Dr Benjamin Koetz heads the Sustainable Initiatives Office in the Earth Observation Directorate of the European Space Agency. The tasks of the Sustainable Initiatives Office focus on partnerships co-designed with international user communities and stakeholders with the goal of long-term and sustainable adoption of Earth Observation (EO) information in operations. These partnerships are based on developing innovative EO applications in close collaboration with relevant user communities, scientists and EO service providers. In particular, he has collected extensive experience over the last 15 years collaborating with the African EO community. Benjamin represents ESA at the GMES & Africa Policy Coordination and Advisory Committee (PCAC) of the African Union Commission and acts as the focal point of contact for Africa at the Earth Observation Directorate of ESA.
Benjamin Koetz received his M.Sc. in Environmental Sciences with a major in Remote Sensing from the University of Trier, Germany. He also holds a PhD in Earth Observation from the University of Zürich, Switzerland. His scientific expertise focuses on developing physically-based methodologies to derive geo-biophysical EO products, and he has 20+ years of experience in satellite Earth observation.