The FabSpace 2.0 project announced the launch of its official YouTube channel (http://bit.ly/FSChannel). The channel aims to showcase various activities from various FabSpace locations worldwide.

The videos that are featured in the channel include: FabSpace activities or events; interview of students, researchers, etc.; description of ongoing project with an overview of their work; concrete application and use cases (e.g. introducing an app, a tool, etc.); interview with users; and tutorials.

Specifically, this YouTube channel is part of the activities foreseen within the project´s work package (WP) 4 – Exploitation and dissemination, which are implemented throughout the entire lifetime of the project. It is the central activities for the exploitation, maintain sustainability, and disseminate the FabSpace daily activities.

We encourage everyone to subscribe to FabSpace 2.0 YouTube channel to be updated regularly with the project activities and real-life application.

FabSpace 2.0 Liège officially announced the first Winter Camp for Training, Ideation and Entrepreneurship in Earth Observation to be held on the 10^th – 14^th of December 2018 in Belgium. The Winter Camp is coordinated by the Centre Spatial de Liège (CSL) and Wallonia Space Logistics (WSL) in the framework of the FabSpace 2.0 project, and hosted by the Euro Space Center (ESC) in Transinne, Belgium, located in a rapidly-expanding science park that also hosts European Space Agency (ESA), Galileo, and the GALAXIA Business Innovation Centre.

The Camp is structured along in response to the needs identified by the organisers in the following context: the Sentinel satellites developed by the ESA and exploited in the framework of the EEU COPERNICUS Programme constitute a unique world-class armada for observing the Earth. The free-data policy opens new avenues in terms of development of new applications, services and business opportunities. In such a dynamic and rapidly evolving context, it is of the highest importance that students, users, researchers and candidate entrepreneurs get basic training on the techniques through which the Earth Observation (EO) data can be valorised, and brainstorm on possible solutions, based on such data, to challenging user needs.

The Camp will include introductory lectures on the FabSpace 2.0 project, on the Sentinel and COPERNICUS programmes, on remote sensing principles for Earth Observation, and on Geographical Information Systems (GIS’s). Then practical sessions will be organised for familiarisation with the SNAP and QGIS softwares, to be used in brainstorming and problem-solving sessions on proposed application challenges. The Camp is open to students, researchers and candidate business developers interested in the application-oriented exploitation of EO data. The official language of the Camp will be English.

The Camp offers accommodation that is the common bedrooms provided by ESC to its trainees. Interested registrants are welcomed to register and the registration deadline is on December 8^th, 2018. Registrations will be made via email to fabspace@wsl.be and the registration fee is 550 Eur (including taxes). The fee includes accommodation, meals and coffee breaks at the ESC. Attendees shall be accepted on a first-come first served basis, after reception of the registration fee. If the minimum number of participants is not reached by December 8^th, full refund of the registration will be made to the registrants.

The detail registration and to find out more about the daily programme of the FabSpace 2.0 Liège Winter Camp for Training, Ideation and Entrepreneurship in Earth Observation please download in the link below:

Earth Observation – Winter Camp 2018 Programme

The FabSpace 2.0 project today launched its international network expansion with 15 new FabSpaces located in various countries worldwide during the ESA Earth Observation Φ-week which is held on the 12^th – 16^th of November 2018 in ESA-ESRIN, Italy. The Φ-week event (http://phiweek.esa.int/) is organised by The European Space Agency (ESA) focusing on EO Open Science  and FutureEO and aimed to review the latest developments in Open Science trends and kick-start innovative activities of the recently created Φ-department looking at FutureEO, and its associated Φ-lab aiming to identify, support and scale bold EO ideas.

The 15 new FabSpaces complement the existing 20 FabSpaces and will help consolidating the FabSpace 2.0 project’s mission all over the world, disseminating the services and helping to address the needs of final users of Earth Observation and geodata-based applications. This year international expansion is the continuation from the last year first expansion and had achieved the FabSpace´s goal to be extended worldwide.

“It is so exciting to think that the 6 founders FabSpaces and the 14 new FabSpaces that joined in January 2018 – half of them being now open – are now welcoming in November 2018 the 15 extra new FabSpaces! We can now be confident in the expansion and the sustainability of the FabSpace 2.0 international network on a global scale”, said Josiane Mothe from University Toulouse III – Paul Sabatier (UPS), the Coordinator of FabSpace 2.0.

