Space applications and technologies have significant potential to contribute to mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change. Every year there are demonstrations of new innovative technologies and launches of pilot projects that promise to address issues of forest fires, land degradation, floods, droughts, loss of biodiversity, agriculture, disaster management and more. Yet, many of these projects struggle to take off or fail to achieve long-term success. Beyond technical feasibility in the transition from a technical project to a sustainable service is a lack of understanding of how to make it happen.
Technical innovation without effective implementation does not lead to meaningful change. Taking the right steps to transform a technical project into a sustainable service with tangible measurable impact on people’s lives is essential to ensure that those who need solutions are empowered and those who can help do so in a financially viable and responsible way. Successful cases integrate and manage social, financial, political and regulatory dynamics to accelerate the transformation.
The UN/Austria Symposium 2024 aims to bridge the gap between space applications and technologies providers, users and wider community. It aims to provide a diverse and inclusive multi-stakeholder platform to raise awareness of the challenges in transiting from a technical project into a sustainable service and facilitate knowledge exchange and sharing of lessons on how to successfully do so. The symposium in Graz will offer a possibility to share lessons learnt and success factors in transforming projects into sustainable services for climate action.
Dr. Mariana Damova took part in the panel on “User engagement: lessons learnt and recommendations”, where she shared insights and experience on the discussions with users that have adopted Mozaika solution and the path to reaching operational deployments by building trust, involving the users as integral part of the development process and providing flexibility and a modular approach to service delivery.
