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Home 2022 November 16

Daily Archives: 11/16/2022

Presagis Teams with Kambill Systems to Provide AI Geospatial Services

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News Desk
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Presagis Teams with Kambill Systems to Provide AI Geospatial Services

Presagis has teamed with Kambill Systems and their HelloGeo platform to offer fully automated, large-area artificial intelligence (AI)-based feature extraction services to national mapping agencies and other geospatial organizations in the Asia Pacific Region (APAC).

The team’s first two contracts have been awarded by the Indian National Survey Agency/State Revenue Department of India for a massive building footprint and vegetation extraction from unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) data.

“Presagis is honored to team with Kambill Systems and their HelloGeo cloud platform to provide a comprehensive AI-based geospatial solution to Indian National Survey Agency/State Revenue Department of India,” said Jean-Michel Briere, President of Presagis based in Montreal, Canada.

“Together, our companies plan to deliver fast and accurate large-area mapping services to civilian and defense survey organizations across the APAC Region,” he added.

Kambill and Presagis will demonstrate their integrated geospatial mapping capabilities in booth 37 at the GeoSmart India 2022 Conference being held November 15-17 in Hyderabad.

The AI-based feature extraction tools are part of the recently released Presagis VELOCITY 5D (V5D) digital twin generation platform, which will also be demonstrated at the conference.

“Kambill chose to integrate the Presagis AI building footprint and vegetation extraction tools into its HelloGeo geospatial solution after Presagis completed a nationwide 3D digital twin creation project covering 65,000 square kilometers for a European country in just three days,” said Mr. Kamal Sharma, CEO of Kambill Systems. The automated Presagis AI algorithms succeeded in identifying 1.34 million building footprints in satellite imagery, which exceeded the results of manual footprint delineation by a staggering 55,000 structures.

“The speed and accuracy of our AI feature extraction algorithms – especially in projects covering massive geographic areas – are unmatched in the geospatial community,” said Briere. “Our automated process will deliver a significant savings in time and money for Indian National Survey Agency/ State Revenue Department of India which currently relies on manual extraction methods.”

Presagis has leveraged AI and game engine technologies to build its cloud-based V5D platform for fast and automated conversion of massive volumes of diverse 2D geospatial data into high-fidelity 3D digital twins.

With no geospatial data processing expertise, V5D users can easily produce realistic and scalable digital twins that are ready immediately for use in advanced visualization and simulation to unlock the context often hidden in geospatial data and empower better decision.

UNL, Genesys International Partner up for Hyperlocal Location Technology

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News Desk
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UNL, Genesys International Partner up for Hyperlocal Location Technology

UNL Global and Genesys International announced their partnership to create a hyperlocal Location Technology Platform powered by a high-accuracy 3D digital map of India and bring joint geospatial and mapping solutions to the Indian market.

In joining forces, Genesys and UNL will be leveraging their individual strengths to build a full-stack solution, combining Genesys’ high-quality and high-definition location data of key Indian cities together with UNL’s smart 3D geocell-based micro-location technology and location services.

“Combining Genesys location data of India with UNL smart 3D grid and geoIDs will allow to further amplify the value of location intelligence and enable higher accuracy and relevance of the digital maps of India, which is critical to the success of location-based services today.”, says Xander van der Heijden, CEO and founder of UNL.

Through their technology integration, the Indian market will be able to access the most accurate geospatial solutions like addressing, hyperlocal geocoding, routing and geofencing, powered by the highest quality location data and context.

The two companies will also collaborate on developing market-leading industry solutions across industry verticals including e-commerce, logistics, last-mile delivery, and mobility.

Speaking on this occasion, Mr Sajid Malik, CMD of Genesys, said, “Genesys has taken the initiative to develop highly accurate 3D `Digital Twin’ Maps in India, which will spearhead the transformation in map usage in India. We are pleased to be partnering with UNL, bringing this vision forward. This partnership will go a long way in developing last-mile solutions for Indian cities, which will improve delivery efficiency and benefit customers in logistics and e-commerce.”

