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FabSpace 2.0 Greece team of the Institute of Communication and Computer Systems (ICCS) of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) has recently joint forces with the MaGOS team, 1st and 3rd place Award winner of the Local and International legs of ActInSpace® 2016 and the 2nd place Award winner of the COSMOTE Hackathon 2018, to integrate the MaGOS input device with Virtual Reality (VR) 3D Geographic Information Systems, a case that will open up the horizon for immersive geo-informatics and earth observation solutions.

The MaGOS team which comprised of of Mr. George Profitiliotis (an alumnus of the NTUA), Mr. Gregory Agriopoulos, Mr. Konstantinos Anastasakis, Mr. Vasilapostolos Ouranis and Ms. Elena Veli proposed during the COSMOTE Hackathon 2018 challenge a novel VR input device in the form of gloves, based on state-of-the-art wearable electromagnetic sensors, that will allow 3D designers to sculpt and model their digital creations in a VR environment in a more user-friendly and efficient manner.

The proposed product could also target multiple side market verticals. One such side-market case that is currently being explored jointly with the FabSpace 2.0 Greece team that comprised of Dr. Iosif Paraskevas and Mr. Haris Marantos (under the supervision of Prof. Dimitrios Soudris). Dr. Iosif Paraskevas from the ICCS, the FabSpace 2.0 Greece Manager said: “We have learnt about the initial idea of MaGOS and we discussed with them on how this glove could give an added value to the use of EO data. Indeed, the brainstorming was spontaneous, and we agreed to work together on this. We, as part of FabSpace 2.0, are very happy to provide MaGOS with technical know-how, not only about EO data, but also regarding embedded technologies (for which ICCS is well-known). Additionally, and through FabSpace 2.0 network, it is easier for MaGOS to contact EO related companies in order to understand their needs. We hope this teaming with MaGOS to create an even more fantastic product, and we also hope to find more start-ups which currently do not use of EO data, but with huge potential if they take into account that they can use EO data in order to enhance the quality and functionality of their products; to this end this is one of the main goals of FabSpace 2.0 project”.

Mr. George Profitiliotis, PhD candidate at the National Technical University of Athens and Innovation Officer of the MaGOS team stated the following: “The MaGOS product has been constantly evolving since its initial conception two years ago, during the ActInSpace® 2016 competition. Throughout its development, our team has been actively researching and exploring promising target markets to construct use cases where our product would make a substantial difference. The application of the MaGOS interface to VR 3D Geographic Information Systems for the enhancement of EO data visualization and for the ease of its manipulation is such a case. By collaborating with FabSpace 2.0, we believe that our product will soon offer a game-changing solution to the EO community”. 

Together with the 2nd Place Award, the team was awarded a cash prize of €5.000 and incubation services by the Athens Centre for Enterpreneurship and Innovation, which will be utilised for the advancement of their product's prototype. To know more about MaGOS product, please see here: http://www.qnq.gr/history.html

FabSpace 2.0 is proud to join forces with MaGOS team to enhance their product innovation. With its growing networks, FabSpace 2.0 will continuously support similar start-ups and business ideas to stimulate open innovation in Earth Observation to make our planet a better place to live in, which is the main project purpose.

About FabSpace:

FabSpace 2.0 is the open-innovation network for geodata-driven innovation – by leveraging Space data in particular, in Universities 2.0.

Its Work programme topic addressed INSO-4-2015: Innovative schemes for open innovation and science 2.0 b) Academia- Business/Public/CSO knowledge co-creation Coordination and support action. The FabSpace 2.0 project aims at making universities open innovation centres for their region and improving their contribution to the socio-economic and environmental performance of societies.

To achieve these general objectives, the FabSpace 2.0 project offers to concentrate on one research area with high expected socio-economic impact: data-driven innovation, with a particular attention to Earth observation data.

In the six European regions covered by the consortium, partner universities work together with co-located Business Incubation Centres of the European Space Agency (ESA BICs). ESA BICs aim at inspiring entrepreneurs to turn space-connected business ideas into commercial companies, and provide technical expertise and business-development support.

This consortium, completed by TerraNIS – the French company that operates the European Group of Enterprises for a Network of Information Using Space (EUGENIUS) – and IDGEO – provisioning continuous trainings in Geomatics – and the European Business Network (EBN), will be a key success factor for the project.

In addition, FabSpace 2.0 selected 14 new FabSpaces in December 2017 located in various countries worldwide including France, Italy, Czech Republic, Spain, Lithuania, Armenia, Cyprus, The Netherlands, and Cameroon. These new FabSpaces expanded the FabSpace 2.0 network from its first founder FabSpaces in France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Greece, and Poland. The international opening of the FabSpace 2.0 network is underway and will be extended worldwide.    

This project began on March 1st 2016 and will last 3 years. It is under the lead of Univ. Toulouse III – Paul Sabatier (UPS). For more information, visit https://www.fabspace.eu.

The Vindo Team from the Netherlands is announced as the winner of the FabSpace 2.0 Prize in the third edition of ActInSpace® 2018 which was held on the 25th - 26th of May 2018 all over the world, knocking out other 54 applications. The announcement took place during the finals of ActInSpace® 2018 on the 27th of June 2018 in Toulouse, France. This year, FabSpace 2.0 is being one of the official partners of ActInSpace 2018. 

