173
Our first attempt along these lines was the creation of Galileo Engineering
and Services, S.A. It was a curious and significant story well worth mentioning. Our resounding inaugurations of 1985, with heads of state, Nobel laureates, and ministers from all over Europe, had received wide media coverage
that aroused the passing interest of some of the large Spanish banks. The then
President of Banco de Bilbao, José Ángel Sánchez Asiaín, ever conscious of the
stimulus generated by the use of Spanish technology, well understood my
desire that the technology we were generating at the IAC should be transformed into marketable products. He persuaded the President of Iberdrola to
participate in the venture to set up a company with this aim, and we saw the
convenience of involving a local Canarian entity. Thus, in 1988, was born the
Galileo company, in partnership with the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias,
Iberduero, Banco de Bilbao, and Caja Canarias, thereby uniting scientific,
technological, and financial interests. The capital amounted to 120,000,000
pesetas (720,000 euros).
Our first objective was to put on the market an original digital cartography
product that made use of an original idea of the Institute that enabled the
retrieval of the h-coordinate (altitude) using two-dimensional images from
artificial satellites. There were no other products with these photogrammetric
Fig. 17.5 The Oftacron, an optical instrument for examining the retina. Designed and
built at the IAC. (Credit: IAC)
17 Astronomical Instrumentation, Technology Transfer…
Our first attempt along these lines was the creation of Galileo Engineering
and Services, S.A. It was a curious and significant story well worth mentioning. Our resounding inaugurations of 1985, with heads of state, Nobel laureates, and ministers from all over Europe, had received wide media coverage
that aroused the passing interest of some of the large Spanish banks. The then
President of Banco de Bilbao, José Ángel Sánchez Asiaín, ever conscious of the
stimulus generated by the use of Spanish technology, well understood my
desire that the technology we were generating at the IAC should be transformed into marketable products. He persuaded the President of Iberdrola to
participate in the venture to set up a company with this aim, and we saw the
convenience of involving a local Canarian entity. Thus, in 1988, was born the
Galileo company, in partnership with the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias,
Iberduero, Banco de Bilbao, and Caja Canarias, thereby uniting scientific,
technological, and financial interests. The capital amounted to 120,000,000
pesetas (720,000 euros).
Our first objective was to put on the market an original digital cartography
product that made use of an original idea of the Institute that enabled the
retrieval of the h-coordinate (altitude) using two-dimensional images from
artificial satellites. There were no other products with these photogrammetric
Fig. 17.5 The Oftacron, an optical instrument for examining the retina. Designed and
built at the IAC. (Credit: IAC)
17 Astronomical Instrumentation, Technology Transfer…