By: Camilla Mahon
SatSummit 3 is officially a “go”. In partnership with Development Seed, we’re hosting the third iteration of SatSummit at Washington D.C.’s International Trade Center on September 19–20. Join us as we explore how the Earth observation industry and global development community can (and do) work together to tackle some of the toughest global challenges.
Recently, we’ve seen responders map the destruction of the Santa Rosa forest fires with both satellite and drone imagery in near real-time; and we’ve seen how information-rich imagery can help governments assess flood risks in vulnerable areas. This year, we want to see more — our satellite, government, and community teams will be attending in full force to discuss the most up-to-date crisis mapping tools and remote sensing applications.
In-depth, intimate conversations between industry, non-profit, and government leaders is a critical component of SatSummit, and we want to encourage more of it in 2018. That’s why we’ve made a few upgrades to the conference structure this year:
- An open call for workshops, panels, and talks: We just opened up a call for proposals where you can apply to host your own facilitated conversation, panel or workshop with fellow attendees. As a session host, you’ll be able to review a list of attendees and invite key personalities to help jumpstart a new effort, continue a conversation, or fine-tune an existing project.
- A diversity of voices: We’re encouraging attendance from a wide variety of people across the development and remote sensing disciplines. With a focus on including non-Western space agencies, actors from non-OECD countries, and folks across the satellite, aerial and drone technologies we’re looking forward to opening up new cooperative and productive collaborations.
- An extra half-day of workshops: Framing a problem in a slide presentation or a panel discussion is one thing, but learning how to solve the problem is another. In an effort to help you get real work done while you’re here, we’re devoting a new half-day to hands-on workshops, led by engineers and responders, that’ll walk you through the current technologies and tools available to the global development community.
- A bigger venue to hold more voices: The satellite and global development communities are full of diverse voices, so we want to make sure we have a large enough space for the many NGOs, nonprofits, government agencies, and industry representatives from around the world to convene and collaborate. In our new, larger venue we’ll be able to host an additional 100 attendees. It allows for more panel and breakout spaces, working group sessions, and one-on-one conversations to better facilitate cross-industry dialogs.
- The after party is getting an upgrade: After-hours, off-the-record conversations can be just as productive as those during a conference. That’s why we’ve moved our after party (9/19) to a bigger, more awe-inspiring venue: the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum, where we’ll keep the conversation going over food and drinks underneath the satellites and spaceships of the Space Race Gallery.
As we work to gather the best keynotes, panels, and more, we want to hear what you have to say. So submit your ideas to our call for proposals and share your imagery and tools to our call for posters/imagery; both open until May 15. You can also send us a note on Twitter or via email to tell us what you want to see featured — we’re listening.
SatSummit 3: We’re back was originally published in Points of interest on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.