On the 22nd of September 2021, the The Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research organised a dissemination workshop in the context of the EO4GEO project, entitled “EO4GEO opportunities for Earth Observation and Geoinformation skills improvement“. The workshop was aimed at the Earth Observation and Geographic Information (EO*GI) field, and addressed the use of EO4GEO resources and tools to tackle the skill and training gap between education and workforce.  

GEOTEC member Sven Casteleyn, together with Hande Erdem from the Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO, Belgium), explained the EO4GEO Body of Knowledge, the ecosystem of tools built around it by GEOTEC, and the Earth Observations tools made available by VITO within EO4GEO. Next, the workshop demonstrated the use of these resources and tools in three case studies: an academic summer school organised online by the University of Salzburg (Austria), a summer school for up-skilling and re-skilling the regional administration in Potenza (Italy) and the company (EPSIT) searching for suitably skilled employees (Italy).

It was a pleasure to see the EO4GEO BoK tools, developed by GEOTEC, in action in a real-world setting, and we were happy to see that also the audience – academics and practitioners in the EO*GI field – expressed their interest and saw the benefits of the tools in practice.