in this new edition of the Copernicus Masters. Sustainable urban planning is essential to face the evolutions of climate change, and we look forward to finding creative partners to develop innovative solutions that will have a positive impact on the environment and society through this new challenge”, mentioned Matthieu Lys, Head of Innovation Management, Airbus Defense and Space.
Evaluation and price
The UP42 Airbus Copernicus Masters Challenge on Sustainable Urban Planning aims to develop algorithms or methodologies that use remote sensing to quantify critical issues emerging from the expansion from historic centers to modern suburbs.
Entrants are encouraged to use cases that leverage the most diverse data from UP42, including, but not limited to, the following:
- The proliferation of works having an impact on non-renewable resources (water, vegetation, soil)
- The uneven distribution of green sites
- Lost spaces to be converted into green or residential areas
During the submission phase, all participants will have access to advanced geospatial data, cloud infrastructure, and ready-to-use algorithms through the UP42 platform.
The winners are entitled to 80,000 euros in OneAtlas credits to access Airbus commercial satellite data and 20,000 euros in UP42 credits to access all types of geospatial data and algorithms on the market.
Additionally, winners can become official partners of UP42 and have their solutions included in a global AI-powered ecosystem of 55+ vendors, 170+ data and algorithms, and approximately 35,000 platform registrations. Either way, UP42 will provide winners with ongoing customer support to further develop EO solutions.
Ideas and solutions can be received until July 11, 2022. Please visit the UP42 Airbus Copernicus Masters Challenge webpage for more information: https://copernicus-masters.com/challenges/up42-challenge/
Please watch the video: https://youtu.be/ynw4iGMjTyo