ESA Graduate Trainee in Innovative AI4EO for Green and Sustainable Future

Our team and mission

The Φ-lab in ESRIN aims to accelerate the future of Earth Observation (EO) by helping the European industry and research communities to rapidly adopt transformational technologies. A particular interest of the Φ-lab is to promote the use of disruptive innovations to enable users and scientists to extract maximum information from the large amount of Earth Observation (EO) data sets. Of particular interest are all aspects related to Climate change like Climate Adaptation and Mitigation and Green transition.

Please visit philab.esa.int

You are encouraged to visit the ESA website: http://www.esa.int

Field(s) of activity/research for the traineeship

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 EGT 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.

As a ESA Graduate Trainee (EGT), 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 for the visualisation of EO data.

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.

Technical competencies

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 should have just completed, or be in the final year of your master’ s degree in a relevant technical or scientific field.

Additional requirements

You should have good interpersonal and communication skills and should be able to work in a multicultural environment, both independently and as part of a team. Previous experience of working in international teams can be considered an asset. Your motivation, overall professional perspective and career goals will also be explored during the later stages of the selection process. 

You should also have:

• Knowledge of EO technologies and applications.
• Knowledge of Artificial Intelligence.
• Understanding of Climate Adaptation and Mitigation and Green transition aspects.