Dr. Benjamin Koetz’s

Benjamin Koetz is the head of 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 together 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 the development of innovative EO applications in close collaboration with relevant user communities, scientists and EO service providers. In particular he collected over the last 10 years extensive experience collaborating with the African EO community and relevant users – he acts as focal point for Africa at the Earth Observation Directorate of ESA. As Mission Scientist of the Land Surface Temperature Monitoring (LSTM) mission he prepares one of the proposed Copernicus Expansion missions aiming at improved agricultural management. Benjamin Koetz received his M.S. degree in Environmental Sciences with a major in Remote Sensing from the University of Trier, Germany. He also holds a Ph.D. with a specialization in Earth Observation from the University of Zürich, Switzerland.