- October 5, 2020
- Posted by: EARSC
- Categories: EARSC News, European EO Industry, Internationalization
photos credit: https://www.esa.int/
The Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME) has
approved the ConnectEO project – “Connecting European Earth Observation to
International Markets”.
Spanish version of the press release here.
The European Association of Remote Sensing Companies – EARSC (Belgium), Pôle Mer Bretagne Atlantique – PMBA (France) and Technological Corporation of Andalusia – CTA (Spain) kicked off the ConnectEO project – “Connecting European Earth Observation to International Markets”. Funded by the EASME under the COSME Cluster Go International programme, ConnectEO aims to promote and foster market access between the European Earth Observation SMEs and two target countries: Australia and Chile. The project will focus on the use of EO addressing business opportunities and key socioeconomic/environmental challenges in the maritime and agricultural sectors.
ConnectEO will accomplish the implementation plans and internationalisation roadmap/strategy developed under its predecessor IDEEO project (Internationalisation & Diversification of European Earth Observation), in which six countries were assessed for the potential uptake of European maritime and agriculture EO services. These six countries have been narrowed down to the two ConnectEO targets (Australia and Chile).
In order to meet the expected impacts specified by the Call, ConnectEO has defined three key initiatives that will ensure that the objectives will be achieved:
• Creation of a back office: preparation of companies through the provision of supporting information on the target markets.
• Launch of Trade Missions: facilitating the creation of meaningful personal relationships on which successful partnerships are built.
• Development of a Front Office pilot: a dedicated physical presence in Australia to identify business ‘on-the-ground’, with a view to a dedicated sales pipeline in the long term.
The project virtually kicked-off on September 16th, 2020, will run over two years, starting from 1st September 2020. The project partners are currently preparing the back-office documentation facing the major challenge of facilitating business opportunities under these exceptional times by exploring different ways to achieve the project objectives.
ConnectEO expects to support target market users such as farmers, maritime users to drive down costs, increase revenues and become more efficient overall in the targeting Chilean and Australian stakeholders.
For more information on ConnectEO, contact: Rory Donnelly – (rory.donnelly@earsc.org)
