Announcement of the First METIS Master Training and Awareness Day

March 15th and 16th 2007 - Ifrane (Morocco)

The METIS project has the pleasure of announcing its First Master Training and Seminar, in Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane (Morocco) on March 15th and 16th 2007.

METIS (MEdiTerranean Introduction of GNSS Services) is a Euro-Mediterranean project managed by the European GNSS Supervisory Authority (GSA), and funded by the Euro-MED GNSS I Progamme funds.

METIS aims at paving the way for the involvement of the Mediterranean regions in EGNOS and Galileo initiatives, thus creating a basis for an international cooperation.

METIS goal is to prepare a “GNSS Regional Plan” for the GNSS services market development in the MEDA region in the next 5-10 years, initially through EGNOS, to ease the introduction of the full Galileo Services.

METIS has a duration of 30 months and will run a programme of training and demonstration activities, in MEDA countries: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey.

Galileo will be Europe’s own global navigation satellite system, providing a highly accurate, guaranteed global positioning service under civilian control. It will also be inter-operable with GPS and GLONASS.

The European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) is Europe’s first venture into satellite navigation. It will augment the two military satellite navigation systems now operating, the US GPS and Russian GLONASS systems, and make them suitable for safety critical applications such as flying aircraft or navigating ships through narrow channels.

The European Union is building a global navigation satellite system (GNSS), comprising Galileo and EGNOS, which will provide a set of positioning, navigation and timing services.

METIS outcomes support the Euro-Mediterranean policy and actions in favour of the GNSS (EGNOS / GALILEO) services market in MEDA through:

• Development of a “GNSS Regional Plan”;
• Running a program of “Training & Awareness” activities;
• Implementing “Service Demonstrations” in MEDA countries involving local actors.

METIS “Training and Awareness” provides the initial background necessary for the future GNSS activity development in the region. It organises several events in the regions for Training and Awareness purposes: Workshops, Master Trainings and Seminars.

The Awareness Workshops and the Seminars initiate and maintain the communication among the different actors and stimulate their interest. In addition, the communication means deployed during the METIS project creates links through the GNSS initiatives existing within the MEDA regions, but also within Europe.

The Master Training has a twofold objective:

• To provide the necessary knowledge and background to setup the bases of a sustainable GNSS activity in the MEDA region
• To be a training for future trainers, since the participants will not only acquire the information and knowledge related to the addressed topics, but they will also learn how to transfer this knowledge to participants in the regional training to be organized in their respective country.
• Topics were selected following a consultation process carried out within MEDA actors, and responding to the following needs:
  • Addressing Galileo & EGNOS technical features, and use in main application domains;
  • Providing background information relating to the necessary infrastructures and technologies,
  • Standardization and regulatory framework;
  • Giving an overview of the benefits of EGNOS and Galileo use in main applications.

For more details, please contact:
Prof. Driss Kettani, Chair of the Organizing Committee
School of Science and Engineering,
Alakhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco.
D.Kettani@aui.ma

Program