Why an EO Summit?

I wanted to take some time to provide some thoughts on why I am putting together an Earth observation conference - EO Summit in June in London - and answer a few questions some of you have asked me about the event, particularly how it will be different from the other events in the EO sector. In this piece, I attempt to articulate the rationale, the vision and the goals for EO Summit.

Preamble

We are living through a golden age for Earth observation. We are collecting more data about our planet, our activities on it and the relationship between the two, than at any other time in history. But, if you are an outsider looking into the EO sector, or even an insider trying to make sense of the EO market, I would be surprised if you aren't overwhelmed by the number of companies, the satellites, the sensors and the variety of applications of EO.

I founded TerraWatch Space to demystify EO, with a vision of making EO mainstream. Every single effort, whether the strategic consulting services, the weekly newsletter, the EO market deep dives, or the infographics you may have come across, has been a step towards realising that vision. Adding EO Summit to that list of initiatives, if executed well, seems like a no-brainer for me. But, first …

EO Summit: Motivation

Most conferences in the EO sector and the wider space industry can be summarised by a couple of one-liners1:

“Space people presenting to space people and meeting space people.”

“A conference for those in the EO bubble, by those in the EO bubble.”

However, there is nothing wrong with the current set of conferences - they play a very specific and significant role within the space and EO sectors. I love attending them every year and look forward to catching up with the EO and the space community. But the state of conferences especially relevant for the commercial EO sector made me ponder …

• How many conferences move the needle when it comes to increasing the awareness of EO and bridging the adoption EO gap among users?
• How many current and potential commercial users of EO attend the existing set of conferences, workshops and other related events?
• Which conferences are actually accessible to EO users, focus on EO applications (not technologies) and facilitate connections between the users and the EO sector?

So, I decided to embark on that research. You may have come across a very comprehensive list of conferences, workshops and other events in the EO sector, that I had put together and shared (one last year and one this year) - that was not by accident. I was trying to answer the aforementioned questions and in that process, I also happened to attend over 30 EO events in the past couple of years.

Findings from Research

The existing set of EO-related conferences, workshops and other related events can be put into three categories:

1. Space/Technology-Focused: Many of the EO conferences are really space industry events, in which the topic of EO gets a couple of panels where the EO market is discussed on a high level. Unfortunately, the sessions tend to be very technology-focused (the what), not application-focused (the so what) and not exactly accessible to the user community, who are in the very early stages of adopting EO.
2. Science/Research-Focused: The EO sector benefits from a variety of scientific conferences typically, but not only organised by space agencies (NASA, ESA etc.) that are targeted at researchers and academics to present their important research. But, if you are a commercial user of EO working in insurance, agriculture, finance, mining or energy, this is not exactly the event for you, unless you happen to have an in-house science team.
3. Government/Defence-Focused: Given that the government (civilian and military) segment represents about ~70 per cent of the EO market, many conferences tend to focus on this, especially the defence applications of EO. While the defence segment continues to have a big influence on the EO sector, the emerging enterprise and climate-related applications of EO do not have many things in common with those use cases. So, while some of the EO conferences that tend to focus on this segment are often the largest ones, this is not entirely suitable for commercial users.

Conclusion

I could not find a conference that focuses on satellite data and its applications, that an existing/potential commercial user of EO can go to, either to learn about the technology and market trends in the EO sector (or) to meet other users within their markets to learn about how they use and integrate satellite data within their organisations and compare notes. Even more importantly, as the EO sector hopes to break into the commercial market and gain adoption among the end-users, there is no conference that EO professionals can attend to discover the use cases of EO, understand the significance of EO for end-user organisations and use those insights as they grow their business.

While there are numerous vertical-specific events for agriculture, forestry, insurance, mining, energy, utilities and the like, which serve an important purpose of bringing those industries together, none of them place any strategic importance on EO (nor they should). However, seeing the current levels of EO adoption for commercial use cases, I am convinced that we need to bring the users of EO from different markets together in the same forum to enable the cross-pollination of ideas and learn about best practices for adopting EO. This also includes investors and policymakers, both of whom are trying to navigate the EO ecosystem and understand how they can add value.

What is EO Summit?

A conference to bring the global EO industry and users of EO together, to discuss enterprise and climate-related applications, with two fundamental principles:

To be user-centric, not provider-centric and to be application-focused, not technology-focused.

The overall concept for EO Summit can be summarised as a combination of 3 ideas: plenaries, thematic tracks and sessions.

Plenaries include talks and panels to provide insights into the state of the EO industry and the emerging market trends in EO.

• EO Summit 2024 will start with a presentation from yours truly on the state of the EO sector, a panel of EO data providers to understand the emerging capabilities and an EO investor panel to understand the growth of the sector.

Thematic tracks are a structured way to discuss the different commercial use cases of EO and the state of its adoption in the market.

Sessions are use-case focused presentations by EO users and EO companies, followed by Q&A discussions.

• EO users will present the use cases, the significance of EO for their organisations and the challenges of using EO, if any.
• EO companies will present their technological capabilities and their potential for the particular industry along with case studies.

Who attends EO Summit?

The first edition of EO Summit is planned to be a modest-sized event with an expected audience of 400 attendees (maximum of 450). The aim is to have about one-third of those coming from the EO user community and the rest including EO professionals, investors, policymakers and EO enthusiasts.