The application opening had started from July this year and the selection process took place on October. After going through a selection process, the consortium and the External Advisory Board of FabSpace 2.0 selected 15 new FabSpaces to contribute in highlighting the achievement of European space programmes and thereby European space data and broadcast a standard to foster open innovation in Universities 2.0 and possibly develop new applications and services enabled by space related data.

A local University or Educational Institutions compose each new FabSpace. The new FabSpaces will be opened at the beginning of 2019 and are joining the existing FabSpace 2.0 network. The new 15 FabSpaces are:

• Graz FabSpace (Austria) – TU Graz, Graz University of Technology, Graz;
• Salzburg FabSpace (Austria) – University of Salzburg, Department of Geoinformatics Z_GIS, Salzburg;
• Chittagong FabSpace (Bangladesh) – University of Chittagong, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Chittagong;
• Dhaka FabSpace (Bangladesh) – Geo Planning for Advanced Development (GPAD), Urban and Rural Planniing Discipline, Khulna University, Dhaka;
• Heverlee FabSpace (Belgium) – Spatial Applications Division Leuven, KU Leuven, Heverlee;
• Bogotá FabSpace (Colombia) – Universidad de Los Andes, School of Engineering, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá;
• Thessaloniki FabSpace (Greece) – Faculty of Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Environment, School of Agriculture, Laboratory of Remote Sensing, Spectroscopy and GIS, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki;
• Bologna FabSpace (Italy) – University of Bologna – DICAM Dept., Bologna;
• Cagliari FabSpace (Italy) – Department of Chemical and Geological Sciences, University of Cagliari, Monserrato;
• Potenza FabSpace (Italy) – Laboratorio per l´Analisi dei Dati satellitari (LADSAT), School of Engineering, Universita della Basilicata, Potenza;
• Kraków FabSpace (Poland) – Department of Geoinformatics and Applied Computer Science, University of Science and Technology in Kraków;
• Brasov FabSpace (Romania) – Transilvania University of Brasov, Brasov;
• Taipei FabSpace (Taiwan) – Department of Civil Engineering, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu;
• Sfax FabSpace (Tunisia) – Sfax ICT Technopark, Computer science and communication department, Faculty of Sciences of Sfax;
• Kyiv FabSpace (Ukraine) – EOS Data Analytics Kyiv, Institute of Agroecology and Land Management, National University of Water and Environmental Engineering Ukraine.

Figure 1. 35 International FabSpaces Networks

Marcello Maranesi from University of Rome Tor Vergata, leader of the FabSpace 2.0 network dissemination said “During the application opening Aurélie Baker (from Aerospace Valley) and myself actively interacted with Universities from several countries for better introducing the FabSpace 2.0 concept and approach and we also learned a lot about their activities and future plans, so we are now ready to start working with them”.

In addition to the launching of the network, FabSpace 2.0 founders are mentoring the FabSpaces networks and providing assistances and technical supports in implementing the platform and activities under FabSpace framework

Figure 2. FabSpace Founders and New FabSpaces at the ESA Earth Observation Φ-week in ESA-ESRIN, Italy. From left to right: Fabspace Bangladesh/Chittagong – Mohammad Shahadat Hossain; Fabspace Toulouse – Jhoana Benavides; Fabspace Colombia/Bogota – Jose Fernando Jimenez Vargas; Fabspace Toulouse – Philippe Lattes & Josiane Mothe; FabSpace Italy – Marcello Maranesi; Fabspace Belgium – Antony Bievelez; Fabspace Italy/Cagliari – Maria Teresa Melis; Fabspace Ukraine – Nataliya Borotkanych; and Fabspace Romania – Mihai Ivanovici.

Each new FabSpace is expected to offer a “Space Science Shop” service, that collects the needs and the societal challenges of external stakeholders (Civil Society Organisations, Public Authorities and Companies), linked to application domains of EO and satellite navigation uses (i.e., Agriculture and Forestry; Energy; Environment and resource efficiency; Intelligent Transport Systems; Smart cities; Health and well-being). The scope is to provide independent participatory research support in response to concerns experienced by external stakeholders, offering a demand-driven and bottom-up approach to the FabSpace facility and screening questions provided by these stakeholders.

The FabSpace 2.0 network is also organising activities such as Open Days, Innovation Events (e.g. Hackathons, Start-Up Weekends, App Camps), workshops and conferences, bootcamps and many other open events as part of the project. The new FabSpaces are welcome to replicate them in their country/region and participate to the FabSpace 2.0 European innovation events and contests. Additionally, they can participate in the bootcamps organised by the other FabSpaces networks.

