BACKGROUND

US and India, the two largest democracies of the world, have a strong strategic partnership founded on shared values and a commitment to uphold international order, safeguard sovereignty and territorial integrity, and drive technology innovation and cooperation in technology domains of space and geospatial. Over the past decades, both countries have collaborated and provided deep convergence to enhance geospatial and space technology across each other borders, with almost five decades of space cooperation and almost two decades of high-technology trade and commerce.

Be it collaboration for ISRO’s Mars Orbiter Mission; the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) project; the deep, cooperative and long-data sharing arrangement between ISRO and NOAA for weather systems and applications; ISRO’s launch vehicle facilities to private US space companies; increasing trade (exports and imports) of geospatial solutions and services across border, rising collaboration between US Department of Defence and India’s Defense Space Agency, and the recently announced Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geo-Spatial Cooperation (BECA) between the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency of the US Department of Defense and the Ministry of Defence India – all are aimed at broadly advancing the relationship between the two countries and reinforcing their mutual interest in enhancing the penetration of geospatial technologies.

In the geospatial domain, US is a top trading partner for India. India exported approx., USD 1.21 bn in geospatial technology and enabled services, and imported USD 0.33 bn worth of geospatial technology to and from the US in 2021. Further, a total of 85000, i.e., 18% of the total number of employees of the Indian geospatial ecosystem, are engaged in export-related services, while more than 50,000 non-US residents of Indian origin are working in the geospatial-and enabled services field through the H-1B program. These numbers are bound to rise with strategic policy engagements, bilateral agreements, and increasing technology mandates.

Thus, there are many opportunities today in both countries to support long-term and long-withstanding partnerships that will nurture the spirit of geospatial entrepreneurship, create jobs, and provide for an efficient, profitable relationship between the geospatial businesses and governments of the two countries. The India-US Geospatial Business Summit – a business platform for ideation and engagement is the place to be on 2nd June 2022 to nurture the spirit of collaboration between two leading geospatial-ready countries. Join us!