Location Intelligence Transforming Insurance Sector

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Nibedita Mohanta
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Location Intelligence Transforming Insurance Sector

As rightly said, the nation’s prosperity and economy is directly proportional to uninterrupted access to financial services by one and all.

With BFSI being the core sector, it has now become the necessity to adopt the integrated technologies such as location intelligence, 3D mobile technology, AI & ML, Geo CRM, Geo-Tagging, etc.

Keeping the opportunities and the right focus in mind, GeoSmart India 2022’s day two had some thought provoking sessions with eminent industry leaders discussing how location intelligence is transforming insurance sector.

Parameters of Insurance

Insurance is the business of managing the risks. Penetration of general insurance in India is 1% and that of life insurance is 3%, whereas the health insurance coverage in the US is approximately 91%. And Covid has made us realize that no matter how prepared you are, you can never manage all the risk areas. The definition of insurance goes by three parameters: cost, coverage and claims. Use of data, location intelligence and external factors can help in evaluating all three parameters,” Sachin Seth, MD & CEO, BSE EBIX Insurance.

“Geospatial data is making all the difference. Right costing matters because when you place the price higher than what it should be, you are putting burden on the buyer, who can be a farmer or rikshawdriver,” Seth added.

He added, “Coverage is important from the data perspective. Today being geospatial data available makes a huge difference because whatever coverage are you providing, at the end of the day claims come into picture, you should be able to establish whether it is a genuine claim or false claim. Measurement of the coverage is possible if you are using geospatial data, to be able to provide the time stamp, location, exact occurrence and severity of the incident.”

ALSO READ: Digitalization Empowering Rural India

Demands in Crop Insurance Industry

G Senthil Kumar, Manager – Research & Development, Agriculture Insurance Company of India Ltd. Pointed out that “climate change is affecting productivity.”

He said Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) that came in 2016 is a game changer in crop insurance market.

He also pointed out what are the demands in the crop insurance industry:

Insurable interest: Farmers are the last mile customer in crop insurance and we have to reach to them. So convincing the farmers and getting their farms insured is a big challenge. Location intelligence is driving the entire activity, it is helping insurers to identify the insurable farms. Besides getting the crop sown insured in the farm is another big challenge.

Historical data: Pricing is heavily dependent on the historical data available. Average crop insurance was priced at 10% in 2016 and now it has reached to 15%, this shows how important is historical data. This also shows how climate change is affecting productivity.

Verification has a linkage with insurable interest, where GIS and location plays a major role because the attributes in the vector data can be mapped and automated in the entire crop insurance system.

Risk profiling has linkage with historical data for pricing and developing heat maps, which will help insurers as well as the government to analyze risks.

ALSO READ: Geospatial for Location Analytics and Business Intelligence

Customer behavior drives the market

“Today customer behavior is driving the market, there is AI/ML data that we are using in insurance variables to understand the needs of the customers. Say for example location intelligence has made address verification, address geocoding and risk assessment so much easier and to make better offers for the customer,” Dr. Neena Priyanka, Product Manager, Precisely (Lepton Partner).

She said that importance of location can be seen clearly in real estate insurance sector because the value of property depends on the risk factors associated with demography, and social environment, the locality can be a crime centric and thus the insurance cost varies accordingly. Cost benefit plays a key challenge in this space.

Facilitating End-to-End Logistics with Location Intelligence

By
Sachin Awana
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Facilitating End-to-End Logistics with Location Intelligence

Supply chain logistics have been crucial for economies around the world. Many governments have prioritised making logistics more efficient with technological innovations.

One such technology that provides intervention in complex supply chain systems is location technology. Planning and implementing more and more geospatial components such as location analytics which compliments business intelligence will only grow logistics and supply chain while making it smoother.