ActInSpace® is an international innovation contest inspiring young women and men worldwide to meet challenges based on space technologies, data, patents and infrastructures to launch start-ups into all areas of our daily lives. Designed for students but open to everyone, the objective of the contest is to foster entrepreneurship, encourage start-up creation and promote the use of space technologies and space acquired data to change citizen’s lives, to boost employment and to protect our planet.

This year the contest was fulfilling an international ambition which are transforming an essentially European edition into an international edition; bringing together 53 cities from 32 countries in all continents; attracting 3400+ participants with 510 teams working on 60+ different challenges; and creating between 20 and 30 new start-ups.

As partner, FabSpace 2.0 provided three challenges based on Earth Observation Data (links: http://bit.ly/FS-AIS2018) and dedicated prizes which are a free trip to Toulouse to attend the ActInSpace® 2018 international final; receive a mentoring program by experts in selected area; and a meeting with Airbus representative in Toulouse. There were 11 FabSpaces who are involved as organiser of ActInSpace® 2018 including FabSpaces France: Toulouse, Bordeaux, Nice, Brest; FabSpace Poland: Warsaw; FabSpace Germany: Darmstadt; FabSpace Greece: Athens; FabSpace Cameroon: Yaundé; FabSpace Cyprus: Limassu; FabSpace Czech Republic: Prague; and FabSpace Netherlands: Noordwijk. The FabSpace 2.0´s challenges attracted many teams from various locations worldwide such as Brazil, New Zealand, Tunisia, Nigeria, Gabon, Latvia, Azerbaijan, France, Portugal, Greece, and the United States.  

Josiane Mothe from University Toulouse III – Paul Sabatier (UPS), the Coordinator of FabSpace 2.0 project said: “With more than 50 teams participating on the challenges provided by FabSpace 2.0 at ActInSpace® 2018; it has been a real success. Moreover, Vindo’s application idea is completely in line with the overall objective of FabSpace 2.0: to stimulate open innovation in Earth Observation to make our planet a better place to live in. We hope that many new innovative start-ups like Vindo can be created and developed in the near future.”

Vindo, the winning team of FabSpace 2.0 Prize was competing in the COPERNICUS APP LAB challenge located in the Netherlands, one of the FabSpace 2.0 organiser in collaboration with the local ESA BIC. Vindo App successfully won the competition by providing an innovative idea with the concept of letting people find the ideal city within the App and urges cities to be shaped after their needs. The App is using Copernicus data. 

"Winning the FabSpace 2.0 Earth Observation Prize at the ActInSpace® 2018 is a great honour for us. The support of Fabspace 2.0 encourages us to develop our application further and shows that we can have a positive impact on society. We want to thank FabSpace 2.0 and the ActInSpace® Team for the opportunity to come to Toulouse to meet other teams from all over the world and exchange ideas.” said Tristan Faschinger, an Aerospace Engineering student at TU Delft, one of Vindo team member. To find out more about the Vindo App, simply watch their video (including a demo) on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZ5TzjYZg_E.   

FabSpace 2.0 is proud to be partner of ActInSpace® 2018 and hopes that this event will stimulate the uptake and reuse of space technology and data and identify future applicants for ESA BICs and partner incubators. A full list of the challenges winners can be found at: https://actinspace.org/

Today was the national final of ActInSpace Germany together with Berlin, Darmstadt and Munich. After two hours pitching and questions from the jury, the evaluation board decided that the PANDA team win the competition in Germany. As next step the Darmstadt team will travel to the Toulouse Space Show and take part in the International Final of ActInSpace on 27 June, 2018 in Toulouse.

ActInSpace in Darmstadt was held from 25th-26th of May 2018 with more then 30 participants in 7 teams, mentors, space experts and jury-members and was a real success. During two days the team members worked hard on different challenges from NSPO, Harmonie Mutuelle, the European Space Agency (ESA), the European GNSS Agency (GSA) and AIRBUS.

The PANDA team with Björn Mattes, Ralf Neumann, Maximilian and Tatjana Weiss won with their challenge "Harmonie Mutuelle01" - Health monitoring with the personal assistant "Everywear" (Benefit from sophisticated health monitoring just like that of astronauts!).

We would like to thank all participants at ActInSpace Darmstadt for your big effort and great achievements. It was really a pleasure for us to work with you. Also a big thank-you to all jury members, speaker and mentors, all (local) sponsors and partners for your support: ESA, the City of Darmstadt, geko Gesundheits-Konzepte, HUB31, FabSpace 2.0, the national partner DLR and our media partner Startup Valley magazin.

https://actinspace.org/blog/press-release-actinspace-goes-international-

Last month, FabSpace 2.0 published the 1st edition of the FabSpace Use Cases Series as part of the project´s initiative. 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 first edition included seven uses cases collected from various FabSpaces partners and location such as “Epidemic Disease Mapping in Africa” developed by FabSpace Darmstadt, Germany in collaboration with Merck and ESOC at Darmstadt; “Implementation of Earth Observation image processing via Neural Networks on Embedded Architectures”, “Regional Population Estimation Using Satellite Imagery”, “Hyperspectral Earth Observation Image Processing On FPGAs” developed by FabSpace Greece; “Calculation of damage in forests using Sentinel-2” developed by FabSpace Warsaw, Poland; “Mapping deforestation in a location of interest” developed by FabSpace Toulouse, France; and “Global Warming Impact Assessment on the Bracciano Lake Surface Temperature” developed by FabSpace Rome, Italy.

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 organizations to be involved in the development of the use cases in order to successfully implement the project findings.

Click here to download the 1st edition of FabSpace Use Case Series.