THE IMPACT OF DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION ON
DIGITAL EARTH
ALESSANDRO ANNONI, President of the International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE)
THE 1ST ISDE INTERNATIONAL LECTURES, 18 NOVEMBER 2022
THE PRINCIPLES OF DIGITAL EARTH (EARTH IN BALANCE, 1992)
People should be informed
about the dangers of
pollution, global warming
and other planetary issues.
The key to the success of a
detailed proposal to aid in
saving nature is public
awareness . If the public
becomes aware of what is
truly going on in the
environment maybe
people will change for the
better and try to make the
world better and cleaner
place for future
generations. ​
WHY IS DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION SO IMPORTANT FOR DE?
We articulate the impact according to three key enablers:
1. Digital channels (including connected devices)
2. Digital analytics
3. Digital business model(s)
Impact of Digital Transformation on DE
 More Data available (Satellites data, Personal Data, IoT ..)
 Ubiquitous and faster data access (optical fiber, 5G,..)
 Cheap digital devices (Smartphones , cameras, drones.)
 Increasing capacities in data processing and analytics (HPC, AI..)
 Progresses in Human computer interaction (VR, Voice,..)
 Machine to Machine interoperability (API)
 …
Digital transformation refers to the profound
changes taking place in the economy and society
because of the uptake and integration of digital
technologies in every aspect of human life.
1. DIGITAL CHANNELS (INCLUDING CONNECTED DEVICES) 1/2
 Evolution of digital (communication and
information) networks
 5G networks (multi Gigabit per second data speed)
 Ultra-high-speed broadband Internet (minimum 100 Mbs
download speed)
 Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)
 Personal and vehicle navigation systems
 Long time-series and nano satellite systems
Source: ESA
1. DIGITAL CHANNELS (INCLUDING CONNECTED DEVICES) 2/2
 Evolution of digital (data/information) devices
 Mobile devices (smartphones) (7.26 billions by 2022)
 The Internet-of-Things (IoT) (more IoT devices than humans)
 Surveillance cameras (one billion by 2021)
 Drones (US$ 55.8 billion market size by 2026)
An individual ibex could be identified by AI using landmarks
Image:ChrisZwettler,Source:Pexels.com
EVOLUTION OF DIGITAL ANALYTICS
 High-performance and cloud (computing)
infrastructures
 The new spring of (data-driven) AI (language
translation, image recognition, voice recognition, ..)
 Data cubes and the Analysis ready data (ARD)
platforms (time series analysis, big earth data analytics)
 IoT 2.0 and the edge computing paradigm (IoT
devices as edge computers with sensors and actuators
attached to them).
 The human-enriched digital content (citizens as
sensors, digital video, digital phot and digital audio).
 Visualization, Extended Reality, and Immersive
Technologies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIhRKlDUAnA
EVOLUTION OF DIGITAL BUSINESS MODELS
 Private sector role (Small Satellite Launch Services
Market’ estimates that over 11,000 small satellites will be
launched by 2030)
 Data Providers, New Technologies and Novel Services
 Citizen science, crowdsourcing and personal
data (general data protection regulation GDPR)
 Cybersecurity, trustworthiness and fighting
against fakes (code of practice on disinformation,
fake generation)
 Ethics of AI systems (UNESCO principles)
 System-of-systems digital governance (public
value, inclusiveness, digital sovereignty) Historical images available in Google Earth with respective dates of
acquisition. The image taken into 2010 is not consistent with the others.
DE PERSPECTIVES AND WAY FORWARD
 Innovation perspectives
 6G revolution and the (global) satellite internet constellations
(internet everywhere)
 An innovative engineering paradigm for DE
 The Digital Twins (r)evolution
 Game technologies
 Toward a Metaverse
 Integration perspectives
 From SDI to the digital ecosystem paradigm
 Digital governance
 AI ethics
 Inclusivity perspectives
 Citizen engagement and gamification
 Industry engagement
 Education and capacity building
 Young generation and digital divide
 Digital Earth as art
 Digital data infrastructures (SDI) were designed and developed to apply the interoperability paradigm
based on search and discover services (find, download and use the data locally)
 In the new cyber-physical world Interoperability is pushed from the level of sharing observed data to
sharing of the information and knowledge generated by data analytics platforms.
