On 12 January 2022 (10:00 - 12:45 CET), hear the final presentations from projects submitted to an ESA call related to the COVID-19 pandemic

The European Space Agency (ESA), together with the Italian Space Agency (ASI), the Ministry for Technological Innovation and Digital Transition and Ministry of Education have demonstrated to be able to effectively support both citizens and industries in addressing the unprecedented challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and alleviating their impacts on the daily life in the healthcare and education sectors. 

At the start of the pandemic, on 31st March 2020, ESA launched an Announcement of Opportunity (AO) "Space in Response to COVID-19 Outbreak in Italy", inviting companies to submit their ideas for deploying and demonstrating services to respond to the emergency that Europe, and especially Italy, is facing because of the spread of the coronavirus. Hear the final presentations of some of the projects on 12 January 2022 during an online webinar

Final presentation of "Space in Response to COVID-19 Outbreak In Italy"

Despite a short deadline, more than 120 outline proposals were received in response to the ESA call "Space in Response to COVID-19 Outbreak in Italy" released in March 2020. Twenty-four projects were implemented. In total, companies from sixteen countries responded to the call. ASI offered a funding envelope of €10 million to support the best projects. Many of the implemented projects have been able to develop in a short timeline innovative space-based solutions that have been integrated in the user’s operational systems contributing to alleviate the negative impacts caused by the COVID-19 during the crisis. They were also conceived for improving preparedness for future outbreaks.

The projects have showcased solutions based on satellite connectivity and other space and digital technologies which could be used for remote medical diagnosis and treatment, sanitation, pandemic management, social care, virtual collaboration and e-learning. Proposed services have been rapidly developed and deployed in pilot trials in Italy with local users (e.g., hospital, general practitioners, schools). The collaboration with national government authorities and space agencies has allowed to effectively respond to the needs of health and education user communities, demonstrating the added value that space can bring.

The main objectives of this AO were:

• Help citizens and health or educational professionals living in Italy to deal with the challenges of the coronavirus outbreak;
• Support the development and the adoption of services in healthcare and education to sustain the Italian community in reacting to the coronavirus outbreak;
• Demonstrate the benefit provided to users by the utilisation of space-assets integrated with other innovative technologies in these extraordinary circumstances;
• Offer the opportunity to businesses and other organisations to deploy and demonstrate solutions based on space for the benefit of citizens, local authorities and enterprises.

Further information and registration here (in Italian).

Agenda

12 January 2022

10:00 CET - ASI Welcome – G. Saccoccia

Setting the scene - Session Moderator ASI

• Italian Ministry of Technological Innovation and Digital Transition – D. Malerba
• Italian Ministry of Education
• ESA - E. Viau

Health related project - Session Moderators: M. Musmeci (ASI), A. Runge (ESA)

• EPICO-19
• CODE-19
• SATWORK

Education related project - Session Moderators: ESA, ASI

• Space for Children
• DreamCoder 2.0
• Space Edu Park

Wrap up and conclusions - A. Tuozzi (ASI), R. Rinaldo (ESA)

12:45 CET: END

Recruitment technology start-up MeVitae have been supported by the European Space Agency (ESA) to apply a space engineering solution to hiring. This innovative transferral of space technology is now helping organisations to remove biases and develop more inclusive and diverse workforces. 

Hiring decisions impact everything a company does, yet these crucial choices are often clouded with the limitations of human decision-making, called cognitive (or unconscious) biases. As leaders are grasping the importance of embedding diversity into their workforce, not just to reach diversity goals, but for performance outcomes, there is a surging demand for technological solutions to help organisations achieve ‘blind’ recruitment.

Based in Oxford, UK, MeVitae was founded by a neuroscientist and a computer scientist who set out to provide an AI-powered blind recruiting solution, mitigating algorithmic and unconscious biases from job applications. However, as a small team, MeVitae needed funding and expertise to develop their vision into a tangible prototype. That’s where ESA Business Applications came in, to support MeVitae and deliver a never-seen-before application of space technology into the world of human resources (HR). 

Riham Satti, CEO and co-founder of MeVitae said: “Pairing with ESA really skyrocketed our capabilities in the development phase and helped us build the products that companies are using today.” 

Pivoting a space technology

Over 18 months, ESA’s financial support and expertise enabled MeVitae to harness a powerful technology originally developed by ESA to analyse telemetry data to detect faults in space equipment. Together, MeVitae and ESA pivoted the technology to analyse typical hiring patterns, to identify anomalies and undetected biases. This helps organisations to understand their past hiring behaviours and improve their recruitment performance. 

“The issue of diversity in recruitment and hiring practices is one of the biggest being faced nowadays, particularly for those recruiting and hiring within technical industries. We’re proud to have supported the MeVitae team to marry space tech with HR, addressing the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal on gender equality in a unique way.” commented Rita Rinaldo, Head of Projects and Studies Implementation Division at ESA.

Using technology for good

Together with the anomaly-searching capabilities based on ESA technology, MeVitae offer companies a recruitment platform plugged into the leading Application Tracking Systems. This enables recruiters to automatically redact over 20 types of information from job applications that could be subject to bias, including name, gender, and university, in any type of application document, including CVs and covering letters.

“The hiring process plays a pinnacle role in developing diverse teams and our work is relevant now, more than ever. We are proud to offer organisations a proven method of driving diversity in the workplace, with our clients reporting increases of more than 30% in gender and ethnic diversity since using our Blind Recruiting solution,” said Riham.

In succession with the ESA project, MeVitae entered the US market, growing by 200% over the last year. Moreover, the company closed an investment round in just three weeks, before adding Microsoft and Oracle to their list of partners. This will enable the company to continue scaling, embarking on operating globally to keep up with its increasing demand.