Deep Property by Ticinum Aerospace: InCubed support boosts an innovative AI-based service

Under the ESA InCubed programme, the Italian company Ticinum Aerospace will develop an innovative solution in the various areas of the insurance business (e.g. underwriting, risk modelling, etc.) by leveraging Deep Property. This AI-based service is capable to provide high-quality property data derived from geospatial sources in a cloud-based environment.

Ticinum Aerospace is a spinoff company from the University of Pavia, Italy, founded in 2014 by PhD students and PostDocs at the FabSpace Lab. Their expertise is in Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning, computer vision techniques and geospatial data processing.

Ticinum Aerospace aims to scale up a service called Deep Property using an AI-based approach to identify and record risk-relevant characteristics of individual buildings, such as the number of floors, the year of construction, the materials used, etc. This technology leverages big data derived from satellites, Earth observation techniques and other hi-tech sources (e.g. street-level images, smartphone pictures, etc.) to generate information layers that will reduce uncertainty in large-scale risk scenario evaluations.

The use of high-quality property data, generated in near-real-time, will enable insurance and risk modelling companies to enable their clients to improve risk mapping and more efficient property risk management. This will result in reduced losses and, at the same time, increasing competitiveness on the market. This concept originated in the risk estimation context, the generated property data, is coveted in other businesses, like real estate, energy, and smart cities.

The Deep Property development was kicked off in June 2021. All companies supported by the European Space Agency’s Investing in Industrial Innovation (InCubed) programme receive co-funding, technical and strategic support to further develop the service. Before the end of InCubed support in December 2022, Ticinum Aerospace primarily aims to develop new satellite data-based models, improving speed performances, and enlarging the pool of customers by better understanding their needs. During the development, Deep Property will be supported by two leading companies in the insurance context: Generali Global Corporate and Commercial, and Willis Tower Watson.

Gianni Cristian Iannelli, Ticinum Aerospace CEO and Head of Deep Property development team, said: “We are so glad for the opportunity InCubed programme is giving us, and we will do our best to meet the expectation that Deep Property is set to achieve success at global scale. For us as a group of engineers, ESA has always been a source of inspiration, and we are all excited to get their support in our next actions. Deep Property‘s mission is cutting the cost of risk uncertainties, especially against the effect of climate change. ESA will be a valuable partner in reaching our mission on making cities more resilient to natural disasters”.

Michele Castorina, ESA Technical Officer, also added: “More and more data from commercial Earth observation satellites is becoming available at prices that allows downstream market to flourish. Deep Property is exploiting the availability of this data through innovative machine learning algorithms for the insurance market, bringing value and innovation in a sector that is actively seeking to meet the challenges brought by the digital transformation. As ESA InCubed programme, we are more than happy to support this process. ”

To know more: Deep Property, Ticinum Aerospace, Willis Tower Watson, Willis Tower Watson Press Release, Generali, Generali Press Release