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FabSpace 2.0 becomes an official main partner of ActInSpace® 2018, an international innovation contest invented by the French Space Agency (CNES) and supported since the 2nd edition by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the ESA Business Incubation Network

 

This month, FabSpace 2.0 officially announced the new partnership activities for the third edition of ActInSpace® 2018 to be held on the 25^th – 26^th of May 2018 all over the world. ActInSpace® is an international innovation contest inspiring young women and men worldwide to meet challenges based on space technologies, data, patents and infrastructures to launch start-ups into all areas of our daily lives. Designed for students but open to everyone, the objective of the contest is to foster entrepreneurship, encourage start-up creation and promote the use of space technologies and space acquired data to change citizen’s lives, to boost employment and to protect our planet.

The contest also aimed to stimulate the uptake and reuse of space technology and data and identify future applicants for ESA BICs and partner incubators. Since its inception in 2014, 13 start-ups have been created thanks to ActInSpace®. Some of the successful start-ups are including Kermap (www.kermap.com), Upalgo (http://ezako.com/en), Skyai, and Hypermiles (https://hypermiles.tech).

This year contest will be fulfilling an international ambition which are transforming an essentially European edition into an international edition; bringing together 70 cities from all continents; attracting 3000+ participants to work on 60+ different challenges; and creating between 20 and 30 new start-ups.

As partner, FabSpace 2.0 will provide some challenges based on Earth Observation Data (links: (https://bit.ly/2qLXVMv and https://bit.ly/2vuiOAy) and a dedicated prize. Philippe Lattes, Deputy Director for Space from Aerospace Valley, the initiator of FabSpace 2.0 project said: “The Fabspace project is an educational innovation enabling students to discover the Copernicus programme, the potential of Earth Observation data and the world of entrepreneurship. Be part of ActInSpace is an amazing opportunity to highlight FabSpace activities”.

The international opening of the FabSpace project is underway, and a large part of the new launched FabSpaces are already integrated into the actions carried out. There are 11 FabSpaces who are involved as organizer or partner of ActInSpace® 2018 including:

• FabSpace France: Toulouse, Bordeaux, Nice, Brest
• FabSpace Poland: Warsaw
• FabSpace Germany: Darmstadt
• FabSpace Greece: Athens
• FabSpace Cameroon: Yaundé
• FabSpace Cyprus: Limassu
• FabSpace Czech Republic: Prague
• FabSpace The Netherlands: Noordwijk

Just after the contest, each team will be able to apply to the FabSpace 2.0 prize. The most promising project using Earth Observation Data will get a free trip to Toulouse to attend the ActInSpace® 2018 international final; receive a mentoring program by experts in selected area; and a meeting with Airbus representative in Toulouse. The registration is currently open. Students, citizen, and entrepreneurs are encouraged to register. To find out more about ActInSpace® 2018, the FabSpace 2.0 challenges and to register, please visit: https://actinspace.org/

POSTER WITH INFORMATION 

About FabSpace:

FabSpace 2.0 is the open-innovation network for geodata-driven innovation – by leveraging Space data in particular, in Universities 2.0.

Its Work programme topic addressed INSO-4-2015: Innovative schemes for open innovation and science 2.0 b) Academia- Business/Public/CSO knowledge co-creation Coordination and support action. The FabSpace 2.0 project aims at making universities open innovation centres for their region and improving their contribution to the socio-economic and environmental performance of societies.

To achieve these general objectives, the FabSpace 2.0 project offers to concentrate on one research area with high expected socio-economic impact: data-driven innovation, with a particular attention to Earth observation data.

In the six European regions covered by the consortium, partner universities work together with co-located Business Incubation Centres of the European Space Agency (ESA BICs). ESA BICs aim at inspiring entrepreneurs to turn space-connected business ideas into commercial companies, and provide technical expertise and business-development support.

This consortium, completed by TerraNIS – the French company that operates the European Group of Enterprises for a Network of Information Using Space (EUGENIUS) – and IDGEO – provisioning continuous trainings in Geomatics – and the European Business Network (EBN), will be a key success factor for the project.

In addition, FabSpace 2.0 selected 14 new FabSpaces in December 2017 located in various countries worldwide including France, Italy, Czech Republic, Spain, Lithuania, Armenia, Cyprus, The Netherlands, and Cameroon. These new FabSpaces expanded the FabSpace 2.0 network from its first founder FabSpaces in France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Greece, and Poland. The international opening of the FabSpace 2.0 network is underway and will be extended worldwide.    

This project began on March 1^st 2016 and will last 3 years. It is under the lead of Univ. Toulouse III – Paul Sabatier (UPS). For more information, visit https://www.fabspace.eu.