With trains, trucks and freight, a lot of potential lies within the logistical movements and their combination with technology.

At the GeoSmart 2022 conference, a session was held on the topic of End-to-End (E2E) Supply Chain Planning and Visibility. Moderated by Nadine Alameh, CEO, Open Geospatial Consortium; the speaker chair included Keyur Doshi, Deputy General Manager, Vadilal Industries Limited; Anita Barik, Deputy Chief Vigilance Office, South Central Railways; Suyash Singh, Co-founder & CEO, GalaxEye Space.

Talking about mapping, Anita Barik, Deputy Chief Vigilance Office, South Central Railways said, “In the PM Gatishakti National Masterplan, it has been emphasised that all the physical assets and infrastructure that have been created by both centre, states and governing other bodies is to be mapped and they have to be synchronized along with the existing infrastructure. Layers of GIS-based maps are being used for that and almost all the government agencies today have a unit setup in their headquarters.”

Capturing a good deal monetary wise to catalyse the adoption of technology in practical applications of logistics has been a challenge for years now, and it needs a dedicated investor.

Discussing the issues of funding, risks, and barriers in End-to-End logistics, Suyash Singh, Co-founder & CEO, GalaxEye Space said, “The question is who really brings money to the table to adopt this (location intelligence) technology? Unless there is someone who adopts the technology for some money and cost until then I think end-to-end visibility still remains a topic and not really becomes a reality.”

Bentley 2022 Year in Infrastructure Roundup

By
Meenal Dhande
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Bentley 2022 Year in Infrastructure Roundup

At the 2022 Year in Infrastructure Conference, London, Bentley Systems, the infrastructure engineering software company, announced the 12 winners of the 2022 Going Digital Awards in Infrastructure. Bentley also announced new products – Bentley Infrastructure Cloud and new capabilities of its iTwin Platform.

Last week London was bustling with the geospatial event, and one of the most noteworthy events was Bentley Systems’ 2022 Year in Infrastructure (YII) Conference. The YII Conference is the company’s annual meeting for industry executives, government leaders, and representatives of international industry organizations.

Through this conference, Bentley Systems honors the extraordinary work of Bentley software users advancing infrastructure design, construction, and operations worldwide.

The categories for this year’s Going Digital Awards in Infrastructure encompass all forms of infrastructure projects and stages – from design to construction to operations.

The jurors determined the winners of the 12 award categories from 36 finalists that were shortlisted from over nearly 300 nominations submitted by more than 180 organizations from 47 countries.

Winners of the 2022 Going Digital Awards in Infrastructure

Bridges and Tunnels 

Ferrovial Construction and Alamo Construction

IH35 Nex Central Station 

San Antonio, Texas, United States

Construction

ACCIONA

Safely Removing Dangerous Level Crossings through Digital Construction 

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Enterprise Engineering 

Mott MacDonald

Smart Object Library for the Environment Agency 

United Kingdom

Facilities, Campuses, and Cities 

Sydney Airport

Maps@SYD 

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Geoprofessional

Mott MacDonald

Driving Efficiency and Sustainability in Material Reuse through GeoBIM 

Birmingham, West Midlands, United Kingdom

Grid 

POWERCHINA Hubei

Full Lifecycle Digital Application in Wuhan Xudong 220kV Substation Project 

Wuhan, Hubei, China

Process and Power Generation  

OQ Upstream

OQ Asset Reliability Digitalization with Purpose 

Oman

Rail and Transit 

PT Wijaya Karya (Persero) Tbk

Integrated High-Speed Rail & Station Jakarta – Bandung 

Jakarta, Indonesia

Roads and Highways  

Waka Kotahi and FH/HEB JV, BECA Ltd.

