Participants coming both from academic and industry sectors such as universities, agencies and organisations attended the MedRIN kick-off meeting representing Greece, Cyprus, Israel, Turkey and Italy. Several presentations were given by the participants and fruitful discussions were followed in order to set the strategy of the MedRIN initiative.

 

 

More specifically, the following participants attended the MedRIN kick-off meeting:

 

1^st DAY of the kick-off meeting (July 13^th, Friday)

Welcome and information about NASA LCLUC Program (GOFC-GOLD), START, and regional networks’ activities

• Ioannis Manakos (Associate Researcher at the Centre for Research & Technology Hellas);
• Georgios Baourakis (Director of MAICh at the International Center for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies);
• Garik Gutman (LCLUC Program Manager at NASA HQ);
• Jana Albrechtova (Professor at Charles University of Prague & Lead of the SCERIN);
• Brice Mora (former GOFC – GOLD representative);
• Chariton Kalaitzidis (Research & Studies Coordinator at the Geoinformation in Environmental Management MSc, MAICh);

Cyprus representation

• Diofantos Hadjimitsis (Professor-Vice Rector of Academic Affairs at Cyprus University of Technology);
• Andreas Christofe (Research Fellow – Department of Civil Engineering and Geomatics at Cyprus University of Technology);

Greece representation

• Georgios Zalidis (Professor at the Faculty of Agriculture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Scientific Director at i-BEC, GEOSS High-Level Working Group Member);
• Haris Kontoes (Research Director at National Observatory Athens, National Contact Point for the Exchange of National Data in GEO, National Delegate of the H2020 SPACE Program Committee);
• Ioannis Gitas (Professor at the Faculty of Forestry & Natural Management, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki);
• Ioannis Manakos (Associate Researcher at the Centre for Research & Technology Hellas);
• Stavros Stagakis (Researcher at the Remote Sensing Lab, Institute of Applied and Computational Mathematics, Foundation for Research & Technology Hellas – FORTH);

Israel representation

• Eyal Ben Dor (Professor at Geography & Human Environment Dpt., School of Environment & Earth Sciences, Tel Aviv University);
• Arnon Karnieli (Professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev)

Turkey representation

• Levent Genç (Professor at Çanakkale University)
• Irmak Yay Algan (Istanbul Technical University, Research and Application Center for Satellite Communications and Remote Sensing – CSCRS)

Italy representation

• Deodato Tapete (Researcher at the Italian Space Agency)

 

2^nd DAY of the kick-off meeting (July 14^th, Saturday)

A presentation related to the Open source solutions for EO activities by CSSI was given by Brice Mora (CS); Observer and Former of the GOFC – GOLD representative from France.  Afterwards, the MedRIN research needs and collaborations as well as the path forward for the MedRIN were discussed and set, including the future plans and the next steps have to be undertaken.