[SatNews] Euroconsult has announced the recipients of its annual Earth Observation Business Awards during its Summit on Earth Observation Business held in Paris on September 11-12, 2014.

The Summit on Earth Observation Business is the only annual international summit dedicated to business in the Earth observation (EO) community. This year's summit was its sixth edition, bringing together more than 250 senior executives and government officials from over 40 countries and from EO satellite operators, data distributors, manufacturers, and government and private users. The summit is part of the World Satellite Business Week, the industry's annual senior executive event, now in its 18th year.

Each year in Paris, Euroconsult awards leaders and their companies for outstanding accomplishments in the sector. Awards were given this year in three categories and were attributed by our industry experts based on rigorous qualitative[1] and quantitative[2] methods:

• Strategic Transaction of the Year: Google for its acquisition of Skybox Imaging
• Newcomer Earth Observation Operator of the Year: JSC "National Company Kazakhstan Gharysh Sapary"
• Strategic Partnership of the Year: BlackBridge and Santiago & Cintra Consultoria

"These awards are a means of recognizing organizations and their leaders that, through their outstanding performance, strategic vision or innovation, have had a significant impact on the Earth observation market," said Pacôme Révillon, CEO of Euroconsult. "It is gratifying for Euroconsult to be able to honor their achievements."

Strategic Transaction of the Year—Google, Ching-Yu Hu, Head of Skybox Marketing
"We are honored to receive this prestigious award from Euroconsult. We dedicate this award to the customers and partners in the industry who have supported us since inception. We are thrilled to be a part of Google and to take our vision of providing timely, high-resolution satellite imagery and analytics to Google scale."

Newcomer Earth Observation Operator of the Year—JSC "National Company Kazakhstan Gharysh Sapary," Marat R. Nurguzhin, Acting President
"It is an honor to be recognized by our colleagues from the international Earth observation business community. It must be mentioned that such modest but gratifying achievement would not be possible without the cooperation with our strategic partner Airbus D&S and the highly-skilled SSTL team. We pledge to continue applying our best efforts to make this award a stepping stone to our future success."
 
Strategic Partnership of the Year—BlackBridge, Richard Goode, CFO
"BlackBridge is honored that Euroconsult has chosen to recognize us for the strategic partnership we have with Santiago & Cintra Consultoria. We believe that our continued success is a reflection of those we have chosen to partner with. Santiago & Cintra Consultoria is a thought leader in our industry and continues to bring innovative solutions to our market. Together we will continue to develop solutions for the complex challenges our customers face."

Santiago & Cintra Consultoria, Iara Musse Felix, CEO
"We would like to thank Euroconsult for recognizing the partnership between BlackBridge and Santiago & Cintra Consultoria which has created a unique scenario in the Brazilian market, allowing for continued development of complete solutions for users that demand consistent and updated geospatial information. The WebGIS solutions and online processing are able to offer the highest content of land use information ever obtained in Brazil, supporting important government projects, such as CAR - The Rural Environmental Cadastre, and the private sector, specifically agriculture monitoring."

[1]Innovation, strategic decisions related to infrastructure, commercial strategy and partnerships and their impact, etc.
[2]Financial performance indicators including revenue growth, commercial revenues, deal size, etc.

For additional information, please visit the Euroconsult infosite at http://www.euroconsult-ec.com/