Takitimu North Link 

Tauranga, Western Bay of Plenty, New Zealand

Structural Engineering 

WSP

Unity Place Delivered with Optimized Design by WSP Using Innovations from Bentley 

Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom

Surveying and Monitoring 

Singapore Land Authority

SG Digital Twin Empowered by Mobile Mapping 

Singapore 

Water and Wastewater 

Jacobs and PUB, Singapore’s National Water Agency

Singapore’s National Water Agency 

Singapore

In addition to the Going Digital Awards in Infrastructure winners, Bentley’s Chief Executive Officer Greg Bentley highlighted the Founders’ Honours in his plenary session on November 15.

The Founders’ Honours are chosen individually by the Bentley founders from the hundreds of Going Digital Awards nominations received. This recognition is presented to a few exemplary projects, individuals, and organizations that particularly inspired Bentley in its mission of advancing the world’s infrastructure while sustaining the global economy and the environment.

In his presentation, Greg Bentley said that of the finalists named in the 2022 Going Digital Awards, 42% credited iTwin as opposed to 27% in 2021 and 19% in 2020s. The use of digital twins has been propelled by the global pandemic, which restricted access on-site.

Instead, many companies looked at digital alternatives and digital twins, which has propounded the growing emphasis the global infrastructure community is placing on these solutions. For more details on the Founders’ Honours, click here.

New products

The company also announced Bentley Infrastructure Cloud, its combination of enterprise systems that span the end-to-end lifecycle and value chain of the world’s infrastructure. Powered by the iTwin Platform and Bentley’s infrastructure schemas and thus seamlessly integrating with Bentley’s engineering applications.

Bentley Infrastructure Cloud will enable better creation, delivery, and ongoing operation of better infrastructure, through complete and evergreen digital twins. Bentley Infrastructure Cloud encompasses ProjectWise for project delivery; SYNCHRO for construction; and AssetWise, for asset operations.

These enterprise systems now leverage digital twin technologies powered by iTwin to open up data contained in engineering files through automated and intrinsic mapping to Bentley’s infrastructure schemas.

Bentley Infrastructure Cloud provides user organizations with significant opportunities to improve collaboration, productivity, and quality by advancing these enterprise systems to become fundamentally data-centric without disrupting file-based workflows.

Keith Bentley, Founder & Chief Technology Officer, spoke next about how the iTwin platform will bring value to businesses in their day-to-day activities. COO Nicholas Cumins, VP-Mobility Dustin Parkman, and VP-Technology Julien Moutte shared elaborate technical details of the new products.

Rodrigo Fernandes, Director of ES(D)G (Empowering Sustainable Development Goals), shared Bentley’s initiatives in support of circularity and climate change adaptation. “Circularity and carbon capture are top of mind in infrastructure and engineering,” he said.

While Katriona Lord-Levins, Chief Success Officer, spoke about some of the company’s programs in the area of learning and education, such as the Digital Twin Design Challenge, a contest where students aged 12-25 years have the opportunity to reimagine a real-world structure designed with the Minecraft video game and Bentley’s iTwin technology.

Presentations by the finalists 

On November 14, finalists presented their projects at the 2022 Year in Infrastructure and Going Digital Awards event in London before the global press and 11 independent jury panels.

To view all of the finalist presentations, visit here. These presentations illustrate how Bentley’s users master project challenges and achieve set objectives by leveraging the latest digital advancements.

Geospatial World spoke to some of the finalists and winners of YII:

“Bentley Systems solutions such as ContextCapture, iTwin, MicroStation, OpenBridge, OpenBuildings, OpenRail, OpenRoads, PLAXIS, and SYNCHRO helped the project save USD 185 million in overall construction cost and helped completion of the project six months before the original schedule. The project will have a transformative effect on the macroeconomy in the long term as this high-speed train project will consume 17% less energy per 100 km and 12% less resistance during operation. We are optimistic, planning to replicate and apply the lesson learned from this project and use this digital twin as the starting point to build the next HSR from Bandung to Surabaya,” said Romi Ramadhan, BIM General Manager, WIKA.

