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Newsletter #7 | December 2022

Dear Φ-lab community,

The last quarter has been another busy time for us, and as you’ll see from our Latest from the Lab section, many of the Φ-labbers have been deeply involved in events and conferences. One of the principal annual gatherings on machine learning for Earth observation and meteorological applications is the ECMWF-ESA Workshop, and this year’s edition is the focus piece of this newsletter. You’ll find details on Φ-lab’s participation, plus links to the presented materials and videos.

The most significant recent event for the whole of ESA though was the 2022 ESA Council at Ministerial Level (CM22). Member States gave a ringing endorsement of the Agency’s work, with an exceptional 17% subscription increase compared with CM19, giving rise to a total of €17 billion of which 16% is destined for the Earth Observation Programme (EOP) for continuing and developing its activities. This represents a successful CM22 for EOP in its efforts to both face the global challenges of 2023 to 2026 and beyond and ensure European strategic autonomy. As an optional programme, InCubed is heavily dependent on the outcome of CM22, and we’re extremely happy to report that the proposals for expanding its remit were met with an increased budget amounting to €176 million overall programme size, along with the membership of two new countries (giving a total of 21 participating states). We’ll bring you more details in the new year on what the results of CM22 mean for InCubed.

Our final newsletter of the year also includes the usual review of news from both Φ-lab and the wider EO community, plus a quick look at our revamped News and Events page. As 2022 draws to a close, Φ-lab wishes all our readers a merry Christmas and looks forward to another year of transformational innovation and inspiring challenges in 2023.

The Φ-lab team

FOCUS ON THE ECMWF–ESA WORKSHOP 2022

The ECMWF–ESA Workshop on Machine Learning for Earth Observation and Prediction took place in Reading in the UK from 14 to 17 November. This event, jointly organised by Φ-lab and ECMWF, is now a well-established annual forum for discussing the state of the art of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Earth System Observation and Prediction (ESOP). Φ-lab’s Rochelle Schneider dos Santos was the principal organiser from the ESA side and in addition to giving a welcome speech, Rochelle co-chaired a keynote session that set the scene for the ensuing discussions.

Other Φ-lab researchers also made major contributions. Bertrand Le Saux co-chaired sessions on machine learning (ML), firstly for Earth observation and then for user-oriented Earth Science applications, and in addition gave a talk on bringing the power of quantum machine learning to Earth observation. Alessandro Sebastianelli presented Φ-lab’s breakthrough research on an ML approach to forecasting dengue fever outbreaks, recognised by UNESCO (IRCAI) as one of the Global Top 100 AI projects solving problems related to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The final day of the event was devoted to working groups, addressing the above themes and also hybrid data assimilation, model emulation and model discovery. Again, Φ-lab had a fundamental role, with Rochelle, Bertrand and Alessandro all chairing or participating in the various groups. The gathering was rounded off with a plenary session in the afternoon, which brought together the conclusions from the morning’s sessions.

All presentations and recordings from the four days are available here.

LATEST FROM THE LAB

INPHO VENTURE SUMMIT

13-14 October - The INPHO Venture Summit is a high-end event where tech leaders, investors, start-ups and large corporations meet to discuss investment in promising and innovative solutions for shaping the future. In its 8th edition, this year’s INPHO was held in Bordeaux. Head of Φ lab Giuseppe Borghi gave his contribution on connecting private investors and venture capitalists with the EO deep-tech sector.

WEB SUMMIT

01-04 November - Web Summit is an annual gathering, described by Politico as “the world’s premier tech conference”, that brings together companies, organisations and policy makers to look at the future of the tech industry. ESA Φ lab was at this year's event in Lisbon with an engaging stand that sought to connect with this remarkable ecosystem and display Φ-lab innovations and developed products from InCubed activities. Head of the Explore office Pierre Philippe Mathieu took part in the Space for Sustainability discussion forum alongside Elvira Fortunato, Portuguese Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education, and Ricardo Conde, the President of the Portuguese Space Agency.

QUANTUM TECHNIQUES IN MACHINE LEARNING

7-12 November - Held in Naples this year, QTML is a leading international event that focuses on the interdisciplinary field of quantum machine learning. Φ-lab was there to foster the community’s interest in Earth observation (QC4EO), with our visiting researchers both gathering info and sharing results. Bertrand Le Saux took part in an industry panel session, where he presented ESA’s work on QC4EO. Other panellists included representatives from IBM Quantum, Zapata Computing, CINECA, Leonardo and PASQAL.

NEW SPACE ECONOMY EUROPEAN EXPOFORUM

1-3 December - The New Space Economy forum offers an overview of the most interesting trends in the evolution of the space sector. This year’s edition brought together a variety of international speakers to share experiences and knowledge around the topics of The Changing Earth, Human Health, Space Pollution and Space Ventures. Giuseppe Borghi spoke at the ‘From Inspiration to Innovation’ session, while Head of the Invest Office Michele Castorina took part in a round table on the space innovation landscape.

INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION IN SPACEBORNE IMAGING SPECTROSCOPY

19-21 October - The ESA Hyperspectral workshop focuses on strengthening international coordination and synergies for current and future Earth observation missions, along with establishing priority areas for future projects. Together with Giorgio Licciardi from the Italian Space Agency (ASI), Φ-lab researcher Nicolas Longépé chaired a session on onboard data processing.

HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING AND QUANTUM COMPUTING AT CINECA 2022

15 December - The fifth edition of High Performance Computing and Quantum Computing was held at CINECA in Bologna. The 2022 workshop took place within the context of the new EuroHPC JU quantum computers, and Alessandro Sebastianelli gave an overview of Φ-lab's work in this field in a talk entitled 'Bringing the power of quantum machine learning to EO'.

FROM OUR WEBSITE

RECENT ARTICLES

ESA Φ-lab and TAS to work jointly on Earth observation innovation

ESA and Thales Alenia Space will collaborate on disruptive Earth observation solutions including cognitive SAR, federated learning and hybrid computing for AI.

HiVE microsatellite constellation to provide early crop-health monitoring

Recently at ESA’s ESRIN establishment, constellr signed a contract extension to design, develop and customer-validate its HiVE solution with ESA InCubed support.

Strengthening InCubed’s role in commercial Earth observation

InCubed continues to make a prodigious contribution to commercial EO. An extended remit for the programme was set out and proposed at the ESA Ministerial Council.

NEW-LOOK NEWS PAGE

Our News and Events page has had a makeover. The new layout includes not only recent stories but also brief news items and a handy section showing the latest newsletters.

UPCOMING EVENTS

CINECA INTRODUCTION TO QUANTUM COMPUTING

FEBRUARY 2023

Φ‑lab will take part in a one-day session on QC4EO as part of CINECA’s Introduction to Quantum Computing course. The exact date will be announced in the new year.

ESP FORUM 2023

27-29 MARCH 2023

The goal of the Earth Systems Predictability forum is to build a strategic roadmap to an ambitious future, combining EO, AI simulations and decision intelligence to unlock next-generation predictive capabilities for climate mitigation and resilience. A community of practitioners from interdisciplinary domains will gather at this three-day event to discuss the findings of workshops on the subject held in the previous three months.