August 7, 2024
Harnessing Space technological applications in Sustainable Urban Development using Julia Programming Language
The South African National Space Agency (SANSA), in collaboration with its international stakeholders AIRCENTRE and UN Trade Development, is hosting a training session from 06-08 August 2024. The theme of this training is “Harnessing Space Technological Applications in Sustainable Urban Development using the Julia Programming Language.”
Access to and quantity of Earth observation data has significantly improved in the last two decades, providing valuable data that can be used to address many global challenges including climate change, food security, poverty alleviation, and land degradation. One of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, SDG 11, aims to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. The success of this goal and other national to settlement-level development goals requires access to spatial information to better plan and monitor solutions to address societal and environmental challenges. There is therefore a need to train data scientists, producers, scientists and users on the use of advanced tools to derive the required insights.
Julia is a high-level, high-performance programming language designed for numerical and scientific computing, as well as general-purpose programming. Julia was developed by MIT and was first introduced in 2012. It was created to address the need for a language that combines the ease of use and syntax of dynamic languages like Python with the speed and performance of compiled languages like C or Fortran.
The purpose of the training workshop is to develop skills in the use of Julia programming language to visualise and process earth observation data with more emphasis on sustainable human settlement applications.
At the end of the training:
● Participants will have learnt the fundamentals of the Julia programming language, including basic syntax, data types, control structures, functions, and libraries.
● Participants will have learnt the basics of how to visualise Earth observation data using Julia libraries. Visualisation content aims to communicate spatial information effectively and includes various types of plots and maps.
● Participants will have learnt how to handle and manipulate Earth observation data using Julia libraries.
● Participants will have learnt how to process and analyse satellite imagery using Julia libraries, including techniques for image enhancement, classification, and feature extraction.
SANSA strives to empower its stakeholders by forming collaborations that introduce them to new technological advancements that contribute to enhancing human capital development in the necessary skills in the space and government sectors.