PT WIJAYA KARYA (PERSERO) TBK are the winners in the Rail and Transit Category.

Dave Overman, Survey Crew Chief, The Foth Companies (finalists in the Roads and Highways Category), said, “By combining science, engineering, and technology, we establish dynamic project environments for our clients, making great things possible. Solutions such as ContextCapture, MicroStation, OpenRoads, and ProjectWise helped us secure repair and replacement funding from storms by up to 75% and enabled us to increase in adhering to the Historic Preservation Tax Incentive Program by 50%. We hope to serve as a model for communities in rural areas experiencing funding shortfalls – demonstrating how to leverage resources more efficiently.”

Adam Robson, Regional Rehearsal Lead at MWH Treatment, representing the Burnley Wastewater Treatment Works Capital Investment Project in the UK (finalist in the Water and Wastewater Category), said, “The Burnley WWTW project, part of United Utilities Water Company, was planned to improve site capabilities and comply with new, stricter regulatory standards and accommodate population growth.

“The project was designed with a clear digital intent to address coordination and logistical challenges in the context of time, cost, and site constraints. The team generated a 4D construction model using SYNCHRO to optimally phase the works and support monthly digital rehearsals to review progress. The 4D model serves as a digital twin, enabling informed decision making, and will be provided to the client so it can be used during the O&M phase.”

The conference is over, but we still need to complete it. Stay tuned as we publish video interviews with Bentley leaders and the Going Digital Awards finalists.

e-GEOS and Satellogic Collaborate to Advance EO Data Services

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News Desk
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e-GEOS and Satellogic Collaborate to Advance EO Data Services

e-GEOS (Telespazio 80 %, ASI 20 %) and Satellogic have announced that they have entered into a Master Service Agreement that will grant e-GEOS non-exclusive, world-wide distribution rights for satellite data from the Satellogic Aleph-1 constellation of very-high resolution optical low-Earth-orbit satellites.

More specifically, the agreement enables e-GEOS and the Telespazio group to task new imagery as well asorder imagery from Satellogic’s archive, which may be also used to create and distribute value-added and derivative products.

Additionally, the agreement establishes terms and conditions that enable fast, joint response to market opportunities, combining both parties’ satellite assets with e-GEOS expertise in the development of services and applications delivered through vertical digital platforms.

Finally, e-GEOS and Satellogic, recognizing the value of having a direct downlink and processing capability to support the companies’ businesses, intend to work together to set-up a Satellogic downlink and processing ground station at the e-GEOS Matera Space Centre to serve their customers with an advanced level of service.

“This collaboration with Satellogic supports our role in the world as a leading Geo-Information player with access to new and different optical capabilities that are fully complementary with COSMO-SkyMed radar constellation.” Said Paolo Minciacchi, CEO of e-GEOS. “This agreement is a first step, which also opens up the possibility of delivering data and services worldwide with possible NRT focus in Europe and in the Mediterranean basin.”

“It is our company mission to make critical Earth Observation data more accessible to more decision-makers worldwide. This strategic collaboration with e-GEOS supports this mission by creating new opportunities for European and global customers who need access to high frequency, low-cost, and high-quality imagery,” stated Matt Tirman, Chief Commercial Officer at Satellogic.

Digitalization Empowering Rural India

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Geospatial World
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Digitalization Empowering Rural India

On the second day of Geosmart India 2022, the union minister of state for rural development emphasized the importance of digitalization and geospatial integration for villages

The Union Minister of State for Rural Development, Faggan Singh Kulaste, on Wednesday, said that the digitalization of land records will result in transparency and empowerment of rural India.

Speaking at the GeoSmart India 2022, a three-day annual event on geospatial technologies, the minister said even uneducated people of rural India can be part of the ongoing digitalization process in the country.

