The concept of “Information Factory” aims to tackle challenges related to the fragmentation of the EO service landscape and the lack of scaling mechanisms that allow the cost-effective and streamlined production and consumption of services integrating EO and non-EO data to deliver fit-for-purpose solutions.
The Information Factory seeks to bring together different actors of the service production and exploitation value chain in a synergetic and market-oriented way. It can be designed as an operational cloud environment providing advanced technology and cost-effective continuous operations to access EO and non-EO data and develop, host, operationalise and offer operational EO services.
It shall enable the customization of fit-for-purpose EO-integrated solutions, leveraging digital innovation technologies and fostering collaboration with the EO value adding community, non-EO data providers, information system integrators and other potentially relevant actors. To achieve this, it shall also ensure shared value propositions, effective partnership models and innovative business models (e.g. revenue sharing models) to incentivize contributions from the different actors and scale the deployment of EO-integrated solutions.
This Pathfinders activity aims at exploring the Information Factory concept in the context of adaptation, focusing on vulnerable sectors such as agriculture, energy and urban areas where adaptation efforts are still lagging behind escalating risks. The objective of the activity is to explore critical factors that can either drive or impede the Information Factory operations and sustainability through a concrete and user-driven implementation of the concept for targeted adaptation domains including adaptive agriculture, energy and urban resilience. The activity shall setup an information factory building on existing cloud-based EO services and demonstrate its implementation with targeted end-users, providing blueprints and insights on challenges encountered and effective collaborative processes to ensure the Information Factory operations and long-term viability.
Learn more about this Invitation To Tender on the esa-star Publication page.