To give more context on EO users, there will be two categories of them: intermediate users and end users. This is a function of how the market is evolving and how EO is being adopted across the different industry tracks.

• Intermediate users are part of the Insights and Applications segments of the TerraWatch EO Value Chain. While they are not the end users, the solutions that they develop using EO are what end users consume and hence, their inputs are significant for the growth of the EO sector.
• End users are the stakeholders that are the last-mile consumers of EO. In many market verticals represented as part of the industry tracks, most end-user organisations do not care where the data comes from and are agnostic to the technology used to get the job done. This is why the role and the presence of intermediate users become crucial.

EO Summit will have presentations from both categories of users mentioned, across all of the industry tracks, with priority given to those who have operational solutions using EO (instead of those who do research work or have just completed pilot projects).

If you are a commercial user of EO, working in any of the markets mentioned above, and you want to present your case study, you still have time to express your interest in speaking at EO Summit.

How is EO Summit different?

I was very clear about one thing from the get-go: to not do anything redundant. We already have far too many events, conferences and workshops in the world, and even more so within our little EO/space sector. So, after making sure an EO event like the one I envision does not exist, my focus shifted to the most important thing: to make EO Summit a unique experience. Here’s how:

1. Hear from the EO industry, but hear more from the users of EO

In most events in the EO sector, we hear from the EO solution providers and the potential of their solution for different applications, with the audience barely including any users of EO. At EO Summit, the aim is to reverse that and hear more from the users of EO on how they use satellite data within their solutions, the significance of EO for their organisations as well as some feedback on the challenges in using EO. This is something I am convinced we need, especially after interacting with several EO users - hearing from users will enable the EO sector to discover things we are overestimating and overselling, and perhaps also discover things that we have been underestimating and underselling.

1. More applications, less technologies, more case studies, less assumptions

During the sessions within the industry tracks, the presentations from both EO users and EO companies will primarily focus on discussing case studies of EO. This is starkly different from typical presentations in EO conferences that tend to focus more on the technologies (satellites, sensors, resolution etc.), rather than the derived value from EO (applications, job-to-be-done, impacts etc.), which is what EO users want to know.

1. TerraWatch’s EO market knowledge, thought leadership and objectivity

While this may sound like blowing my own trumpet, I reckon this is an important difference compared to other events. Having completed over 50 strategic assignments with EO companies, space agencies, investors and end-users, I have acquired a sense of the EO market and the state of EO adoption in the commercial segment. Knowing that we have awareness gaps and adoption gaps is what prompted me to start TerraWatch and eventually, embark on this initiative for EO Summit. I truly believe that the fact that TerraWatch can execute this conference objectively without being dependent on a government agency, a private company or any influencing entity, with a sole vision of improving the awareness and adoption of EO, is a differentiating factor.

EO Summit: Business Model

So, let’s get to business. How am I doing this? Let’s remember: TerraWatch is not an event management company, TerraWatch is not financially supported by any government or space agency, and the founder of TerraWatch is not a millionaire.

EO Summit is a community-supported event. I am organising this conference with the hope that I will be able to get back all the money that will be invested. So, the business model is typical of any event: Sponsorships & Registrations.

Sponsors

Sponsors are organised into four categories: Bronze, Silver, Gold and Other Options. You can find more details on the sponsorship brochure.

The aim is to provide EO satellite companies with an opportunity to build awareness among users, communicate about their capabilities and position them strategically within their target markets.

Each sponsorship tier allows this on a different level - from participation in plenaries to short pitches in industry tracks. I wanted to make sure every sponsor gets the spotlight in front of the EO Summit attendees.

The higher tiers such as Silver and Gold also have opportunities to leverage TerraWatch’s market-leading newsletter for promoting their brand enabling them to communicate their value proposition to the 10,000+ subscriber base of users, investors, policymakers, researchers and EO industry professionals.

Registrations

One aspect that I did not want to compromise on was the accessibility of the event. I did not want to make the registration fees to be exorbitant and out of reach for many because, from experience, I know that registering and attending events can create financial strain.

A limited number of early-bird tickets are on sale and they cost EUR 249, while the ensuing ticket quotas will be a tad higher, but no higher than EUR 449. When compared to similar events, many of which are at least 5-10x more expensive, I am confident every attendee will get their money’s worth - with the market insights, the user presentations and the networking opportunities.

For the pragmatic ones out there, I am completely aware that this is the first-ever EO Summit, so you might have no idea what you are signing up for. But, if the initial batch of confirmed speakers is any proof, I am confident that EO Summit will be the first EO conference you will have attended with a significant presence of commercial users of satellite data or satellite-derived products, more so than any other event in the industry (perhaps apart from Esri’s User Conference which gathers thousands of Esri users). We will be releasing details about the first set of speakers and the agenda in the next few weeks.

— —

Hopefully, this piece clarified some questions that some of you have had and asked me. And, I certainly hope to see some of you at EO Summit. Please send whatever feedback you may have, good or bad.

While I certainly expect EO Summit to evolve over the following years, the aim is to make EO Summit one of the most useful and valuable events for both the user and the EO community, along with interested investors and policymakers. If the upcoming EO Summit goes well and is as unique as I hope it will be, the hope is to organise more EO Summits, every year, around the world.

Until next time,

Aravind.