Page 20 - DIVA_No.23_2006

lion. We have, in fact, three dif- We were, of course, very hon-
ferent financing sources. Our oured, and we dedicate this prize
primary source of revenue to all our users and the people
comes from our users within the assisting us in this matter.
UN system. In addition, we have
some voluntary contributions Q: So where would you like to
from different Member States go from here?
and then the funds we earn
through the European Space We are quite a young structure.
Agency. Now the time has come for
UNOSAT to become more insti-
At the beginning of our business tutionalized, and this is one of
venture we were present at sev- the reasons why we are trying to
eral conferences and internation- increase the voluntary contribu-
al gatherings. Of course, things tions to our budget so that we
were not always easy as there will be able to have more finan-
were some opposition to the cial security.
project, but since then we have
tried to keep a low and modest We are an operational service,
profile, while remaining at the and we have the disadvantages
service of the international com- of being a kind of business
munity. enterprise without having the
possibility of making any profit,
Q. You provided all the maps so we really would like to be
seminate the information obtain high-quality images. for the Tsunami Crisis. How did able to plan our budget in the
through OCHA (the Office for Q. Who are UNOSAT's part- that affect your work? longer term. Normally, in the
of
Co-ordination
the UN system one should have the
ners?
Humanitarian Affairs) to all the The Tsunami really gave us funds available before one can
humanitarian agencies. The first UNOPS and UNITAR (the quite a lot of publicity. Like carry out an operation, but we
person to encourage the use of United Nations Institute for most other people at that time, provide services first and get
satellite maps was the former Training and Research), work- we were away on holiday, but paid later, like a normal busi-
director of OCHA, Ross ing in collaboration set up just like any other organization ness. However, as the Rules and
Mountain. UNOSAT. Since neither of these working in the humanitarian Regulations of the UN are quite
agencies had funds, we had to field, we had at least one person strict on this matter, we feel that
Today, we are able to propose find then. So we decided to par- on stand-by. I was on duty when we also ought to be capable of
satellite images to our partners ticipate in a public bid by the I heard the news, and I contacted having some degree of advance
from all the existing satellite- European Space Agency. We had OCHA right away. In a short planning.
image distributors worldwide; contacted ESA in order to time, I managed to mobilize col-
that is, more than thirteen differ- inform them about our project, leagues and "friends" and, with- Q: Where would you like to be
ent partners. The one we tend to and they thought the idea was so in a couple of hours, we were ten years from now?
use most is Landsat, which interesting that they decided to capable of sending Out the first
belongs to NASA (the National include it in one of their public maps of the disaster. The more We would like to become a com-
Aeronautics complex and detailed maps took mon service for all the agencies
Space
bids. We submitted an offer, and
and
Administration); this is followed we were awarded our first con- us a longer time, but within of the United Nations. There are,
the French satellite SPOT. tract of €750,000. These funds forty-eight hours we were capa- in fact, three major agencies we
gave us the possibility of getting ble of having detailed maps of would like to serve: OCHA for
Q: Being completely ignorant started, to buy the necessary the disaster and its impact on the humanitarian part; UNDP
of satellite technologies, I equipment. We are treated like South-East Asia. For instance,
Nations
United
would be grateful if you could any other private business. The one of our maps was down- (the
Development Programme) dur-
explain how it works. people behind the project are loaded from the Internet more ing the reconstruction period;
quite proud of the fact that we in than 800,000 times.
There are two types of satellite. the UN can be as competitive and finally DPKO (the
Department of Peace-keeping
The first one I would compare to and efficient as a private enter- Q: I think that you were award- Operations) for the peacekeep-
a "camera", as it takes photo- prise—it is only a matter of ed a prize for the work that you ing missions.
graphs of the Earth. It is placed organization, motivation, techni- had carried out during the
on an orbit about 400 to 800 km cal skills and efficiency. Tsunami Crisis? The most important thing for us
away from the Earth. If the is to be of assistance to human
weather is cloudy, this type of UNOSAT has a team of twenty- We were contacted by ESRI—
satellite is not much use as it five persons working on the the equivalent of Microsoft in beings and to provide them with
takes photos of what it can see, premises of CERN (the the field of geographical and modern technologies so that the
and we are more interested in European Organization for environmental software—who errors of the past will not be the
finding out what is going on Nuclear Research), benefiting thought that the work we had errors of tomorrow. However,
underneath the clouds—the from their infrastructure. CERN done during the Tsunami Crisis we are quite proud about one
fact and that is that the UN can
really
exceptional.
towns, villages, roads, etc. In wanted to support our work but, was
addition, it does not function at as you know, they are not Therefore, they wanted to hon- be as efficient and effective as
night. allowed to give us funds, so they our us with this prize. any other private enterprise and,
told us kindly: "If our equipment in addition to that, there are no
That was the reason why anoth- and premises can be of any use, Every year, ESRI organizes a other private companies doing
er type of satellite was devel- we are delighted to be at your huge international conference the work we are doing
oped using radar technology. disposal." for the users of geographical For more information see:
The radar satellite sends signals data. The delegates are high- http:!/unosat.web.cern.chl
down to the Earth and they are When we started our project, our level specialists coming from all
reflected back. The data are then initial budget was US$500,000. over the world to discuss matters * = Environmental Systems
processed and we are able to Today we are close to US$3 ml!- of common interest. Research Institute, Inc.
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