📢📢📢 For our FabSpacers in Belgium! 📢📢📢

Fabspace 2.0 Liège is organizing 4+1 Earth Observation hands-on workshops, addressing challenges brought by the public administration of Wallonia (subsidence and ground movement, tracking the impact of urbanization on the environment, storm and flood damage).

📅: 14 November 2018, 2PM – 5PM 
📍 : WSL “The Labs”, 15 Rue du Bois Saint-Jean, 4031 Seraing, Belgium
👩‍🚀 Organization : Fabspace 2.0 Liège (WSL & CSL) with ISSeP Institut Scientifique de Service Public (Scientific Institute for Public Service – Belgium, Wallonia)

This year, FabSpace 2.0 will be exhibited at the 8^th EBN TechCamp 2018 on 22-23 November 2018 at the ESA/ESTEC premises in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. It is the major EBN (https://ebn.eu/) technical event of the year. The aim of this gathering is to present the new tools and tactics to incubation and innovation practitioners to help them in their daily work. This year, EBN has joined forces with ESA Space Solutions to organise the TechCamp.

With a focus on internationalisation, the TechCamp will have an in-depth look at the trends in building global entrepreneurship ecosystems. Joining EBN Members, mainly EU|BICs (certified business support organisations), and ESA Members, mainly ESA BICS, the networking and discussions will be greatly enriching. How to valuate start-ups, what is on space technology that can be transferred to earth and the certification process at EBN, are some of the other topics that the EBN TechCamp will be tackling this year.

The participants will be coming from EBN Members, incubators, accelerators and business support organisations. For ESA Members the participation to the EBN TechCamp is mandatory as part of their annual gathering.

As a partner of FabSpace 2.0, EBN will represent FabSpace 2.0 as one of exhibitors in the event and provide more information on FabSpace 2.0 activities and achievements. The registration is currently open. Entrepreneurs, incubators, accelerators and business support organisations and are encouraged to register. To find out more about the 8^th EBN TechCamp 2018 and to register, please visit: http://ebntechcamp.eu/

On October 2018, FabSpace 2.0 published the 2^nd edition of the FabSpace Use Cases Series. It is the continuation of the 1^st edition and is part of the initiative of the FabSpace 2.0. Specifically, this Use Cases series is part of the activities foreseen within work package (WP) 3 – Animation and Networking for innovation and entrepreneurial discovery, which are implemented throughout the entire lifetime of the project.

WP3 is the central WP for the Daily FabSpaces animation and aim to generate awareness in the academia, research centres, companies and civil society organisations about the application uses of earth observation data and the FabSpace platform and pilot actions. It will also attenuate the boarder effect between projects ideas and start up creation by encouraging FabSpace users in making the first step toward entrepreneurship.

The second edition included five uses cases collected from various FabSpaces partners and location such as “A Semi-Automatic Classification Approach for River Shape Extraction from Sentinel-2 Imagery” developed by FabSpace Darmstadt, Germany; “Drones for Assisting Visually Impaired People by HelixVision Team” developed by FabSpace Greece; “Ships Identification by Nodalpoints Team” – this section includes the use case developed by FabSpace Greece; “Navigation system for people with physical disability” developed by FabSpace Toulouse, France, in collaboration between the IRIT department (Toulouse Institute in Computer Science) of the University of Toulouse Paul Sabatier (France) and the University of Bourgogne, Dijon (France); and “Transcribing satellite images method for people with visual deficiencies” developed by FabSpace Toulouse, France.

FabSpace aims for the use cases to showcase various ideas to use EO data and tools with the aim to attract more people from different backgrounds to generate new projects and promising business plans in the future.

Continuous improvement and more use cases would be expected in the next edition. The next edition of the use cases implemented within FabSpace partners shall be published regularly during the entire lifetime of the project. The FabSpace 2.0 project will continue on the next edition of the use cases with more challenges and categories. The project also welcomes any organisations to be involved in the development of the use cases in order to successfully implement the project findings.

Click here to download the 2^nd edition of FabSpace Use Case Series.

FabSpace 2.0 Venezia – IEST – officially announced the Copernicus Hackathon “Supporting Sustainable Development 2030” to be held on the 5^th – 7^th of October 2018 at Villa Giovannina, Treviso, Italy. The programme is promoted by the European Commission and managed in Italy by IEST – Institute for Technological Development, in collaboration with Lazio Connect, iXitaly and the international network of FabSpace 2.0.

