A representative group of the SERVIR-Amazonia team participated in its first SERVIR Annual Global Exchange (SAGE) in Cambodia during February 3-7, 2020. The SAGE events unite all SERVIR Hubs (South East Africa, West Africa, Himalaya, Mekong, Amazonia) for a week of team building, knowledge sharing and establishment of collaborations across the regional Hubs to reach the ultimate goal of finding the best ways to use satellite data and remote sensing imagery to help countries tackle some of their most challenging environmental issues.
Carlos Gasco, SERVIR-Amazonia Program Director reflects on the week: “This event was an unbelievable opportunity for networking, understanding and learning from the other Hubs and for identifying opportunities for collaboration, especially between specific services. It was equally crucial to start integrating the Applied Science Teams.”
Here is how some of the team members appreciated the event which also celebrated the 15 years of the SERVIR Global Program:
- It was wonderful to meet and integrate the Amazonia team (Jim Nelson, AST)
- We leveraged the power of the SERVIR Global network (Africa Flores, NASA, Science Coordination Office)
- You brought in great perspectives on MEL and social inclusion (Nancy Searby, Capacity Building Program Manager NASA HQ Point of Contact for SERVIR)
- We had good discussions on how policy gets influenced by peer reviewed science, and why we need to publish in addition to co-develop services (Lou Verchot, Senior scientists, CIAT)
- We saw an incredible amount of great ideas; services are start-ups (Jean-Pierre Wack, SIG)
- The networking opportunities were great, it gave me ideas for user engagement (José Fernandes, CIAT)
- SAGE is a fabulous cross-pollination process whereby we leverage what everyone else is doing; saw how much growth there was; (Karis Tenneson, SIG)
