Welcome to the 4th Annual Open Data Cube (ODC) Conference 2021
Information Page
Sponsored by Digital Earth Australia and Digital Earth Africa, and coordinated by FrontierSI, the Open Data Cube Conference comprised a series of engaging presentations and panel discussions about upcoming possibilities for how we use EO, several coding opportunities, and even an Open Data Cube beginner’s session! With a range of activities for participation from expert coders to people interested in learning,the event catered to a range of ODC experience levels.
The Conference was held as a virtual event,
taking place over four days, between Tuesday 22 – Friday 25 June 2021.
This coordinated initiative undertook collaborative research and development to technically push the ODC family of applications forward, and to use the Open Data Cube to solve real world problems. We had several experts from the space and spatial community who are all active users and contributors to the ODC, so our conference attendees were exposed to some of the brightest developers in the spatial community.
The Conference has been structured to offer productive time for developers and scientists to work on code, systems, and/or data, with the aim of exploring new and innovative approaches. It focused on three key participation themes:
Focused training on the Sandbox environment.
Using the ODC to undertake science in one of the Sandbox environments with already-available data.
Building infrastructure and/or code at the project core.
IS THIS RELEVANT TO ME?
If you are from the developer community, the scientific dev user community, a member of a university, STAC/COG users, or a member of the broader Earth observation user community, then this conference is a must.
The conference offered participants the chance to get involved in:
Presentations: Watching keynote presentations and talks, followed by discussion with other participants about concepts and processes
Workshops: Joining workshops to learn new skills
Sprints: the opportunity to pick a topic of interest (or come with their own to pitch to others) and that can be worked on it in their own timezone, with regular check-ins with others around the world
This will help you to:
Explore new applications of free and open Earth observation data
Experiment with tools and techniques to improve usability of the Open Data Cube
Develop and extend learning materials to help onboard others
Attend a training workshop on using the Open Data Cube
PROGRAM
The ODC Conference consists of presentation sessions and a multi-day sprint - registration for all of these sessions are free.
Participants were advised to register for the sessions that best suit their timezone (and sent a Zoom link automatically upon registration). In order to be as globally inclusive as we can, the conference program featuring presentations and discussion will be run over two days - one Day 1, the session will be live in Australia and a playback of this live session (featuring local hosting and discussion) will happen 12 hours later for those in Africa, Europe and America. On Day 2, the session will be held live for Africa, Europe and America, and later played back (featuring local hosting and discussion) in Australia 10 hours later. You will need to click on the light blue 'Register for...' button
The sprint is entirely optional and will run over all three days. Sprint sessions will be largely self-organized, with opportunities to check in with others working on the same topic. You can work and contribute as much as you like depending on your availability and work schedul
Ms Andiswa Mlisa is the Managing Director of Earth Observation directorate at the South African National Space Agency (SANSA). Prior to joining SANSA, she was at the Group on Earth Observation (GEO) Secretariat, based in Geneva, Switzerland, responsible for the coordination of the AfriGEOSS initiatives and capacity building. A graduate of the Universities of Fort Hare and Stellenbosch in GIS and Remote Sensing, she spent her early career years developing geospatial solutions for water resource management and disaster risk reduction. She aims to use her over 17 years of experience and passion for developing partnerships in earth observations & space applications initiatives to mainstream use of Earth observations for service delivery.
Brian Killough (NASA)
Dr. Brian Killough has 34 years of NASA experience and leads the Committee on Earth Observing Satellites (CEOS) Systems Engineering Office. The SEO supports the international CEOS organization coordinating satellite earth observation data for global benefit. Dr. Killough has played a significant role in the evolution of the Open Data Cube initiative and the development of several country-level and regional data cube initiatives. Dr. Killough received his BS degree from the University of Virginia, his MS degree from George Washington University and his PhD from the College of William and Mary.
Claire Krause (DEA)
Claire Krause is the Assistant Director of Product Development in Digital Earth Australia; Geoscience Australia’s satellite imagery program. She is responsible for working with stakeholders to develop ideas and workflows for using our wealth of satellite information to better inform decision makers on Australia’s natural resources, with a particular focus on water.
Adam Lewis (DE Africa)
Adam Lewis’ vision and leadership has transformed the way spatial data is organised, prepared and analysed, leading to changes in the way satellite images are processed in Australia to produce resource information. From 2004 to 2017 he transformed Geoscience Australia’s earth and marine observation function into a globally recognised capability. He has been key to the design and development of Digital Earth Australia — technology which provides the Australian government with the data to monitor the environment and increase productivity in the agricultural and mining industries, and to the Open Data Cube, a global initiative which increases the value and use of satellite data, providing users with free access to technology and analysis platforms. Adam now leads the Digital Earth Africa (DE Africa) program, working with African stakeholders and organisations and with international partners to establish an operational Earth observation data cube specific to Africa’s lands and seas. DE Africa is an open platform, led and governed by Africans, that is making petabytes of free and open satellite data accessible to support decision-making by governments, the private sector, and civil society.
