Space

Lund explores the possibilities of space data

Caroline Wendt
October 25, 2019

As part of the Nordic Artificial Intelligence Powwow arranged by Skånemotor, Future by Lund was proud to sponsor the program segment Big Data. Björn Lovén from the National Space Agency spoke about how AI can be used to extract essential data – now a workshop on space technology is planned, which amongst other things aims to see what data is valuable to Lund.

In May 2009 Skånemotor and Lund University arranged AI Nordic Powwow, a one-day conference about artificial intelligence and machine learning. During the day representatives of academia, business and the city met in and around Lundagård. Anders Borg, former Finance Minister and currently AI Adviser IPSoft, was the key-note speaker and talked, amongst other things, about the changes and opportunities that AI could bring to us all.

A key insight from the day was that it isn’t technology itself which is the actual challenge but humanity’s ability to use technology. Now is the opportunity to think about what kind of society we should build – not just in terms of what is technically possible but also taking into account the legal, ethical and economic considerations. This was also one of the reasons that Skånemotor wanted to gather experts from many fields to collaborate.

The afternoon program gave the participants the opportunity to choose between six different agendas: Future Healthcare, Industrial Transformation with AI, AI Challenges in Society, Smart Cities and Mobility, Big Data and AI/ML Talent Supply. Future by Lund sponsored the Big Data agenda.

– Big Data is an important area and we have an interest in investigating how data can be collected and used, says Anders Bengtsson, Project Manager at Future by Lund. The city generates huge amounts of data and we want to grasp how it can be used to make a smarter city, amongst other ideas in our SOM-project but also the provisional project Value of Data.

One of the speakers was Björn Lovén, Head of Technology and Earth Observation Data Management at the Space Agency.

– The potential of space data is huge, says Björn Lovén. Being able to extract the information you want will become easier and that is why we think that the combination of space data and AI is a winning concept. We have a commitment to the AI-center AI Innovation of Sweden where we want to build a space data lab to obtain information in a simpler way.

Data which the National Space Agency collects is also about the conditions on earth. This can include agriculture, deforestation, fires and data for icebreakers in the Baltic Sea but also data which is valuable for urban areas.

– Space data can be very beneficial for social development, explains Anders Bengtsson. As new values can be created by linking space data to other data that has been collected by the city.

The Big Data program also includes Jan Erik Solhem, CEO of Mapillary. Mapillary aims to build better maps by combining images that have been collected from people, companies, NGOs and governments around the world. Sonja Aits, Team Manager of Cell Death and Lysosomes at Lund University, spoke about Big Data in Biomedicine and Mats Sjödin gave reflections from his role as editor-in-chief within TV news. Karin Rathsman from ESS held the program agenda item “Make ESS Control system available for Machine Learning”. The moderator was internet pioneer Jonas Birgersson.

The National Space Agency and Future by Lund are now discussing a workshop on space technology which, amongst other things, aims to investigate what data is most valuable to Lund.

– There are many exciting initiatives in Lund where space technology can be applied to produce the best possible benefit, explains Björn Lovén.

See the interview with Björn Lovén here.

Translation: Ben Dohrmann

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