Biography
José Achache is the founder and CEO of ALTYN, a Space services company based in Geneva. He is managing AP-Swiss, the platform for Business Applications of ESA, and supporting the ESA BIC in Switzerland. He is Chairman, Director and Advisor of several Space companies in IoT, cybersecurity, advanced optical systems and Earth observation, in Switzerland, Italy and France.
A graduate of Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, with PhDs in Physics and in Geophysics, José Achache has been Professor at Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP), Deputy Director General of CNES, the French space agency, Director of Earth Observation Programmes at ESA, and Secretary General of GEO, the Intergovernmental Organization on Earth Observation, in Geneva.
José Achache was the Architect of the Sentinel series of satellites of COPERNICUS, the Earth Observation programme of the EU, and the early advocate of its free and open data policy. In 2004, he published Les Sentinelles de la Terre, an essay on the value of satellite observations for environment and security.