Hesse is the fifth largest federal state in Germany and holds the third position with regard to the gross domestic product per inhabitant. Located in the heart of Europe, the region is characterised by an excellent infrastructure with various traffic hubs for air (Frankfurt Airport) road, rail and Internet. The region of Hesse is very strong in logistics, IT, automotive, biomedical, optical and production technologies. Hesse is heavily involved in new media technologies, a considerable amount of IT/software providers are located in Hesse. Hesse is repeatedly the top region in Germany for multimedia. With its high density of innovative IT-companies/enterprises and its unique infrastructure (the central data transfer hub DE-CIX, which carries over 90% of the German and more than 35% of the European Internet traffic is located in Frankfurt), Hesse provides high potential for the development of satellite navigation based applications, services and products. The Hessian Ministry of Economical Affairs supports the development, deployment and usage of new technologies and the technology transfer.

The Centre for Satellite Navigation Hesse is a competence, information and incubation hub supported by its shareholders. These include the German region of Hesse, the city of Darmstadt, the Technical University Darmstadt, the University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt, VEGA Deutschland GmbH & Co. KG, T-Systems International GmbH and the INI-GraphicsNet Foundation. cesah is partner of the ESA Business Incubation Initiative and is located near the European Satellite Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt. cesah supports the development of business ideas and start-up companies in the field of satellite navigation.
www.cesah.com

Hessen-IT is the programme of the Hessian Ministry of Economical Affairs supporting the Hessian information and communication technology (ICT) sector in their market development, as well as small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) in their efficient and creative use of ICT. Hessen-IT provides information via online databases, news releases, brochures and workshops etc. Hessen-IT furthered and accompanied the satellite navigation activities in Hessen from the beginning and continuously supports the space incubator cesah, the Centre for Satellite Navigation Hesse, by organising workshops and congresses, offering an information and communication platform. Together with cesah, Hessen-IT supported and organised the regional participation in the European Satellite Navigation Competition. www.hessen-it.de