Dispute Resolution

Speaking on dispute resolution related to land, the minister said, “Without land access and rights, there can be no progress in agriculture. For those who are poor and marginalized, land records are crucial. In the near future, we will finish all the land surveys, even in states with high land rights disputes.”

“When land disputes arise, then we get to know the underlying complexity of agricultural lands, be it family issues, disputes, or land acquisition. It has been witnessed that there are people who were granted land ceilings, but still, they don’t have ownership. These are some of the challenges faced by the people. With the help of geospatial, we can advance land and property management rights, improvise the records, and come up with solutions against encroachment,” he added.

Narrating his experience over the years, the minister stated that at the grassroots level, people are interested in these topics, but the landowner or so-called zamindari class that exerts control, while the tillers and workers from the downtrodden strata are paid a pittance.

Towards Access & Equity

Explaining the underlying complexity of different mechanisms, he asserted that India is a land of contradictions, but the usage of geospatial is most in the land sector. Even a layman from a village is able to access digital tech today due to the sweeping IT revolution that began during PM Vajpayee.

“Geospatial provides a level of transparency in land records. There are multiple stages through which ordinary people have to go, which gets irksome for the people. Integrating geospatial technology not only imparts transparency but enables common people to avail their rights without going through an ordeal. There are lots of challenges that geospatial can help overcome”.

“To prevent forgery and Benami property, there has been a centralized process and registry of all records. Digitalization has empowered the citizenry. PM Modi has constantly reiterated that land rights are the base of an Aatma Nirbhar Bharat. We have attempted to make the portals multi-lingual so that there is the ease of access at all levels of the society”.

Digitizing Records

Land records are available online these days. The ministry has enhanced transparency mainly for the vulnerable and the marginalized sections of society who have many odds stacked against them.

“During a calamity, or when the topic of proper compensation for land acquisition is raised, we try that people benefit from the circle rate that has been decided. While it sounds very simple, but there are many complexities at the ground level”.

“In this country, the simplification of language around issues such as land, and property, which are usually laden with complexity, to remove hurdles, making citizens equal participants in social progress, and empowering them”, he concluded.

Unified Linking

“Taking the digitalization process further, all the land holdings of the country would be linked to the Aadhaar of the owners”, said Hukum Singh Meena, Additional Secretary, Government of India at GeoSmart India.

Hukum Singh also mooted that land-related disputes need to be resolved by strong legislation in a time-bound manner. He said that the objective of the whole exercise is to achieve One Nation One Software for the Registration of land. More than 60% of the litigation in India are land related, he added.

Emphasizing aerial survey and drone technology he said that modern-day technology enables us to locate a plot of land with its owner through reverse engineering.

Synspective, GCRS Partner to Provide SAR Solutions in South Asia

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News Desk
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Synspective, GCRS Partner to Provide SAR Solutions in South Asia

Geo Climate Risk Solutions and Synspective have announced a new partnership for SAR-based analysis solutions for critical infrastructure and mining industries in India and across South Asia.

Under this partnership, GCRS and Synspective will join together to provide risk analysis solutions for critical infrastructure and mining industries to accelerate net-zero initiatives in the region.

Also, GCRS will apply Synspective’s SAR satellite data to evaluate and map land subsidence/displacement along critical infrastructure systems and assets, including hydrocarbon and water pipelines, roads, and railway corridors.

The two companies will pursue opportunities to estimate ground biomass using SAR data as well as develop near real-time predictive models to monitor floods and landslides.

G Prasad Babu, Founder and CEO of Geo Climate Risk Solutions Pvt said, “Partnership with Synspective focus on infusing SAR technologies into our risk analytics solutions to provide resilient and sustainable solutions for critical infrastructure integrity, carbon offsetting and disaster risk reduction. We will become global leaders in providing blended and innovative models.

Dr Motoyuki Arai, Founder and CEO of Synspective: “Combining our SAR solutions with the expertise and knowledge of GCRS is truly the perfect match allowing us to enhance our offering to India and South Asia. We believe this will bring many benefits to our clients across various industries including utilities, mining and rail, and also contribute to building more resilient and sustainable communities in these areas.”

