Looking Back: MetGIS at the DGI Summit LAC × CEDS2026 in Santiago de Chile

What an inspiring day in Santiago de Chile! Here is our recap of the DGI Summit LAC, held from October 27 to 29. On October 29, our CEO Gerald Spreitzhofer had the pleasure of joining the stage as an invited speaker, alongside fascinating guests from Europe and Latin America. A big thank you to the organisers for the invitation, especially GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit)! We also thank Valentina Cullmann for her excellent moderation of the panel “Bridging Markets: Partnerships and Learnings on Earth Observation Innovation”.

The summit was part of CEDS2026, the Conferencia Internacional sobre Espacio y Desarrollo Sostenible (International Conference on Space and Sustainable Development). It was organised by the #TeamEurope DGI Action, co-funded by the European Union, Germany and France. Partners included CopernicusLAC Chile, the Universidad de Chile with its innovation centre OpenBeauchef, and the Inter-American Development Bank. Numerous well-known companies such as OroraTech, GMV and Airbus Defence and Space also took part. The Brazilian Space Agency AEB, the EU Delegation to Chile and the Austrian Trade Commission in Santiago (Advantage Austria) were represented as well. You can find more information about the event here.

The session explored what Europe and Latin America can offer each other. The discussion covered space agencies, business support organisations and companies alike. The speakers presented collaboration projects, shared their lessons learned and outlined their vision for the future.

Gerald first introduced MetGIS and then spoke about building R&D partnerships and business relations between European and Latin American companies. In doing so, he drew on many past and ongoing projects. A flagship example was a recently completed Eureka project with the Chilean companies Cienciambiental and Hidrofuturo. It was financed by the funding agencies FFG(Austria) and CORFO(Chile).

All MetGIS products cover the whole of South America, and we already work with a number of partners there.

You can read more about the background of the talk in our pre-summit blog post.

With this recap of the DGI Summit LAC, we would like to thank everyone involved for the stimulating conversations. We are returning to Vienna with many valuable impressions and contacts. We look forward to turning them into new collaborations in the coming months.