Sara Safavi (Planet)
Sara Safavi is a geospatial enthusiast and lifelong space geek living in Austin, TX. Today she leads the Developer Relations team at Planet Labs, where she helps developers, data scientists, and geo-people do amazing things with daily satellite imagery. With a background in geoscience and over a decade of industry experience, Sara specializes in education and enablement at the intersection of software and all things geospatial.
Caitlin Adams (ODC Steering Council)
Caitlin is a deeply creative thinker with a passion for solving the complex problems humanity faces. Working as a Data Scientist at FrontierSI, she looks for interesting ways to extract insights from Earth observation data and supports the community to do the same.
Ladies of Landsat
Kate Fickas (Ladies of Landsat)
Dr. Kate Fickas is a remote sensing ecologist who uses earth observation to help natural resource and conservation managers make decisions about aquatic ecosystems. She is currently research faculty at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst studying how drones and satellite imagery can be used to capture changes in vulnerable salt marsh wetlands on the US East Coast and funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. She is also research faculty at Utah State University helping public health managers track harmful algal blooms with earth observation data. Dr. Fickas created the Ladies of Landsat Twitter page in 2018 as she was finishing her PhD and sought a community of women to share her experiences with in the field of earth observation. Since then, Ladies of Landsat has become a collaborative effort with other EO scientists who have helped grow the Ladies of Landsat Twitter following to 6,500 followers by creating a diverse and inclusive community to support and amplify voices of women and other under-represented groups in EO and working to change the status quo of a male-dominated field.
Sisters of SAR
Sachindra Singh (SPC)
Sachindra Singh is the Team Leader of the Geoinformatics Section, at the Geoscience, Maritime and Energy Division, Pacific Community (SPC). He has 15 years experience in geospatial-oriented systems and software engineering. A strong advocate of open source technologies for capacity building and sustainable development in developing countries, he has implemented robust decision-making tools and services based on geospatial and remotely-sensed data in the Pacific, both on regional and national levels. He has undertaken numerous capacity building exercises for on open source GIS/RS tools and systems in the Pacific Region, and currently is providing technical support for the Digital Earth Pacific (DEP) initiative within Pacific Community (SPC).
Alex Leith (ODC Steering Council)
Syed R Rizvi (AMA)
Steven Ramage (GEO)
Steven Ramage leads external relations at the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland. His role involves focusing on the interfaces between science, technology, policy and decisions in support of more than 100 UN Member States. He is on the Governing Boards of Digital Earth Africa and Digital Earth Pacific, a member of the UK Space Agency Earth Observations Advisory Committee and the Advisory Board of EO4GEO. Steven was an owner/director of 1Spatial before taking on a role as Executive Director of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), and then Managing Director of Ordnance Survey International. Steven is a Visiting Professor at the Institute for Future Cities, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS). He tweets as @steven_ramage
Robert Woodcock (CSIRO)
Matthias Mohr (OpenEO)
Matthias Mohr is a software architect at the Institute for Geoinformatics in Münster and Technical Fellow for the Radiant Earth Foundation. He is primarily working for the openEO Platform project and is also a main contributor to the STAC specification and ecosystem. He is the openEO Project Steering Committee chair and a STAC Project Steering Committee member.
Michele Claus (OpenEO)
Alexander Jacob (OpenEO)
Alexander Jacob coordinates the research group Advanced Computing for Earth Observation, within the Institute for Earth Observation at EURAC Research. He did his undergraduate studies in Geodesy at TU Darmstadt in Germany and continued with specialization with a MSc and PhD studies in geoinformatics from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. He is an expert in earth observation and data science and is currently working on standardizing and improving access to cloud processing facilities and organization of earth observation data into data cubes. He is an active project manager for EURAC Research’s contribution to the ESA openEO Platform project and the PI of the ESA SAR2CUBE project. He has been actively involved in the original openEO H2020 project as well, coordinating and developing the back-end implementation of Eurac Research.
ODC SPRINT TOPICS
During the ODC Sprints, you'll have the opportunity to pick a topic of interest (or come with your own to pitch to others) and be able to work on this in your own timezone, with regular check-ins with others around the world. Sprint Topics put forward so far are shown below, and you will be able to decide on which sprint you want to be part of on Day 1 of the conference.
Taking part in the Sprint is optional - you can spend 9am - 5pm on all three hack days, or as much time as you are able to around your other work and other commitments. It's up to you!
To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key.
DISCOVER MORE
If you would like to learn more or ask questions leading up to the Conference, feel free to use the Contact Us form on this website and we will endeavour to respond in a timely fashion.
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