Community Focus Key To APSEA Award Success
FRIDAY 20 SEPTEMBER 2019
Geoscience Australia and FrontierSI are excited to announce that the Digital Earth Australia (DEA) Industry Strategy, including DEA Labs and Sandbox, has won the ‘People and Community’ Award at the 2019 Asia-Pacific Spatial Excellence Awards (APSEA) (NSW/ACT).
The Awards celebrate the achievements of top spatial information enterprises and individuals and showcase the finest projects and most significant performance of professionals that the Surveying and Spatial Industry have to offer. Projects and individuals attaining recognition at this premier event are deemed to be truly outstanding achievers and pre-eminent in their field.
DEA enables small businesses and industry to more readily access near real-time information and satellite data to innovate and create new digital products and services and be competitive in global markets. This award recognises the efforts of FrontierSI and Geoscience Australia to use a grassroots campaign to build the DEA Industry Strategy, ensuring that Australian industry needs and voices were the foundation for the strategy.
This strategy has already led to direct industry benefits, including the DEA Labs program. This is a FrontierSI led, targeted incubator program for the private sector which aims to help Australian businesses use satellite data and DEA technologies to solve real-world problems through collaboration, and the provision of funding and support. The Industry Strategy has also led to the release of the DEA Sandbox, an interactive cloud environment to help organisations test and trial earth observation ideas.
Phil Delaney, Chief Innovation and Delivery Officer said ”DEA was initially built to help Geoscience Australia better meet the needs of other government agencies. To pivot this infrastructure to one which underpins private sector innovation and economic activity was a significant initiative and tonight’s award justifies this”.
Digital Earth Australia Program Director, Trent Kershaw said “This strategy was developed in consultation with over 500 individuals; with input received from interviews, face to face workshops, webinar series, conferences and online feedback. Together with the DEA Labs program, it is a way for us to invest in and support Australian businesses. We are very grateful to receive this acknowledgement and look forward to strengthening our collaboration with industry”.
More information about DEA and DEA Labs can be sourced at www.frontiersi.com.au/dea/, and details about the APSEA Awards can be viewed at https://www.apsea.org.au/.
