Kathrin Sturm

Kathrin Sturm is Project Manager at Anwendungszentrum GmbH Oberpfaffenhofen (AZO) since 2011. Her focus is on European projects and international initiatives involving the commercial use of space technologies with a focus on the European GNSS programmes Galileo and EGNOS. She is managing the European Satellite Navigation Competition (ESNC), an international innovation competition that comprises the largest innovation network in satellite navigation. This network contains the most important stakeholders related to GNSS in Europe and partners from more than 20 regions comprising more than 130 space-related stakeholders in total. The ESNC also comprises a huge space-related incubation network with more than 40 incubators and thus offers a Europe-wide infrastructure to support entrepreneurs launching their ideas.

In the past 4 years she also coordinated the Galileo-EGNOS Prize Award Scheme (GEPAS) project which supported the ESNC. GEPAS made it possible to realise major aims such as to foster the establishment of Europe’s largest support mechanism for GNSS entrepreneurs, drive the commercialisation of GNSS applications, and unite Europe in space. As part of the European Commission’s current Galileo Action Plan, the scheme fostered the creation of new businesses and jobs in Europe in the downstream space market. Thanks to this support, the ESNC contributes significantly to economic growth based on the European flagship programmes Galileo and EGNOS.

AZO is a leading competence and applications center for space applications using Galileo, EGNOS, and Copernicus and robotics. AZO’s key competence lies in scouting innovation via competitions and supporting promising teams in the commercialisation of their business ideas and the foundation of new companies. The aim is to promote the European Space Programmes Galileo and Copernicus, to foster the use of them for downstream applications and provide support to entrepreneurs in realising their business ideas through the incubator ESA BIC Bavaria as well as a network of incubators.