Synspective will be exhibiting at the Geo Smart India Conference located at the Hyderabad International Convention Centre from November 15-17. Visit booth No. 33 where representatives will be discussing the benefits of this newly announced partnership.

Microsoft & Planet Join Hands to Provide AI, Satellite Data in Africa

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News Desk
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Microsoft & Planet Join Hands to Provide AI, Satellite Data in Africa

Planet Labs and Microsoft announced an expanded partnership to apply artificial intelligence (AI) technology and satellite data to support African climate adaptation projects.

This technology collaboration is in support of Microsoft’s recently-announced first global expansion of its AI for Good Labs into Nairobi, Kenya and Cairo, Egypt and the establishment of a corresponding AI Innovation Council with local partners and nonprofits.

Through this program, Africa-based data scientists will have access to Planet satellite imagery from across the African continent to inform projects, as nominated by the AI Innovation Council, that have a specific focus on early warning systems and climate adaptation – the process of adjusting to current or expected effects of climate change.

“This is proof of the visible and actionable change that AI and satellite data can deliver to solve complex problems, whether that’s in humanitarian action, sustainability or health.”

“Two things that our Planet and Microsoft teams share in common is a very strong bias to action and to do the most good at the best scale,” said Andrew Zolli, Chief Impact Officer of Planet. “Once we were able to see how impactful combining AI and satellite data could be, not just technically, but how impactful it can be when in the right hands, we immediately began to think about the complex problems we could go after – humanitarian aid, climate change, food and energy insecurity, etc.”

Global Renewables Watch

The pair of companies, in conjunction with The Nature Conservancy, today announced on Energy Day at the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27), that interested users can now sign up for private previews of the Global Renewables Watch (GRW), a first-of-its-kind living atlas intended to map and measure all utility-scale solar and wind installations on Earth using artificial intelligence (AI) and satellite imagery, allowing users to evaluate clean energy transition progress and track trends over time.

The GRW team also unveiled the complete mapping of solar and wind installations of Kenya, Brazil and Egypt, joining the renewable energy sites mapped in Germany and India that were announced during GRW’s launch in September 2022. Private preview signup is available at: https://www.globalrenewableswatch.org/

Ukraine Building Damage Assessment

The first collaboration that brought Microsoft and Planet together earlier this year was for the Office of the Secretary General of the United Nations, working alongside the UN Operations and Crisis Center (UNOCC) to monitor schools, hospitals and water, sanitation, hygiene and healthcare waste management infrastructure (WASH) across Ukraine to understand who and what had been affected.

The UNOCC supports UN senior leadership in decision-making, situational awareness, risk and crisis management. In response to the invasion of Ukraine and in preparation for future similar situations, the goal was to develop a robust change detection system, harnessing AI and satellite-based technologies, that would bypass inherent traditional damage assessment challenges and support the scale and speed needed for ground teams to respond effectively.

The team surveyed eight Ukrainian oblasts, coupling the UNOCC’s ground reports with Microsoft’s AI and machine learning models on top of Planet’s satellite data, in order to identify and determine if infrastructure was affected or destroyed, and approximate the date on which the damage occurred.

From these mapping assessments, the team was then able to determine how many people were affected, by comparing confirmation of the damaged schools or hospitals with the size of the student body or the number of registered patients.

“Prior, for these locations where they were unable to be onsite, the UNOCC did not have documented or reliable evidence of building damage. Through this project, the UN team now has a full account not only of affected infrastructure, but also the displaced and vulnerable populations those buildings served,” said Juan Lavista Ferres, Microsoft VP and Chief Data Scientist. “This is proof of the visible and actionable change that AI and satellite data can deliver to solve complex problems, whether that’s in humanitarian action, sustainability or health.”

