ESA Telecom Applications Workshop a success

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Telecommunications Applications division promotes the development and piloting phase of innovative concepts directly involving the utilisation of satellite communications by end user communities.

Topics covered in the workshop included Telemedicine and Medical Education, Location Based Services, Broadband Access and Services, Business-to-Business and Business-to-Consumer (B2B & B2C), Disaster Relief, Emergency and Security, and finally Distance Learning. Presentations from this workshop are now available online.

The purpose of the workshop was twofold. Firstly to share the knowledge and experience in satcom applications that has been built up over recent years within ESA. Secondly, to help individuals and companies involved in ESA's Telecommunications Applications Projects get better acquainted.

Over one hundred people attended the event on 10 and 11 November 2004 and many more followed it at various remote sites throughout Europe. Most notably, in Greece over forty persons attended on each of the two days via satellite link.

Mr Liapis, Greek Minister for Transport and Communication opened by stating: "Our first priority is to place Space Applications at the service of the citizen". The HellasSAT satellite made this link possible, connecting ESRIN to the Greek Ministerial Amphitheatre in Athens.

Participants spoke very positively about the workshop. Tony Bowden of MarketStream Ltd from the United Kingdom thought: "The workshop offers the opportunity to strengthen further partnerships, even if they're not in the same market. It is especially exciting to see that certain products have been commercialised from one year to the next year."

Kells' Fabrizio Aversa from Italy said: "I have attended 5 previous TAW workshops and I can confirm that the quality is as high as usual. Not only from a technical point of view, but also among the audience. All in all it is a very good place to exchange ideas."

Harald Hackenburg from the Austrian company F5 echoed this sentiment by saying: "The workshop is an excellent opportunity to build up interdisciplinary contacts and other possible synergies."

Throughout the two-day event, four projects provided demonstrations. These included the NESA ambulance with satellite connection, the TeLeCare project for home healthcare via satellite, the live broadcast TV Channel (OTV) for retail outlets, as well as embedded digital broadcast services (EDIBS) from the company F5 which had just been honoured by an award from the Austrian Ministry of Commerce.