FROM SDI TO THE DIGITAL ECOSYSTEM PARADIGM
 A Geospatial Ecosystem comprises literally billions
of ‘actors’ (citizens, companies, governments, civil
society organisations, Internet of Things (IoT)
devices, and increasingly also ‘intelligent’
machines) producing and consuming geospatial
information, mediated through ever changing
platforms, an increasingly diverse set of geoanalytical
tools, and dynamic, constantly evolving
networks. (source UNGGIM)
The digital ecosystem model seems to fit particularly well the constantly evolving nature and needs of the cyberphysical,
where heterogeneous stakeholders can decide to cooperate from time to time and on a use case base.
https://eschool.iaspaper.net/what-is-ecosystem/
Integration perspectives
DIGITAL GOVERNANCE
 Digital governance is a key factor to design, implement, and operate a
successful infrastructure or platform. For example a geoscience digital
ecosystems is enabled by at least three conditions under which actors
in the eco-system operate:
 The regulatory condition (laws, policies, standards, ..)
 The institutional/organizational condition in which the actors operate (set of
shared social and cultural values, ..)
 The current ICT capabilities condition (the computational, network elements,
communications protocols..)
 Collaborative and inclusive governance structures require a careful
balancing of perspectives between stakeholders.
 Strengthening the role of citizens and creating more inclusive data
governance structures is key to ensure
 Public value (value of data redistributed amongst various stakeholders in
society)
 Data sovereignty (providing individuals and organisations the ability to exert
authority over their data)
 Inclusivity (ensuring the inclusion of marginalized or less powerful actors)
Integration perspectives
AI ETHICS
Source: Fjeld et al.(2020) principled artificial intelligence: mapping consensus in ethical and rightsbased
approaches to principles for AI. Berkman Klein Center research publication no 2020-1
 Ethics of AI systems
 great heterogeneity in the values and principles they endorse but in general they focus on promoting: transparency,
justice, non-maleficence, responsibility, accountability and privacy, safety, and trust
 in near future, likely more regulations and standards enforcing such principles
 Despite the proliferation of AI ethics guidelines, there is a considerable lack of implementing guidelines.
 The trade-offs between and nuanced understanding of these principles will vary between local contexts. This leads
to another key challenge that DE data is global by nature whereas the framing and balancing of ethical priorities
differs between local contexts
Integration perspectives
DATAFICATION
 Datafication is a new paradigm for processing and extracting knowledge from the large volume of available data
 The adoption of datafication model requires
cultural, organizational, and industrial changes,
including:
 Move from the Web-as-a-Network (WaaN)
to the Web-as-a-virtual Platform (WaaP)
philosophy
 Operate in a cyber-physical world interacting
(mainly) at the level of digital platforms
 Adopt the digital ecosystems philosophy and
its principles (i.e., flexibility, evolvability,
viability, autonomy)
 Introduce innovative styles of governance
 Build trust (i.e., address challenges dealing
with ethics, cybersecurity, privacy,
transparency, etc.).
Innovation perspectives
Provide personalized
services
Collect digital
footprints
and data
Generate Insights
Ubiquitous Connectivity
AI (ML and DL)
Smart Platforms
Resources and
transactions
virtualization
(Cloud-enabled) data
centers
THE DIGITAL TWINS (R)EVOLUTION
 To fully embrace the Digital Twins of the Earth (r)evolution, DE
should address important scientific and modelling challenges,
including:
 to model the different granularity levels of DTs and their
possible composability
 to unify the (existing) data and scientific model standards
 to effectively share data and scientific models
 to introduce innovative web-based services (notably,
behaviour-based)
 to introduce specific standards for DT reference frameworks,
clearly distinguishing between «digital model», «digital
shadow», and «digital twin»
 to implement effective multi-cloud platform interoperability
 to establish fora for sharing views and knowledge on the DTs
of the Earth.
A digital twin is the virtual representation of a physical object or
system across its life-cycle. It uses real-time data and other
sources to enable learning, reasoning, and dynamically recalibrating
for improved decision making.
Innovation perspectives
GAME INDUSTRY
https://playing4theplanet.org
 The game industry is able to support a massive
participatory process with millions of online users
connected providing suitable tools and
methodologies.
 The game industry reaches 1 in 3 people on the
planet and has a platform with unprecedented
influence.
