Our team and mission

This position is based at the ESA Centre for Earth Observation (ESRIN) - Frascati, Italy 

The Φ-lab in ESRIN mission is to accelerate the future of Earth Observation (EO) by means of transformational innovations, i.e. innovations that completely transform or create entire industries via new technologies, with the aim to strengthen the world-leading competitiveness of the European EO industrial and research sectors.
To achieve its mission, Φ-lab manages the full range of the innovation pipeline. We create or discover new transformational ideas, select and nurture the good ones, develop the corresponding “solution” or product by maturing and testing it, and finally we invest in the best ones via the InCubed programme to reach market adoption.

A particular interest of the Φ-lab Explore office is to promote the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques to enable users and scientists to extract maximum information from the large amount of Earth Observation (EO) data sets. 

Candidates interested are encouraged to visit the ESA websites: http://www.esa.int and philab.esa.int 

Field(s) of activity for the internship

Topic of the internship: Innovative AI4EO for Green and Sustainable Future

You will provide support for the tasks to be performed by the Φ-lab Explore Office (see https://philab.esa.int/explore/). 

This entails, for example tasks like: 

• Assessing within the deep tech innovation sectors promising transformative technologies and methodologies;
• Preforming research and study activities;
• Performing prototipization and testing of transformative Technologies;
• Connecting with EO ecosystem and internal ESA stakeholders to promote uptake of such innovations.

The idea of this internship is also to foster the use of new technologies (e.g. foundation models, machine learning, AI in general) to showcase/promote Earth Observation (EO) data and results to a wider non-technical community, and provide users with solutions, in particular with focus on Climate Adaptation and Mitigation and Green transition applications. 
You will first familiarise yourself with a significant number of Earth observation missions, instruments and relevant data and acquire specialised knowledge of Earth observation data applications, in particular for Green and Sustainable Future. 

You will then contribute to the definition and implementation of innovative tools and pipelines. 
In particular, your tasks will include: 

• Collection and verification of a suite of EO data sets to showcase use cases with the focus on Climate Adaptation and Mitigation and Green transition applications; 
• Assess needs derived from applicable policies and ESA strategic documentations;
• Assessment of currently available tools, methodologies and applications in the field exploiting EO data;
• Identify gaps and propose alternative approaches to be explored;
• Collection and verification of a suite of EO data sets to showcase use cases with the focus on Climate Adaptation and Mitigation and Green transition applications; 
• Support the generation of narrative of the achieved results for ESA, policy makers and end users;
• Presentation of project advancement and preparation of a final report showing the main results of the activity.

Behavioural competencies

Result Orientation
Operational Efficiency
Fostering Cooperation
Relationship Management
Continuous Improvement
Forward Thinking

For more information, please refer to ESA Core Behavioural Competencies guidebook

Education

You must be a university student, preferably in your final or second-to-last year of a university course at Master’s level and you need to remain enrolled at your University for the entire duration of the internship.

Additional requirements

The working languages of the Agency are English and French. A good knowledge of one of these is required. Knowledge of another Member State language would be an asset.

Knowledge and background in Artificial Intelligence techniques is an asset.