Minister of State for Science and Technology Jitendra Singh on Tuesday said that within a short period there have emerged 250 startups working in the geospatial sphere in India, and added that this sector is projected to grow significantly to ₹52,770 crore.
Dr. Singh was delivering the keynote address at the Second United Nations World Geospatial Information Congress.
Touching on the number of geospatial startups, Dr. Singh said: “ I am also quite excited that we have got a few startups, I was told about more than 250 startups, in the geospatial theme. And that is remarkable when you realize that space tech was opened for startups only about two or three years back, and we had an agency in space in place only one year back.”
The Minister pointed out that while technology has become increasingly accessible, its adoption across the world is not uniform. He suggested that the geospatial experts at the Congress should deliberate on its uniform adoption, and take into consideration the requirements of different stakeholders. He said that research should not happen in isolation and called for “balance” in research, academia and industry to ensure sustainable goals.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, in a message delivered on his behalf, said that experts who had converged at the Congress were united in the common quest of “using geospatial data, digital tools, and technological innovation to move towards a better, greener and safer future”. “We need you to drive innovation and action through the power of data — focused on the most marginalised and vulnerable communities and places,” he was quoted as saying.
India’s space and geospatial policies, including the establishing IN-SPACe, would enable entities working in the private sector and as non-government organisations to access information to provide solutions to problems which administrators face. “I believe the overall policy is really transformative. It will look at the available satellite data of certain resolutions and will be accessible on a free and open basis. And I believe this will bring increase in data utillisation,” he said.
Co-chair of UN-GGIM, Kingdom of Belgium said: “Location-based information underpins everything we do. The full integration with statistics and data of relevance to our lives and livelihoods is key to providing better information, knowledge, insight and shared understanding. We need that to enable us to better achieve local, national and international goals, including the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development COVID-19 recovery, and our climate agenda.”
