In 300 metres you will reach your destination. Radoslaw Zajdel’s lecture on navigation

As part of the next meeting of the Progress series, we invite you to an event focused on navigation. The lecture will demonstrate that although satellite navigation has become an everyday occurrence, its impact on the progress of modern civilisation is downright revolutionary.

In 300 metres you will reach your destination is a phrase that most of us have heard at least once. When travelling by car, bicycle or on foot. What is really behind this simple message? In this lecture, we will learn how satellite navigation systems such as the American GPS, Russia’s GLONASS, Europe’s Galileo and China’s BeiDou have changed our lives over the past decades. Together, we will trace their development and discover how they have influenced various areas of life, from transport and logistics to precision agriculture, banking, earth sciences and rescue services. We will also learn about the challenges of increasing reliance on these technologies and look to the future, reflecting on the innovations we can expect in the coming years and ways in which they will change our world.

The meeting will be held at the KROKI / STEPS, an artistic project about walking. 

About the lecturer: 

RADOSŁAW ZAJDEL – a scholarship holder of the MERIT programme within the framework of the Maria Skłodowska-Curie activities, implementing the project “BIG4 – Benefits of GNSS Integration for Geodesy, Geophysics and Geodynamics” at the Pecný Geodetic Observatory in the Czech Republic. He is also an assistant professor at the Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformatics of Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences (IGiG UPWR). Since 2016, he has been an active member of research groups of the International Association of Geodesy. Dr. Zajdel actively participates and coordinates tasks in national and international projects funded by the European Space Agency, National Science Centre and the European Union’s Smart Growth Operational Programmes. He has worked at some of the best foreign scientific institutions for satellite geodesy, including the Astronomical Institute of the University of Bern, German Space Agency and German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ). The thematic scope of his research includes the development of satellite navigation systems, such as the European Galileo system, and the use of satellites in observing the Earth, understanding the processes occurring on it and their temporal changes. 

The event is part of the public programme Progress and Seasons. In the Progress series, together with our audience and invited guests, we reflect on innovation and the dynamics of change, as well as the question whether the benefits of development mean progress and a better quality of life. 

The next meeting of the Progress series will take place on 16 November: Maciej Bujko will talk with Olga Drenda about computer exchanges in Wrocław. More information coming soon.   

The public programme Progress and Seasons is co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage’s 2024 programme. 

Availability information:

If you need translation into English, Ukrainian or Polish Sign Language (PJM), please email us by 5 October at sekretariat@bwa.wroc.pl. If you need assistance in getting to the event, please email or call us.