‘Digital Twin’ of Earth to Aid Climate Change Studies

By
Rituparna Sengupta
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‘Digital Twin’ of Earth to Aid Climate Change Studies

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is collaborating with Nvidia and Lockheed Martin to build the Earth Observation Digital Twin, or EODT. This niche Digital Twin application will bring forth a prototype of Earth modeled on real-time geophysical data sourced from satellites and ground stations.

EODT to aid climate change research

The EODT is being designed as a two-dimensional computer program. This platform is envisioned to be able to provide a great source of reference for climate researchers and future oriented research systems which may utilize current as well as recent past environmental data.

This digital initiative is poised to provide NOAA with a timely, global visualization of their massive earth based data sets. Some potential climate impacts the EDOT can display include global glacier melting, drought impacts, wildfire prediction and other climate change events.

So, the EODT has the potential to offer effective display of current global climate change concerns. The digital twin system will process multiple types of geophysics data ranging from sea temperature measurements to solar wind information.

Industry collaboration

EODT will run on Amazon Web Services Inc. cloud instances equipped with graphics processing units. Emerging technologies like artificial intelligence play a key role in EODT’s data processing and modeling. It will also perform some computing tasks using systems from Nvidia’s DGX and OVX data center appliance lineups. Lockheed Martin’s open-source OpenRosetta3D application will be used to collect the geophysics data that EOTD will process. Once the data is collected, it will be moved to Nvidia’s Omniverse Nucleus database for processing.

Another component of the system is a software tool called Agatha, which was developed by Lockheed Martin and makes it easier for researchers to interact with geophysics data collected from multiple sources. The first demonstration of EODT’s capabilities is set to take place next September 2023. According to Nvidia, the initial prototype of the system will be designed to visualize sea surface temperature data.

The Digital twin strategy

A digital twin is a virtual representation of an object or system that spans its lifecycle, is updated from real-time data, and uses simulation, machine learning and reasoning to help decision-making.

Primarily we have witnessed industrial applications for the digital twin technology. However in recent times scientists are looking to deploy them in relation to climate change research. The goal is to introduce digital replicas capable of providing more specific, localized and interactive information on climate change. Thus it would foster discussions on how to deal with overall extreme weather impacts.

The digital twin can create the best possible rendition of the real world which can be used to design effective physical assets. These design elements may address given climate issues and thus hasten both the discovery and implementation of solutions. In fact scientists envision these digital models will help a variety of stakeholders understand climate impacts both in the present and in the future. In practical terms, this means turning things like weather data into flooding information or wind predictions into energy potential.

Also Read: Climate Change Prompts Caribbean Island to Create its Digital Twin

Growing need for ‘Climate Change’ research

Climate change leading to extreme weather events and harsh impacts on human societies and infrastructure are steadily on the rise. No more a problem for the distant future, its effects are now being seen and felt every day. Extremely hot days, hurricanes of all intensity categories and the continued rise of planet-warming emissions are ushering in harsh environmental, social and economic impacts. Understanding the damages due to climate change help in assessing the benefits that will accrue from any policy that mitigates climate change impacts.

Overall, climate change will have harmful effects on the US economy. An estimate reports that the US economy would stand to lose between about 1 percent to 4 percent of GDP annually by the end of the century through effects to mortality, labor and the energy sector alone under a high emissions scenario.

The scientific consensus is that human-caused climate change increases the frequency and severity of climate-related events overall.  In this context a better understanding of the extent to which damages are attributable to climate change provide a stronger evidence base for decision-makers to implement policies and actions to avert, minimize and address loss and damage.

The Earth Observation Digital Twin will be an effective tool in actualizing the goal of aligning digital solutions with climate change resolution actions. The data from the EODT will generate useful climate and weather visualizations to support research initiatives in this domain.

The scientific research community will be eagerly watching the progress of this digital twin solution!

Also Read: The World Needs Urgent Climate Action – Now!