Oberpfaffenhofen, 1 May 2018 – Navigation information has become an essential part of our daily lives. Thus, the priorities are shifting from the deployment of infrastructure to service delivery across the globe. This source of positioning data offers a manifold platform for all kinds of solutions.
The ESNC awards such applications, services and new ideas that are using Galileo GNSS data to manage important challenges faced by business and society. Renowned institutions and regional partners are set to award prizes worth over EUR 1 million in total within more than 20 challenge categories.
The main target groups include SMEs, startups, universities and individuals in the fields of business, research, and higher education who are welcome to submit their ideas. Submissions can demonstrate their innovative use of GNSS data across a wide variety of challenge topics.
Partners of the 2018 edition are the European GNSS Agency (GSA), the European Space Agency (ESA), the German Aerospace Center (DLR), and the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI). In addition, participants choose from this year's confirmed 18 international partner regions.
Carlo des Dorides, Executive Director of the European GNSS Agency (GSA): “The European Satellite Navigation Competition (ESNC) has always been ahead of its time. I am especially excited to see GNSS-based ideas boosting innovation in the field of Smart Cities, the Internet of Things (IoT), Mobile Health (mHealth), and many other applications. GSA has been a partner of the Competition since its early days, and we are looking forward to more successful stories.”
Together with cash prizes, challenge winners will receive access to an international network of leading GNSS organisations, crowd investing platform, and business development support.
We're proud of the active role the ESNC is playing in the commercialisation of GNSS products and services," states Thorsten Rudolph, Managing Director of AZO Anwendungszentrum GmbH Oberpfaffenhofen, the competition organiser. "Since 2004, the competition has selected 307 winners in total. They were chosen out of more than 11,500 entrants from 90 different countries, who submitted over 4,000 cutting-edge business ideas. This is an excellent demonstration of how the innovation competition functions as a European deal flow pipeline for Earth observation."
In addition, the ESNC is complemented by the E-GNSS Accelerator to empower the transformation of great ideas into commercially viable solutions through a tailored on top business coaching service. All winners of the ESNC 2018 will gain access to the E-GNSS Accelerator if eligible.
For more details on this year's challenges, prizes, and partners, please see 
www.esnc.eu.
About AZO – Your Partner in Competition & Innovation
AZO Anwendungszentrum GmbH Oberpfaffenhofen is an international networking and branding company initiating the most important space-related innovation competitions with more than 15,000 participants, over 200 industrial & public - and 400 international stakeholders. The Masters Series, presented by AZO consists of European Satellite Navigation Competition (ESNC), Copernicus Masters, Space Exploration Masters, and INNOspace Masters. AZO has been supporting entrepreneurship with more than 130 company foundations to date and the creation of 1,800 high-tech jobs in Bavaria with an annual turnover of about EUR 150 million. Additionally, AZO runs a very successful business angel network which invested more than EUR 130 million Venture Capital in 2016/17 as well as the ESA Incubation Centre (ESA BIC) Bavaria. For more information, please visit www.azo-space.com.
About ESNC
Initiated by AZO Anwendungszentrum GmbH Oberpfaffenhofen, German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Bavarian ministry of economic affairs & media, the European Satellite Navigation Competition (ESNC) today is the leading network for satellite navigation. The ESNC annually awards the best services, products, and business ideas using satellite navigation in everyday life, spurring the development of respective market-driven applications. For 14 years, the international innovation competition serves as an accelerating instrument for space‐related entrepreneurs and startups, providing Europe with novelties. Since 2004, more than 11,500 developers took part with an overall prize pool worth 13 Mio. EUR for more than 300 winners and about 240 international judges assigned with the evaluation of submissions. For more information please see www.esnc.eu.