Earth Observation Industry, International Financial Institutions and Development Agencies

This post is to address, Earth Observation Information Services as an assisting mechanism to operatively connect Earth Observation Industry, International Financial Institutions and Development Agencies.

International Financial Institutions (IFI) and Development Agencies (DA):

International financial institutions (IFI) (e.g., World Bank (WB)) are providing financial supports and professional advises for development activities and thus ensuring the processes to accelerate development in developing countries in a self-sustained manner. Besides, Development Agencies/Programs (e.g., UN family) are financed through voluntary contributions, also contributing to the comprehensive development of the developing countries.

IFIs and DAs organise and manage their development activities according to sectors (i.e., guided by economic activities) or Themes (i.e., guided by organizational goals/objectives) (e.g., agriculture, debt management) and we, EO professionals, believe Earth Observation (EO) data and information services can play a major role by supporting the management of development activities across sectors and by contextualizing local learning from global experience. IN this context, the particular advantages of EO are EO Information is globally consistent in nature and the availability of historical EO information that can be compared to the current status.

Earth Observation Industry (EOI):

Earth Observation Industry is a combination of commercial/non-commercial Earth Observation data providers (EODP) (e.g., European Space Agency (ESA)) that are dealing with reception, archiving and distribution of Earth Observation (EO) data and Value Adding Earth Observation Companies (VAEOC) that are turning EO data into information and providing EO Information Services.

EO is such an awesome technology that can deal with almost all kind of development activities very efficiently. For an instance, to plan and manage our water resource, we need to know, globally how much fresh water we have. Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), an EO mission made possible to have an idea of how much ground water we have and how much we are extracting every day that was almost impossible to quantify few years back and that’s something remarkable.

Bridging EOI, IFIs and Das:

EOI is not a new entity anymore then again it’s a very new arena; to some it’s “a computer fantasy that can’t be a real tool for serious work”. The Non-EO people, who have considered EO as a possibility, appreciated it very much and from their exemplary experiences, some others are coming forward.

We, being an EO Professionals and as a stakeholder of EOI, are working across disciplines to ensure effective use of EO data by assisting non-EO people to use EO data efficiently. These have always been a vibrant experience and we love to do it again and again until we all in the same page.

Here, it’s worth to mention that EO data providers (i.e., ESA) have been working last couple of years to encourage EO data use among IFIs and supporting Value Adding EO Companies to assist IFIs with Earth Observation Information Services in their development activities. Besides, the commercial EO data providers like Planet Labs are also coming forward to assist humanitarian efforts.

Conclusion

Now, we have EO data providers, EO service providers and EO aware IFIs but still the assimilation process among EOI, IFIs and DAs is not evident and why is that? The noticeable reason can be: 1) the relatively small number of EO professional in IFIs and DAs, limiting the growth of EO usages. 2) EO data can be considered as Big Data as they comes in different formats and they are huge in size that requires special infrastructure and that is discouraging, in some extent. 3) Lack of necessary EO skilled professionals in the job market, which is the pre-requisite for successful EO integration in IFIs and DAs. Last but not the least 4) Lack of EO awareness, globally.

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Things we learnt about Pluto in the last one week!

INCREDIBLE!

One word to describe what New Horizon has sent us so far! Let us look at a quick timeline of events.

Mission-PathtoPluto-MissionTimeline-TenYears_sm

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Mission/The-Path-to-Pluto/Mission-Timeline.php

Ten years and three billion miles later, New Horizons has sent back something no one has ever seen before, a good picture of Pluto! The first high resolution images of Pluto shows young icy mountains of around 11000 ft with no evidence of craters. NASA has released the following images.

pluto

For years, the international astronomy community has been arguing if Pluto could be called a planet or dwarf planet. But New Horizon’s recent discovery has helped us understand, Pluto indeed belongs to a binary planet system – partnering with what was originally assumed to be its moon, Charon. Well, Hello there!

charon

Click here to watch an amazing wobbly dance of this binary system, around a common center of mass. Each full revolution takes 6.4 earth days. Pluto and Charon are tidally locked to each other, showing the same face to one another.  After the fabulous display of heart shaped surface, Pluto officially becomes the most romantic planet of the solar system (well, at least according to me!).

To give you a quick impression on how good these images are, check out what we knew about Pluto and Charon before.

plutobeforeafter

Click on the image below to watch the animation.

pluto-observations-through-the-years

So wonder what happens next? The mission will be continued and New Horizons will enter the Kupier belt! The simple of joy of exploring a whole new world. Thank you New Horizons. It was just a day, but well worth the wait for ten years.

 

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