ESNC to give awards for using Galileo compatible chipsets

Navigation information has become an essential part of our daily lives. Thus, the priorities are shifting from the deployment of infrastructure to service delivery across the globe. This source of positioning data offers a manifold platform for all kinds of solutions.

Currently, 95 percent of chipsets on the market are compatible with Galileo, the European Global Satellite Navigation System (GNSS). This combination of data provided by Galileo and GPS will increase the accuracy and resilience of satellite navigation and all kinds of respective applications. The European Satellite Navigation Competition (ESNC) is fostering the development of new ideas, service delivery and applications based on Galileo.

The ESNC awards such applications, services and new ideas that are using Galileo GNSS data to manage important challenges faced by business and society. Renowned institutions and regional partners are set to award prizes worth over EUR 1 million in total within more than 20 challenge categories.

The main target groups include SMEs, startups, universities and individuals in the fields of business, research, and higher education who are welcome to submit their ideas. Submissions can demonstrate their innovative use of GNSS data across a wide variety of challenge topics.

Partners of the 2018 edition are the European GNSS Agency (GSA), the European Space Agency (ESA), the German Aerospace Center (DLR), and the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI). In addition, participants choose from this year's confirmed 18 international partner regions.

Carlo des Dorides, Executive Director of the European GNSS Agency (GSA): “The European Satellite Navigation Competition (ESNC) has always been ahead of its time. I am especially excited to see GNSS-based ideas boosting innovation in the field of Smart Cities, the Internet of Things (IoT), Mobile Health (mHealth), and many other applications. GSA has been a partner of the Competition since its early days, and we are looking forward to more successful stories.”

Together with cash prizes, challenge winners will receive access to an international network of GNSS organisations, crowd investing platform, and business development support.

We're proud of the active role the ESNC is playing in the commercialization of GNSS products and services,' states Thorsten Rudolph, Managing Director of AZO Anwendungszentrum GmbH Oberpfaffenhofen, the competition organizer. 'Since 2004, the competition has selected 307 winners in total. They were chosen out of more than 11,500 entrants from 90 different countries, who submitted over 4,000 cutting-edge business ideas. This is an excellent demonstration of how the innovation competition functions as a European deal flow pipeline for Earth observation.'