A data platform for Africa: discover Dunia

31 October 2023

ESA has launched a new service for African data users of Copernicus Sentinels data—to enable fast Earth observation data access for everyone, anywhere and at any time.

Dunia is an all in one, easy to use data processing and dissemination platform, which also works on smartphones.
The Dunia service will contribute to the improvement of data accessibility and exploitation, facilitating the development and operations of applications over Africa, by giving access to Copernicus Sentinels data in formats and protocols adapted to low bandwidth and fast data exploitation.

Dunia platform on Smart Phone

Copyright: GeoVille Information Systems and Data Processing

Users can choose from a vast variety of African Earth observation (EO) products and Copernicus satellite missions, searching, filtering and viewing African data of their choice.
They can obtain datasets that they want to analyse locally, without worrying about bandwidth or endless download times, thanks to innovative solutions.

Dunia is being developed in partnership by a group of leading organisations, each with a proven track record of delivering excellence in the domain of Earth observation.
Carefully chosen datasets enable users to complete a huge range of analyses, including administrative boundaries, digital elevation models and the full Copernicus Sentinels catalogue.
Users can generate and share information about their solutions, and experience fostering a sense of community by sharing their data and applications with others.

Why choose Dunia?

Dunia provides cloud development environments, equipped with popular and powerful data processing tools like JuypterLab and QGIS.
All Dunia users get free data and infrastructure usage funded by ESA, and to ease data downloads, the platform uses an innovative data compression technique to reduce bandwidth demands.
Simple user interfaces are designed to work also on smart phones, and there’s a dedicated live online training programme, with comprehensive tutorials aimed at first-time users to help lower access barriers.

Joe Rixon, IT Project Manager of GeoVille, states, “We're thrilled to be involved in the development of Dunia and to launch this innovative technical solution, which not only opens new doors to Copernicus data but also makes their usage accessible to users in low-bandwidth and mobile environments. With the introduction of the Dunia service, we're lowering barriers and allowing more African users to leverage the power of Earth observation data”.

Access the Dunia platform from the following link.