 UNEP has been working with the gaming industry
to explore how, through their massive reach, they
can inspire young people to learn and act in
support of the environment (i.e. kids change their
behaviour toward climate change by playing
specific games)
The Playing for the Planet Alliance was launched on 2019 during the UN Climate Action Summit.
In joining the Alliance, members have made commitments ranging from integrating green
activations in games, to reducing their emissions and supporting the global environmental
agenda.
Innovation perspectives
GAME INDUSTRY AND GAME TECHNOLOGIES
 The game industry develops
technologies, infrastructure,
and data streams that can be
beneficial for DE
 (e.g. to advance humancomputer
interfaces and develop
virtual reality and immersive
experiences)
 Blackshark’s AI-driven
technology enabled Microsoft’s
Flight Simulator to display the
surface of the entire planet in
3D – with over 1.5 billion
photorealistic buildings.
 The blackshark.ai geospatial platform extracts insights about the planet’s infrastructure from current
satellite and aerial imagery via machine learning at global scale. Missing attributes are enriched by
AI to provide a photorealistic, geo-typical, or asset specific digital twin. Results can be used for
visualization, simulation, mapping, mixed reality environments, and other enterprise solutions.
Innovation perspectives
TOWARDS THE DE METAVERSE
 The metaverse is an interoperable and large-scale
network of three-dimensional virtual worlds represented
in real time, which can be used synchronously and
persistently by an unlimited number of people with an
individual feeling of presence and with continuity of data
(Ball 2022).
 It motivates the novel integration and deployment of
diverse technologies for collaborative spatial computing
 interactive 3D graphics, extended reality, geospatial systems, enduser
content tooling, digital twins, real-time collaboration, physical
simulation, online economies, multi-user gaming, and more – at
new levels of scale and immersiveness.
 The Metaverse Standards Forum was launched on 2022
 to bring together leading organizations and companies for
cooperation on interoperability standards needed for an open
metaverse.
 DE can be seen as the link between the real and the virtual Earth, “with the aim of becomes aware of what is
truly going on in the environment and try to make the world better and cleaner place for future generations”.
(Gore 1992). It seems so natural for DE to evolve toward a “metaverse” where people gather to socialize,
discuss, and act.
Innovation perspectives
TOWARDS THE DE METAVERSE AN EXAMPLE
 Earth 2® is a futuristic concept for a second earth; a metaverse,
between virtual and physical reality in which real-world
geolocations on a sectioned map correspond to user generated
digital virtual environments. These environments can be
owned, bought, sold, and in the near future deeply customized.
 The 10 x 10 meter virtual land tiles
cover the entire world. The tiles can be
bought for different prices, varying from
country to country. The price of the tiles
fluctuate, for example because of their
land class. The more people buy tiles in
a certain area, the higher the price. .
https://earth2.io/
Innovation perspectives
CONCLUSIONS
 It is inevitable that the DE vision should adapt to the societal
changes
 because the DE paradigm and its general (and technology-neutral)
framework is largely enabled by the Digital Transformation of society
–while, at the same time, DE contribute to advance the society
digitalization.
 But its main underlined principles should not change over time:
 Ecosystem nature and openness (i.e. viability and evolvability)
 Collaborative and multi-lateral approach --including governance
 Knowledge generation and sharing to support society
 Powerful collaboration and communication tool
 Technologically neutral
 Usability (i.e. user-centric, and transparency)
 Participatory approach (DE for all);
 Support education and capacity building;
 Public good for the sustainable development of society (i.e.
application driven)
 Focus on ensuring sustainable development;
 Data and processing fairness and ethics;
 Trust and cybersecurity.
“Without a DE-For-All perspective for children and
international organizations, the planet will not
coalesce on issues of sustainable development. In
the twenty plus years of DE vision, no agency
outside of ISDE has taken on the challenge. The
DE Vision represents the grandest vision outside
limited commercial interest to provide a planetary
good.” Tim Foresman
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION
Acknowledgment
this presentation is based on the content of the draft vision paper Digital Earth: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
co-authored by Alessandro Annoni, Stefano Nativi, Arzu Çöltekin, Cheryl Desha, Eugene Eremchenko, Caroline M.
Gevaert, Gregory Giuliani, Chen Min, Luis Perez-Mora, Joseph Strobl, and Stephanie Tumampos
www.digitalearth2023.org