The AI4Copernicus project will set up an Advisory Board which will act as a consulting body that will provide the AI4Copernicus partnership with external guidance on its strategic objectives and deliverables.

The expert Members of the AI4Copernicus Advisory Board are:

Alain Arnaud, Mercator Ocean

Alain Arnaud is Senior Satellite Image Application Expert and Space Business Consultant. Graduated from Ecole Polytechnique (X89), he received his PhD in computer science in 1997. He worked as a technical manager in the French Space Agency (CNES) and the European Space Agency (ESA). In 2000 he founded ALTAMIRA INFORMATION specialized in the millimetric measurement of ground movements from radar satellite images, becoming in 2010 part of the CLS Group. From 2010 to 2015 he was director of radar activities for CLS Group.  From 2015 to 2017 he was partner of Avet Venture, high-tech venture capital fund. Since 2017, he is leading the digital transition at Mercator Ocean, as manager of the WEkEO (in collaboration with Eumetsat and ECMWF) and organizer of the Digital Twin of the Ocean initiative.

Pierre-Philippe Mathieu, ESA-ESRIN

Pierre-Philippe Mathieu is heading the Φ-lab Explore Office at the European Space Agency in ESRIN (Frascati, Italy), aiming to connect people, ideas and digital technologies to help shape the future of Earth Observation. He spent 20+ years working in the field of environmental and ocean modelling, weather risk management and remote sensing. He has a degree in mechanical engineering and M.Sc from University of Liege (Belgium), a Ph.D. in oceanography from the University of Louvain (Belgium), and a Management degree from the University of Reading Business School (Uk). 

Ioannis Papoutsis, National Observatory of Athens

Dr. Ioannis Papoutsis is an Associate Researcher at the Institute for Astronomy, Astrophysics, Space Applications & Remote Sensing of the National Observatory of Athens. With more than 12 years of experience as an electrical and computer engineer in international Earth Observation (EO) activities and initiatives, his research interests include big EO data processing, AI/deep learning for knowledge extraction using satellite imagery, and SAR interferometry for cross-sectorial applications with emphasis on disaster risk reduction and agricultural applications. Since January 2017, Ioannis is the Operational Manager of several Copernicus Hubs for the dissemination of Petabytes of Sentinel data on behalf of the European Space Agency (ESA). He was the Copernicus Emergency Manager for the Copernicus Emergency Management Service, Risk & Recovery with 19 activations (2014-2019). Ioannis participated as technical manager in several projects, funded mainly from the EC, ESA and Copernicus. Currently, he is the coordinator of the H2020 project DeepCube that focuses on AI pipelines for big Copernicus data. He has co-authored more than 90 related publications (scientific journals, conference and book chapters). He was part of the team that won the first prize at the 2014 Copernicus Masters Competition for platform FireHub.

Mihir Sarkar, ENGIE Digital

Mihir Sarkar is the Chief Data Officer at ENGIE Digital where he uses Artificial Intelligence and Data Science to help lead the zero-carbon energy transition. Mihir received a PhD from MIT in Media Arts & Sciences. He was a researcher at the MIT Media Lab where he studied Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science, and founded and led the International Initiatives program to empower organisations and communities around the world to innovate and build solutions to solve their own problems through a Design Thinking and Lean Startup approach. Mihir founded two startups in applied AI in Silicon Valley. He has contributed to the development and adoption of several technologies such as voice control, audio compression, infotainment and telematics systems for automobiles, online multimedia content creation, and remote collaboration on the Internet. Mihir currently lives in Paris.

Geoff Sawyer, European Association of Remote Sensing Companies

Geoff is a strategic advisor to the board of EARSC having been, until very recently the Secretary General of EARSC since 2011. Geoff has driven the development of the Association into the widely-known and well-regarded organisation it is today. During his long and varied career, Geoff has held senior management positions in the space industry with Astrium / EADS / Airbus as well as numerous representative positions in the UK and Europe. In his early career, Geoff was the radar systems designer for ERS-1 and Envisat and later became vice-president for the space strategy for EADS (now Airbus). He was previously a director of EARSC for 12 years during which he was chairman for 6 years from 1991 to 1997.  He spent 3 years working for the European Commission where he was responsible for supporting space policy and, in particular, the creation of the GMES (now Copernicus) initiative. Geoff is very well known to many in the space and earth observation sectors and brings this deep wealth of experience and knowledge to support the ambitions of the geo-information industry that EARSC represents.