From Space to Streets: satellite data for cities (Highlights)

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I think it's a really good,
exciting moment for them to try out,

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dip their toes in,
and start using space tech.

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Well, welcome all to the Kurrant
booth, and welcome to our panel.

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Our panelists today are working
together on SPACE4Cities, an EU-funded

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project testing five satellite-based
solutions across 15 European cities,

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making them the perfect experts
to tell us about how we turn data

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from space into real
improvements down here on Earth.

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You've talked about
fragmentation in the market

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for satellite-based solutions.

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What does that mean in practice?

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What's stopping cities from using
these technologies, this data,

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and how is SPACE4Cities trying
to change that fragmentation?

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So SPACE4Cities is for us
a very important project.

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When we launch a call for proposal,
when we launch a tender,

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we have noticed that there
are two important problems.

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The first one is the composition
of the consortium,

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in the sense that when some companies
have to create a consortium to apply

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to our calls, the companies that are
part of the consortium are big

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or small companies, research
institutes, but it's quite rare

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that in the consortium there
are also end users, final users.

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In the case of SPACE4Cities

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there are five
municipalities that are part

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of the team developing these
solutions that will be the users,

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the final users.

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In the case of the municipalities,
when I interact with them,

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I notice that they are not aware
of the potential of the use

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of the space data.

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For this reason, it's important
to develop solutions

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to showcase the big value
of space solutions.

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And then, Renske, one way SPACE4Cities
is addressing this fragmentation is

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through pre-commercial procurement,
and you've used this approach before

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for autonomous buses and drones.

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Why does it work for cities?

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Indeed, for Forum Virium Helsinki,
we're the innovation organization

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of the city of Helsinki.

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It's the seventh PCP, pre-commercial
procurement, that we are involved in,

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the fourth that we are leading, and
we love this type of project so much

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because it's really like a co-creation
process, and that's quite rare

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in EU projects.

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And then we opened up a call
for tenders, which is usual for PCPs.

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As a result, we got
an overwhelmingly large response,

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140 tenders from all over Europe.

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The majority, the large majority,
SMEs and startups, mostly startups.

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We selected 20 out of those 140,
and then it's a phased process

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in which each phase we dropped
50% of the companies,

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from 20 to 10 to now the five winners.

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And with each phase,
the budgets went up.

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So a company that goes
within our PCP from start

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to finish receives approximately
€400,000, a bit less,

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which is for a small company
a significant amount of R&D money.

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So Eleonora, let's look at what
these solutions can actually do.

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Your CLIMAPS platform is being tested
in Amsterdam to address flooding

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and urban heat.

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What information does it give
city planners, and how does

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that help them make decisions
they wouldn't be able to make if

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they didn't have this?

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CLIMAPS, actually,
and the platform we developed,

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helps support the urban planning.

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In what sense?

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The urban planner receives
not only the raw data,

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they receive an analysis and with KPI.

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What is the added value?

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Is basically the capacity to
understand which is the future impact

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of a master plan, for example.

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So apart from the platform,
but within the platform,

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the urban planner can
upload the master plan

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and to test before investing
public money, for sure,

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in order to understand if this kind
of project, renovating project,

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can really impact in a good
way or in a worse scenario,

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leading to a worse scenario
from an environmental point of view.

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Can I very shortly add what I
also forgot to mention:

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the goal of the PCP, that it needs
to go beyond the state of the art,

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it needs to be highly innovative.

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So it's just that this solution and
the four others that are the winners,

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it's not yet as such on the market.

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So it's really going beyond
the state of the art.

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It's part of the PCP and they've
been doing a great job.

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SPACE4Cities isn't
just testing solutions

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in the original pilot cities.

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Ten more cities joined
in October, if I'm correct?

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So yeah, basically we are
representing the demand side.

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So there's a lot of, obviously,
suppliers of space solutions,

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but often the problem is that the
potential buyers, like cities,

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they don't actually know what the
solutions can do for them, right?

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And OASC has a network of 200
cities, but we also reached out

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to many other networks
and cities that we are aware

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of to educate them first.

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Eventually we then launched a call
for replicators, and we are very glad

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to confirm we have now ten additional
cities joining us, and they're all

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from different geographies,
from Spain all the way to Lithuania,

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or from Greece all the way
to France.

