The European ConnectEO project has officially kicked-off after organising its virtual launch meeting, with the aim of promoting and fostering market access for European Earth Observation (EO) SMEs in two target countries: Australia and Chile. The project will focus on the use of EO technologies, that is, those that use satellite data, addresing business opportunities and key socio-economic and environmental challenges in the maritime and agricultural sectors.
Technological Corporation of Andalusia – CTA is the only Spanish partner of this project, in which the European Association of Remote Sensing Companies – EARSC (Belgium) and the Pôle Mer Bretagne Atlantique – PMBA (France) also participate.
ConnectEO – “Connecting European Earth Observation to International Markets” is funded by Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME) under the COSME Cluster Go International programme.
Australia and Chile, the markets with the greatest potential
ConnectEO will accomplish the implementation plans and internationalisation strategy developed under its predecessor IDEEO project (Internationalisation & Diversification of European Earth Observation). This project assesed six countris to determine the potential uptake of European maritime and agriculture EO services. These six countries have been narrowed down to the two ConnectEO targets: Australia and Chile, considering the ones with the greatest potential and interest for EU companies.
ConnectEO has defined three key initiatives that will ensure that the objectives will be achieved:
- Creation of a back office: preparation of companies through the provision of supporting information on the target markets.
- Launch of Trade Missions: facilitating the creation of meaningful personal relationships on which successful partnerships are built.
- Development of a Front Office pilot: a dedicated physical presence in Australia to identify business ‘on-the-ground’, with a view to a dedicated sales pipeline in the long term.
The project partners are currently preparing the back-office documentation facing the major challenge of facilitating business opportunities under these exceptional times by exploring different ways to achieve the project objectives. In addition, ConnectEO expects to support target market users such as farmers, maritime users to drive down costs, increase revenues and become more efficient overall in the targeting Chilean and Australian stakeholders.
