Mr. Marcio Barbosa
CEOS Chirman, INPE
Mr. Marcio Barbosa
CEOS Chirman, INPE
For INPE it is an honor and a great responsibility to serve as CEOS Chair for the first time. In its seventeenth year of existence, CEOS has achieved full maturity and a high international visibility among both the scientific community and the commercial sector. These accomplishments were thoroughly demonstrated last year in Vienna, with CEOS' strong presence at UNISPACE III.
It is therefore a challenge to keep up the high standard attained by past Chairs with the help of our very able Secretariat, the excellent performance presented by our Working Groups and the competent efforts of the Strategic Implementation Team (SIT). I am fortunate to rely on their continuing support and contribution during this period.
After exactly ten years, it will be a pleasure to host a CEOS Plenary meeting for the second time. It is also a happy coincidence that the Chair comes to Brazil just after we have put into operation the first China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite (CBERS-1). I believe it comes in timely for a more active INPE contribution to the CEOS scenery.
In that scenery, important developments must still be carried out and carried on, like continuing to support the Integrated Global Observing Strategy (IGOS) initiative, whose leaders shall again meet in conjunction with the CEOS Plenary this year. The ocean theme of the initial phase should be complemented by additional ones aimed at shorter term benefits for people around our planet, such as disaster applications. Compatibility and complementarity of spaceborne observing systems must be kept in sight to optimize the use of resources required for their placement in service.
A particular concern of mine is related to the influence of the growing availability of commercial high-resolution orbital imagery. CEOS may have something to work out in this respect. Another area that I see with great interest is the Internet explosion and its potential benefits for data transmission in both scientific and commercial applications. Again, CEOS should not be indifferent to the latent implications of this evolution concerning Earth Observations data.
In fact, CEOS' Mission is as dynamic as its very field of work. I am happy that its current structure and status, thanks to all the individuals that helped bringing them up, seem fully appropriate to cope successfully with the challenges it has to face in the near future. I am confident that with the summed contribution of those individuals, which I'm proud to be part of, the Year 2000 term will round up as well as that number.
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