News from the BigEarth Group at BIFOLD
From international panels and keynotes to a new AI-powered digital assistant that allows users to access and explore complex EO data through a natural language interface – here’s what the BigEarth team at BIFOLD has been working on.
The Big Data Analytics for Earth Observation (BigEarth) group at BIFOLD and the Remote Sensing Image Analysis (RSiM) group at TU Berlin, both led by Prof. Dr. Begüm Demir, continue to contribute to key scientific and strategic discussions on the use of artificial intelligence in Earth observation. Below are four current highlights that reflect the groups active engagement in international conferences, collaborations, and public dissemination of cutting-edge AI technologies for geoscientific applications.
EGU 2025: Exploring the Role of Digital Technologies in the Geosciences - Begüm Demir joins panel “Will digital technologies close or widen gaps within the geosciences?”
Begüm Demir spoke at the high-level panel “Will digital technologies close or widen gaps within the geosciences?” at the General Assembly 2025 of the European Geosciences Union (EGU). This hybrid conference took place in Vienna and online from April 27th to May 2nd 2025.
The panel examined both the benefits and risks of digital transformation in geosciences. Co-panelists included representatives from NASA, the European Commission, and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center.
Sidenote - More contributions from BIFOLD at EGU 2025:
- Combining spatio-temporal neural networks with mechanistic interpretability to investigate teleconnections in S2S forecasts
- Authors: Philine Lou Bommer, Marlene Kretschmer, Fiona Spurler, Kirill Bykov, Paul Boehnke, Marina M.-C. Hoehne (BIFOLD Fellow)
- Details: https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU25/EGU25-9753.html
- A reduced-order representation of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Details
- Authors: Jan Swierczek-Jereczek, Adrian Hill (BIFOLD), Alexander Robinson, Jorge Alvarez-Solas, Marisa Montoya
- https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU25/EGU25-10371.html
BEODay 2025: Begüm Demir will deliver a keynote on “Recent Trends in AI for Earth Observation and Pathways Forward”
The BEODay 2025 celebrates 40 years of Earth observation research in Belgium. The event occurs on 13 May 2025 in Brussels and will bring together scientists and stakeholders to reflect on past achievements and future perspectives.
More info: BEODay 2025
BigEarth contributions to the ESA–NASA Workshop on Geospatial AI Foundation Models
From May 5 to 7 2025, the ESA–NASA International Workshop on AI Foundation Models for Earth Observation will bring together global experts to explore foundational models in geospatial AI.
Begüm Demir is serving as Programme Committee Member, and researchers from the BigEarth group will present novel approaches, including posters titled: “Enhancing Remote Sensing Vision-Language Models based on Redundancy Aware Pretraining” and “Efficient Remote Sensing Foundation Models with Mixture-of-Experts”
Event info: ESA-NASA International Workshop on AI Foundation Model for EO
ESA showcases BIFOLD’s AI Assistant that allows users to access and explore complex EO data through a natural language interface
The DA4DTE (Demonstrator Precursor Digital Assistant Interface for Digital Twin Earth) project – co-developed by BIFOLD, TU Berlin, the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and e-GEOS – was recently featured on ESA’s Φ-lab website. The project led to a first-generation AI-powered digital assistant that enables users to explore satellite data archives through natural language and visual queries.