Moreton Bay, Queensland, captured by Theia, UrtheCast’s 5-meter resolution camera onboard the International Space Station.
The Geospatial World Leadership Awards 2015 were presented last week during the Geospatial World Forum on May 25, 2016 at the Rotterdam World Trade Centre in the Netherlands. Among the winners were Australia’s PSMA, winner of the Geospatial Excellence Award, UrtheCast, who took out the Geospatial Technology Company of the Year, and What3Words who unsurprisingly claimed Geospatial Startup of the Year 2015 for their popular global addressing innovation.
By winning the Geospatial Excellence Award, PSMA Australia received international recognition for their ambitious new project Geoscape, a world-first initiative to spatially capture the built environment. The new initiative, announced in April, will use satellite imagery to capture key built environment data such as 3D building attributes, land cover, tree heights, roof materials, swimming pools and solar panels.
In taking out the major award of Geospatial Technology Company of the Year, the jury described Urthecast as a pioneer in installing sensors and cameras at International Space Station, responsible for opening a new avenue for earth observation with existing platforms and infrastructure in space. UrtheCast’s in real-time imagery and high-definition video streaming has created a larger market for earth observation and geospatial industry.
Fabrizio Pirondini (left), CEO at Deimos Imaging, an UrtheCast subsidiary, receiving the award for Geospatial Technology Company of the Year Award.
A lifetime achievement award was awarded to Professor Henk Scholten of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Prof. Scholten is also the CEO of geo-ICT consulting firm, Geodan, and a Director of Vrije Universiteit’s Spatial Information Laboratory Centre for Research and Education in Geo-Information Science (SPINlab). The jury described that over the course of four decades, Scholten’s passion has provided new perspectives to by combining mathematics and geography, opening a new era of modelling, and enhancing the overall understanding of the world we live in.
Established in 2007, the Geospatial World Leadership Awards have evolved as the premium geospatial awards and acquired the reputation of being most well accredited global recognition. Categories of these awards are aligned with characteristics and directions of geospatial industry.
The award winners were as follows:
- Geospatial Technology Company of the Year 2015: UrtheCast
- Geospatial Solutions Company of the Year 2015: Rolta India Limited
- Geospatial Startup of the Year 2015: What3Words
- Geospatial Content Company of the Year 2015: HERE
- Public Agency of the Year 2015: National Geo-spatial Information (NGI), Department of Rural Development and Land Reform (DRDLR) South Africa
- Research Institute of the Year 2015: Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands
- Geospatial Business Leader of the Year 2015: Ola Rollén, President and CEO, Hexagon AB
- Geospatial Ambassador of the Year 2015: Greg Scott, United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM)
- Lifetime Achievement Award – Henk Scholten, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
- Geospatial Excellence Award – PSMA Australia
Congratulations to all the winners and nominees.