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Latitudo 40 has worked with
Naples for years and Helsinki

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on monitoring greenery.

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How do you adapt the same
satellite technology to two cities

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with such different
climates and priorities?

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For example, the tool
and the technology is the same.

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Okay, so satellite data are the source
and the AI algorithms are the same.

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And the case is
that for sure in Naples

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we have heat stress during summer.

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We have a lot of urban fabrics, less
greenery, and so the attention will be

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for sure in land surface
temperature and parameters,

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urban heat islands, for example.

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From a city like Helsinki,
where the abundance

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of greenery is very important instead
of the other Mediterranean cities,

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let's say, the importance will be
more into understanding the life cycle

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of the green, the green
health, and how also

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it will impact the long winter
and snow coverage, for example.

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So the information that will be
in the platform will be others, okay?

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But then the pipeline
and the tool will be the same.

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The necessity,
the priority are different,

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but mainly the tool will scale
in the same way using the data

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and transforming the data
into actionable insights,

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and so also possible to understand
and to make urban planning on that.

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Valeria?

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Apart from the innovative
solution developed by Latitudo 40,

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it's very important for us
to see how the startups

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and the small companies are growing.

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It's very satisfying for us
as EUSPA to see the growth

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of these small companies
that want to scale up.

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Just to add to that, I think
that's the real value for me,

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is to have a safe environment
for her company to learn,

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right, from customers,
and basically have these conversations

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and also notice where are
problems, issues, barriers,

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and then also find hopefully
an approach to overcome them, right?

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So I think it's really
a mutual learning experience,

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not only for the city
but also for the supplier.

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So I mean, obviously there
is innovation out there,

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but testing a solution
is one thing and using

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it in everyday city
operations is another.

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What does it take
to make that transition?

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There will be KPIs,

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there will be things agreed between
the supplier and obviously the city,

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which hopefully will show what a good
outcome for a city would look like.

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And once the pilots are over, we
review it and if those KPIs are met,

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then the city itself has evidence
sufficiently to potentially invest

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in this solution.

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I wanted to add that if you ask
about barriers to wider uptake,

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what we've heard as well
from the companies is that one

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of the most difficult things
is to find the real end user.

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And we can facilitate
that now through the projects,

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and we do that for the replicator
cities, and we try to do it as well as

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we can during the project lifetime.

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But if the project has ended,
the companies need access

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not to the EU project managers or to
the innovation department necessarily,

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but really to the real end user.

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And that's very tricky
after the project lifetime.

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That's why we try to do as much as

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we can now during the
project to help them.

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Now we have seen that a lot
of these very innovative interesting

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demonstrators developed with this
funding, they are not commercialized

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because there is also the need
to provide funding for the last part,

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the last mile to commercialization.

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With just one sentence, what should a
mayor visiting the Smart City Expo do

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next year to start
using satellite data?

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I wish that there would be more
sessions in the official program

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on this topic.

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What I suggest is to ask
to the satellite for an answer

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to their problem.

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We will go further with the agents
also applied to the Earth observation

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that are coming also,
this kind of technology.

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And so for the urban officers,
they should start asking also

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to the Earth observation.

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It's not so far, even if they think

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that the Earth observation is too
far still, but there are a lot

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of use cases also down on Earth.

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And if I can say just one thing,
is that not only Earth observation,

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but there is also navigation with
the European GPS, that is Galileo.

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What I would say to a mayor
is that the future is bright

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for space technologies.

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There's already so much interest I
can see from our project engagement.

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We had more than 120 cities sign up

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as follower cities throughout
our journey, right?

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They've been informed
what's happening.

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They showed an interest
in what's happening there.

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And the potential already is now
evident as well in the applications

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that we develop and the pilots.

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And EUSPA and other
companies are investing

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more and more into the space sector.

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There will be more
capabilities available

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to even do more great things.

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Before we wrap up,
can I take a moment to say

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that we have this innovation catalog?

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So it's from the SPACE4Cities project.

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It features the five winning
solutions and the lead city

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and the two replicator cities
in which they will be piloted.

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So if anyone wants
to read a little bit more,

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we have the space4cities.eu website.

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It's digitally available as well.

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Thank you very much, and thank
you for the conversation.