Munich—October 21, 2009 —Tonight, the best innovative applications in satellite navigation were awarded for the sixth straight year at the Allerheiligenhofkirche, the church at the renowned Munich Residenz. This year's €20,000 grand prize went to Madrid, and another 17 regions and eight special topic prize winners chosen from among the nearly 300 total project ideas submitted were honoured for their creativity and technological prowess by Bavarian State Secretary Katja Hessel.

The European Satellite Navigation Competition is an international innovation contest that recognises the best ideas for applications in the field of satellite navigation. Organised annually by the Application Center for Satellite Navigation Oberpfaffenhofen (AZO) since 2004, the ESNC is geared toward companies, entrepreneurs, research institutes, universities, and private individuals. Having started with three partner regions, this year's competition was held in no fewer than 18 high-tech regions all over the world: Nice / Sophia Antipolis, Prague, South Holland, Madrid, Lombardy, Australia, Taiwan, Great Britain, and the German states of Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Hesse, Lower Saxony, and North Rhine-Westphalia, as well as the newcomer regions Øresund, Gipuzkoa, Valencia, Switzerland and Israel.

The ESNC aims to further strengthen collaboration among these regions at a global level, particularly in the development of applications and services that will be made possible by the European satellite navigation system Galileo. The competition is carried out under the patronage of the Bavarian State Ministry of Economic Affairs, Infrastructure, Transportation and Technology and supported by Messe München GmbH.

The 2009 grand prize winner, Osmógrafo®, combines satellite positioning with wind measurement and rescue dogs' sense of smell in order to better determine which areas have already been covered by search teams. For this system - which was developed as part of the sixth framework programme of the European Commission - the Spanish company GMV was chosen as the Madrid regional winner and also received a special topic prize for the best life-saving application from Imade, the Madrid aerospace cluster and other sponsoring partners like Deimos and INDRA. The ESNC's international jury concurred, naming the Osmógrafo® the competition's overall winner. José Caro Ramon was in attendance at the Munich Residenz to accept all three awards on behalf of GMV.

We have enclosed an overview of all of this year's prize-winning innovations.

Pictures of the awards ceremony will be available on 22 October at: http://www.galileo-masters.eu/downloads/bilder_ac_esnc2009.zip

Image material for the individual winners and their ideas is available upon request.

Further information on current trends in satellite navigation can be obtained by attending the Navigation Summit at discuss & discover on 22 October at the International Congress Centre Munich.

The next iteration of the European Satellite Navigation Competition is set to begin with an international kick-off conference from 3 - 5 March, 2010 at the European Commission's Charlemagne Conference Center in Brussels.                        



Contact:

Application Center for Satellite Navigation Oberpfaffenhofen (AZO)                         
Ulrike Daniels                                                         
Friedrichshafenerstr. 1
82205 Gilching
Germany
Tel.:+49-0-8105-7727710
Mobile:+49-0-162-2748570
E-mail: Email Contact                
Web: www.galileo-masters.eu