The Hackathon is structured for participants to find solutions, through the use of Copernicus satellite data to solve problems related to water, climate change, and energy to improve the quality of life.

48 hours of brainstorming session supported by experts in the various field including marketing and business development that will assist participants in acquiring methods and tools and turn participants´ ideas into a prototype.

The best idea, which can become businesses, will be brought to the European Commission and supported to win the € 50,000.00 prize with the Copernicus incubation program. The participants will work together with tutors and mentors to “accelerate” the development of their projects and acquire the ability to present the project to potential investors / partners / clients / users.

The challenges are related to:

• ENERGY – Ensure access to sustainable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all;
• HUMANITY – To make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable;
• CLIMATE CHANGE – To act urgently to combat climate change and its impact;
• WATER – Preserving and sustainable use of the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development;
• GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP – Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the global partnership for sustainable development.

At the end of the First Copernicus Hackathon the jury will reward the best ideas, that could be consider as business, with a value package of € 30,000.00 and will accompany them on the international scene.

Participation is free; however, as the number of seats available is limited, the organiser will send confirmation of participation.

The detail registration and to find out more about the agenda please visit: http://www.ie4st.it/hackathon2018

FabSpace 2.0 Liège officially announced the first Summer Camp for Training, Ideation and Entrepreneurship in Earth Observation to be held on the 26^th – 31^st August 2018 in Belgium. The Summer Camp is coordinated by the Centre Spatial de Liège (CSL) and Wallonia Space Logistics (WSL) in the framework of the FabSpace 2.0 project, and hosted by the Euro Space Center (ESC) in Transinne, Belgium, located in a rapidly-expanding science park that also hosts European Space Agency (ESA), Galileo, and the GALAXIA Business Innovation Centre.

The Camp is structured along in response to the needs identified by the organisers in the following context: the Sentinel satellites developed by the ESA and exploited in the framework of the EEU COPERNICUS Programme constitute a unique world-class armada for observing the Earth. The free-data policy opens new avenues in terms of development of new applications, services and business opportunities. In such a dynamic and rapidly evolving context, it is of the highest importance that students, users, researchers and candidate entrepreneurs get basic training on the techniques through which the Earth Observation (EO) data can be valorised, and brainstorm on possible solutions, based on such data, to challenging user needs.

The Camp will include introductory lectures on the FabSpace 2.0 project, on the Sentinel and COPERNICUS programmes, on remote sensing principles for Earth Observation, and on Geographical Information Systems (GIS’s). Then practical sessions will be organised for familiarisation with the SNAP and QGIS softwares, to be used in brainstorming and problem-solving sessions on proposed application challenges. The Camp is open to students, researchers and candidate business developers interested in the application-oriented exploitation of EO data. The official language of the Camp will be English.

The Camp offers accommodation that is the common bedrooms provided by ESC to its trainees. Interested registrants are welcomed to register and the registration deadline is on August 17^th, 2018.

Registration:

Registrations will be made via email to fabspace@wsl.be

Payment of 550 Eur (including taxes) will be made by August 17^th , 2018 to :

EURO SPACE CENTER
IBAN : BE 66 3601 0970 1043
BIC : BBRUBEBB
(Bank : ING, Rue du Commerce 16 A 6890 Libin)
Communication: FABSPACE 2018 – LAST NAME & FIRST NAME OF PARTICIPANT

The registration fee includes accommodation, meals and coffee breaks at the ESC.

Attendees shall be accepted on a first-come first served basis, after reception of the registration fee.

The maximum number of participants is 25, the minimum is 5.

If the minimum number of participants is not reached by August 17^th 2018, full refund of the registration will be made to the registrants.

Invoicing information : https://www.eurospacecenter.be/en/information

To know more about the preliminary programme of the FabSpace 2.0 Liège Summer Camp for Training, Ideation and Entrepreneurship in Earth Observation please see:

FabSpace 2.0 Liège Earth Observation – Summer Camp 2018

Recently FabSpace 2.0 Darmstadt successfully organized a reduced 120 minutes’ program of its previous weekly Startech program at Technical University of Darmstadt. “The idea was to explain the Business Model Canvas (BMC) in a nutshell within 2 hours”, explains Sascha Heising from cesah GmbH. “Therefore we planed the session as a kind of annex for the Radar and Remote Sensing course hold by Dr. Damian Bargiel”, mentions FabSpace Manager Bayzidul Islam.

