Highlighting the latest from our partners The European Global Satellite Systems Agency (GSA) and the ITF (International Transport Forum at the OECD).
The European Global Satellite Systems Agency (GSA)
MyGalileoSolution & MyGalileoDrone: the Winners
The European GNSS Agency (GSA) is excited to announce the winners in this year’s MyGalileoSolution & MyGalileoDrone competitions. After a lively debate, the jury has selected the winning teams in both competitions based not only on their innovative use of key Galileo differentiators, but also on their market-oriented approach and potential for wide uptake. The winning teams were announced during Entrepreneurs Day, hosted by the GSA on 2 March, 2020.
In the MyGalileoDrone competition, the first prize went to the team Abzero (Italy), for Nautilus – a tracking solution for the autonomous delivery of medical goods. Second prize was awarded to Spectralight (Poland) for SpectraDrone, an outside leisure application. ThunderFly (Czech Republic) received third prize for TF-ATMON – a system for performing in-situ atmospheric measurements, while fourth prize went to Raytrack (Spain) for 5GBeamCheck, which uses a UAV to perform 5G antenna tests. The winning team receives EUR 100,000, with EUR 60,000 going to the team in second place, EUR 40,000 for third place, and EUR 30,000 to the fourth.
In the MyGalileoSolution competition, the first place in Track 1 (from idea to prototype) went to VisionAnchor (Slovenia) the world’s first video anchor monitoring system for boats , with second prize going to BitPet (Norway), an Augmented Reality mobile game where each player takes care of a digital pet and third prize – to BeeLive (Greece), a beekeeper’s decision making and social networking tool based on GNSS-enabled devices. Meanwhile, in Track 2 (from prototype to product), the top three teams were 10Lines (Estonia), the autonomous parking lot marking solutions in first place, followed by V-Labs (Switzerland), the Augmented Reality
solution for visualizing, measuring and modifying geospatial data with centimeter accuracy in second and Lympik Oculus (Austria), a sport analysis application in third. MyGalileoSolution is the biggest competition ever organized by the GSA, with a prize pool of almost EUR 1.5 million
shared by 50 teams, including the six finalists, with awards ranging from EUR 15,000 to EUR 60,000.
MyGalileoSolution
MyGalileoDrone
The European Global Satellite Systems Agency (GSA) Galileo Green Lane
To ensure the flow of people and goods throughout the European Union (EU), it is important to manage the traffic situation at the EU borders, including at UK-EU border, where traffic has accumulated following of the closure of the border with France, Belgium and Netherlands. The “Galileo Green Lane” mobile solution, developed in May by the European GNSS Agency (GSA) in collaboration with the European Commission, does exactly this – facilitating the free movement of traffic across borders by providing a real-time visualisation of the border situation to both border authorities and drivers.
Galileo’s positioning services were leveraged earlier this year to develop the Galileo Green Lane solution. The monitoring tool was developed to support border control authorities and freight transport companies during the COVID-19 pandemic by reducing the waiting times at borders and facilitating the free movement of critical goods. “Our goal is to take advantage of the opportunities provided by Galileo to support EU companies and citizens. With the Galileo Green Lane solution, we are helping to mitigate the impact of the pandemic while improving the situation for thousands of drivers at this difficult time,” said GSA Executive Director Rodrigo da Costa.
Real-time visualisation
For truck drivers, the mobile solution provides real-time visualisation of border traffic, through an EU-wide map indicating crossing times. It allows drivers to evaluate the waiting time at each border crossing.
When drivers enter a geofenced area within a specified distance from a border, they receive a notification produced by the border officers on the current situation at that border. Their location is collected anonymously only when they are approaching the border and it is solely used to update the overall border picture. Crowdsourced information is aggregated, including data from the leading European real-time visibility platform provided by Sixfold. For border control authorities, the app provides real-time visualisation of the situation at border crossings along with regular updates on the traffic flow situation. The “Galileo Green Lane” can now be used on all European Union Member State borders, allowing real-time visualisation at nearly 200 strategic border points.
Galileo Green Lane
ITF (International Transport Forum at the OECD)
Shell joins ITF Corporate Partnership Board
Royal Dutch Shell plc (Shell) has joined the International Transport Forum’s (ITF) Corporate Partnership Board. Shell and the ITF will work together on sustainability issues, the decarbonisation of transport, innovative mobility and workforce diversity.
“As we move into a new age of mobility, reducing transport emissions remains a central challenge to achieving our climate goals. There can be no clean mobility without clean energy,” said Young Tae Kim, Secretary-General of the ITF. “We are delighted that Shell will be contributing to our important work on decarbonising transport as a member of the ITF Corporate Partnership Board.”
“In line with our Climate Ambition, Shell is working with broad coalitions of businesses, governments and other parties – sector by sector – to help identify and enable viable decarbonisation pathways,” said Carlos Maurer, Executive Vice President, Shell Global Commercial. “Decarbonising the transport sectors will require urgent action and long-term vision from policymakers to stimulate commercial and consumer opportunities. The ITF provides a leading platform to advance transport policy in this direction, and we are very excited to work more closely with ITF experts and other members of their Corporate Partnership Board.”
The ITF is an intergovernmental organisation with 62 member countries that facilitates global dialogue for better transport. The ITF acts as a think tank for member governments and organises an annual summit of transport ministers. The Corporate Partnership Board is the ITF’s platform for engaging with the private sector and enriching global transport policy discussion with a business perspective.
The members of the ITF Corporate Partnership Board are: AB InBev, Airbus, Alstom, Aramco, Bosch, Cruise, ExxonMobil, Iberdrola, Incheon International Airport, Kakaomobility, Kyyti, Michelin, NXP, PTV Group, Penta Security, RATP Group, Shell, Siemens, SNCF, SPEA Engineering, Total, Toyota, Uber, Valeo, Volvo Cars, Volvo Group and Waymo.