As part of the GEO Week 2020, GEO announced the winners of the second annual GEO Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Awards and the GEO Individual Excellence Awards.
Launched last year, the GEO SDG Awards Program, led by the EO4SDG initiative, recognizes institutions, organizations and countries that are applying Earth observations towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Fourteen awards were presented in both the “Sectoral” and “Special” categories this year, including:
Sectoral Awards
- GEO Member: Ministry of Environment and Energy of Costa Rica; UK Space Agency
- GEO Participating Organization: Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data
- GEO Observer: UN-GGIM:Europe
- SDG Custodian Agency: United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification
- Not-for-Profit: HR Wallingford
- Academia: The Earth Observatory of Singapore; The Rights Lab, University of Nottingham, UK
- For-Profit: Geospoc; CirroLytix Research Services
Special Awards
- Innovation: International Water Management Institute
- Statistical-Geospatial Integration: Tanzania National Bureau of Statistics
- Collaboration: GEO Blue Planet Initiative and Esri
- Testimonial: CODATA, Committee on Data of the International Science Council
You can read about the projects on the EO4SDG webpage and view the recording. Information on the 2020 GEO SDG Awards Evaluation Panel can be found here.
About EO4SDG: EO4SDG serves a fundamental role to advance global knowledge about effective ways that Earth observations and geospatial information can support the SDGs. The director of NASA's Earth Science's Applied Sciences Program, Lawrence Friedl, serves as a co-chair of EO4SDG on behalf of the United States. Applied Sciences’ Argyro Kavvada serves as the executive secretary and as such is a administrator of the awards program.
Website: https://eo4sdg.org - Twitter: https://twitter.com/EO4SDG
Announcing the GEO 2020 Individual Excellence Awards
On November 4, the GEO Secretariat also announced the winners of the annual GEO Excellence Awards, launched in 2019 by the GEO Programme Board, and presented to individuals who have demonstrated exceptional personal commitment to the GEO mission and vision.
The 2020 winners included:
- Applied Sciences’ Nancy Searby, Program Manager, Capacity Building,
- Chu Ishida, Senior Advisor of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and EO4SDG Co-Chair,
- Toshio Koike, Executive Director with the International Centre for Water Hazard and Risk Management under the auspices of UNESCO
Read about the winners and watch the recording.