After attending the theory and technical session of Radar Remote Sensing crash course, all the students were forced to a short brainstorming to think about business ideas based on their learnings on satellite technology. Several potential cases were identified and the group agreed on working on a landslide prediction solution. Next step was to “fill” the canvas starting with problem solution fit and customer acquisition section. Mr. Heising explained that a first canvas can only exist upon first assumptions, which could not be validated in this short time. So the task for the students was to create these assumptions and how they would validate them, for each section of the BMC.

All the students became aware of the fact, that it is very important to be close to the customers and ask a lot of questions to get aware of his/her real needs. Also the course revealed some basic concepts of business creation and potential revenue models, like the preferred fermium model and so on. At the end of the intense 120 minutes a volunteer student summarized the basic business model in a short pitch which was kind of role-play between the new “company” and a potential customer.

FabSpace 2.0 Darmstadt concludes that it was a successful event and it is absolutely possible to introduce a non-business driven audience to the BMC as an interactive workshop within 120 minutes. In addition to that student’s feedbacks were great, most of them told that they really enjoyed the experience on how to think a technical solution using EO technology in a business perspective. The concept might be repeated in the near future as an entrepreneurial education for regular students.

To know more about FabSpace 2.0 Darmstadt and to join their various activities, visit their local webpage or follow them on social media (Facebook and Twitter).

CALL FOR PAPER: FabSpace 2.0 is organizing a workshop on “How to foster the innovation skills to develop novel applications based on EO data” InnovEO during the Inspire Conference 2018, 18-21 September, Antwerp, Belgium

Objective and content of the workshop

In this workshop, we will share and discuss good practices for the successful implementation of a FabSpace. A FabSpace is a place at the University where students, companies, researchers, experts, civil society, and public authorities meet, to develop novel application ideas based on Earth Observation data for various disciplines and technology fields. A specific attention will be given to local environmental management applications.

Based on the feedback from the six founding FabSpaces within the FabSpace 2.0 project (which received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme under the Grant Agreement n°693210), and by closely monitoring the operations and experiences of the fourteen new FabSpaces, the objectives of this workshop through the proposed brainstorming sessions are:

• Define the methods to establish universities as the heart of innovation 2.0 and local points of reference for the use of Earth Observation data for decision-making on local issues;
• Find new initiatives to develop the FabSpace 2.0 concept worldwide.

Call for communications and papers

The workshop will be organized around presentation (call for communication is open) and round tables. After the workshop, we will publish a CEUR-WS volume on the contributions. Contributions can be use cases, best practices, description of pedagogical innovations using Earth Observation data. The submitted papers will follow the LNCS format, 4-6 pages for short papers, 10-20 pages for long papers. The proceedings will be published after the conference and will include a white paper on the results of the workshop.

Submissions (communications, papers) should be uploaded on easychair: https://easychair.org/cfp/content.cgi?a=19027388

Important Dates:

Submission for communications:   July 24, 2018

Notification for communications:   July 28, 2018

Workshop                                      :   Sept 20, 2018

After the conference:
Submission for papers    :    Sept 30, 2018
Notification                     :    Oct 30, 2018
Camera ready                  :    Dec. 15, 2018

Organizers:

• Josiane Mothe, IRIT, Univ. de Toulouse, France (josiane.mothe@irit.fr)
• Md Bayzidul Islam, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany  (bislam@psg.tu-darmstadt.de)
• Philippe Lattes, Aerospace Valley, France  (lattes@aerospace-valley.com)
• Alexander Los, Space Foundation (alexander.los@neoc.space)
• Nicolas Maestripieri, TerraNIS, France (nicolas.maestripieri@terranis.fr)
• Pierre-Philippe Mathieu, ESA/ESRIN  (Pierre.Philippe.Mathieu@esa.int)
• Iosif S. Paraskevas, ICCS, Greece (isparas@mail.ntua.gr)
• Robert Sanders, EBN, Belgium (robert.sanders@ebn.eu)
• Md Zia Ullah, Univ. de Toulouse, France (mdzia.ullah@irit.fr)

More information:

InnovEO Workshop website: https://www.irit.fr/innoveo/

About INSPIRE Conference 2018: https://inspire.ec.europa.eu/conference2018

CALL FOR PAPER – FabSpace 2.0 Workshop at INSPIRE Conference 2018