On December 16th, Eurisy held its traditional Members’ Day. Holding a specific importance for the Association, the Members’ Day is dedicated to Eurisy’s community and aims to put forward current activities and partner entities, facilitating exchanges and enabling networking moments.
This year, at the occasion of the launch of a new initiative, the Focus Group on Geospatial Tools for Cities, supported by the Smart Cities Marketplace of the European Commission and co-chaired with ICLEI, Eurisy put forward its current work on the thematic of Cities. As such, the UDENE project was put under the spotlight, with presentations from two partners: BioSense Institute, represented by Nikola Obrenović, and the Tunisian Space Association, represented by Syrine Souissi. Nikola provided an in-depth presentation of the research carried in the framework of the Serbian use-case, focusing on the analysis of the effects of the construction of a ring-road on traffic congestion and air quality in the city of Novi Sad. He particularly emphasized the cornerstone challenge of improving models, through additional data sets, to analyse emissions. To do so, BioSense and UDENE partners have used a scaling-up approach, starting with the generation of persons, then households, and adding activities planning to the model, as well as choices of transportation.
Complementing the work carried within UDENE, Alan Mandrillon presented Space4Cities, a sisters’ project of UDENE. Space4Cities is a Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) project that aims to support the development of resilient cities by creating replicable satellite-enabled solutions for the sustainable and resilient development of cities. While UDENE is focusing more precisely on developing a tool to facilitate urban development, both projects are driven by a common goal: facilitating the transition to smart and sustainable cities by providing comprehensive and efficient tools.
Providing an overview of existing Earth-Observation (EO) enabled solutions for cities, Eurisy invited participants from French companies to participate in the presentations, and to attend the one-day event. It is worth noting that KERMAP and i-Sea provided concrete use-cases of how EO can support cities in attaining their sustainable development goals, and in mitigating the effects of climate change, particularly for issues due to urban heat islands. As such, the event created a great opportunity for the UDENE project to gain visibility among European EO solutions providers and to build lasting connections.
To learn more about the Eurisy x ICLEI Focus Group on Geospatial Tools for Cities and the key insights shared during Members’ Day, click here: Launching Eurisy x ICLEI New Focus Group on Geospatial Tools for Cities.