It’s one of the highlights of innovation in the European space industry every year: the Copernicus Masters and Galileo Masters. These renowned business competitions attract a vast amount of ideas each and every year for a very good reason.
What defines its success? For starters, the Copernicus Masters and Galileo Masters always has the bigger picture in mind. It isn’t about just giving an award. It isn’t just about promoting stakeholders and/or partners. Instead, it’s about celebrating creative entrepreneurship within the space industry.
And why’s that? Simple – because it’s necessary and because we can! On the one hand, there are countless issues on earth that needs solving. On the other hand, there’s a lot of untapped potential of the applications of space technology (like earth observation and satellite navigation).
Put 1 plus 1 together and you can create almost infinite impact on earth. Now it becomes easy to see why competitions like this flourish.
Let us give a quick overview of what these competitions are about:
Copernicus Masters 2021
The Copernicus Masters is the business competition all about the use of Earth Observation (EO) data like imagery from satellites. Common use cases include Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning, cloud computing, data analytics, health, smart farming, maritime, digital transportation and climate monitoring (and that’s just a tip of the melting iceberg).
Since 2011, more then 4300 participants have entered the competition with more then 1700 business ideas.
Galileo Masters 2021
The Galileo Masters is innovation competition aimed at inspiring uses of satellite navigation data. Think of uses in agriculture, healthcare, cyber security, environmental protection. Again, that’s just stating a few options.
Since its start in 2004, more then 13.000 participants joined the competition with more than 4700 business ideas.
We hope you can see why we, as an innovation centre, are excited about the Copernicus and Galileo Masters. Applications to the 2021 edition are now open to SMEs, startups, universities and individuals with a great space business idea. Join either competition (or both!) and make your brand new idea into a reality, or get the support to reach new heights. You have until 19 July 2021 to apply.
The Netherlands Prizes are brought to you by Netherlands Space Office and SBIC Noordwijk.
The Netherlands Prizes are made possible by our competition partners ANWB, ESA Space Solutions, HE Space, NVR, Rabobank and Zuits.
