Minds Behind Maps

Brian McClendon was one of the earliest investors & later VP of Engineering at Keyhole, which got acquired by Google in 2004. Brian become VP of Engineering and led Google Geo, overlooking the development of Google Earth & Google Maps. He also worked at Uber & is now at Niantic, which you might know for thri most popular app: Pokemon Go

Sponsor: OpenCage

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 Geomob

About Brian

• LinkedIn
• Niantic

Shownotes

• Never Lost Again by Bill Kilday (Affiliate Link)
• Brian’s University of Kansas course: “Startups Rasing Money”
• @Home Network (Wikipedia Page)
• Keyhole Inc (History of Google Earth Wikipedia)
• Google Earth
• I think you can find a link to Google Maps on your own :)
• Nicaragua border story
• Books & Podcast
  • 3 Body Problem by Cixin Liu (Affiliate Link)
  • Marketplace podcast

Timestamps
(00:00) - Introduction

(01:16) - Sponsor: OpenCage

(02:42) - Brian describes himself

(03:33) - Getting into computer graphics

(05:15) - From engineer to building companies

(08:06) - The Beginnings of Keyhole

(12:42) - EarthViewer demo

(14:33) - Going through rough times

(21:00) - What made Keyhole so unique

(25:56) - How much of Keyhole's work is still in Google Earth?

(32:08) - Borders are hard

(37:20) - Changing borders

(43:15) - Google's rationale for spending so much on mapping

(45:37) - Use for Google Maps vs Earth

(47:22) - Google Earth Engine

(51:16) - Earliest Google Earth Image

(52:20) - Working at Uber

(57:03) - Self-driving

(58:30) - Project Ground Truth

(01:04:01) - Where is self-driving today?

(01:10:29) - Trains vs Cars

(01:14:15) - Niantic

(01:17:07) - Future predictions

(01:19:28) - Glasses over phones

(01:21:05) - The next iPhone moment

(01:23:33) - Using Tech to get people outside

(01:25:57) - Teaching

(01:28:11) - The need for tech companies outside the Bay Area

(01:30:21) - Remote work

(01:34:59) - Recommendations to students

(01:36:10) - Book/Podcast Recommendations

• Support the podcast on Patreon
• My video on an introduction to satellite images
• Website
• My Twitter
• Podcast Twitter
• Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
• Edited by Peter Xiong
• Find more of his work

Ariel Seidman is one of the co-founders of Hivemapper, a company building a map through selling dashcams & paying contributing drivers with the aim of competing with Google Maps. Ariel has a long history of mapping, working on Map & Search at Yahoo in the mid 2000s.

Sponsor: Planet

Find more about accessing Planet's high resolution & high frequency images

About Ariel

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Hivemapper

Shownotes

• Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson (Affiliate Link)
• Econ 102 with Noah Smith: https://www.youtube.com/@ECON102Podcast

Timestamps

(00:00) - Introduction

(02:29) - Sponsor: Planet

(03:43) - Ariel describes himself

(05:59) - Steve Jobs influence

(07:30) - Leaving Yahoo

(11:32) - Importance of owning the collected data

(14:15) - Hivemapper

(25:53) - Incentivizing contributions

(30:42) - So, Why crypto?

(33:23) - Public distrust of crypto

(39:16) - Building trust with contributors

(46:40) - Regulations & Privacy

(51:14) - Turning images into maps

(01:06:04) - Customer base

(01:16:26) - Bike support?

(01:19:11) - Most interesting users

(01:22:31) - Future predictions

(01:26:10) - Collaborating with car manufacturers

(01:27:47) - Book & podcast

(01:31:51) - Changes in Journalism

• Support the podcast on Patreon
• My video on an introduction to satellite images
• Website
• My Twitter
• Podcast Twitter
• Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
• Edited by Peter Xiong
• Find more of his work

It's the end of the year, so time for Christmas sweaters & looking back on the year through 12 conversations ranging from advice for people wanting to build things, discussing academia & companies, thinking about the roles of maps in the world and many others.

Support the podcast & my work on Patreon

Listen to the full episodes mentioned today:

• Harold Goddijn
• Sean Gorman
• Can Duruk
• James Killick
• Mila Luleva
• Iain Woodhouse
• Jed Sundwall
• Javier de la Torre
• Este Geraghty
• Renny Babiartz
• Hongwei Liu
• Steve Brumby

Timestamps

(00:00) - Intro

(01:15) - Consider Supporting my Work on Patreon

(02:49) - Harold Goddijn - Advice for Ambitious People

(09:41) - Sean Gorman - Not Everyone needs to code

(14:26) - Can Duruk - Making Maps Fun

(19:32) - James Killick - Why Apple Got Into Maps

(33:00) - Mila Luleva - Academia & Private Sector

(38:33) - Iain Woodhouse - Teaching Satellite Image's Military History

(46:48) - Jed Sundwall - ChatGPT's impact on Open Data

(57:10) - Javier de la Torre - Policies are 10 years behind the science

(01:00:10) - Este Geragthy - The Story behind John Hopkins Covid Dashboard

(01:05:23) - Renny Babiartz - The Nuance in Communicating Findings

(01:11:48) - Hongwei Liu - Indoor Mapping

(01:15:58) - Steve Brumby - Maps Against Greenwashing

(01:24:26) - Outro

• Support the podcast on Patreon
• My satellite image introduction video
• My Twitter
• Podcast Twitter
• Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
• Max edited this episode this time so... follow me!

Jason Boone runs the Boone Loves Videos YouTube Channel with nearly 100k subscribers, teaching people visual effects & map animations. This led him to work with some of the biggest YouTubers out there, including Johnny Harris. We talked about running an online business teaching people map animations, using maps to tell stories and Jason's recent dive into tech startups.

Sponsor: Planet

Find more about accessing Planet's high resolution & high frequency images

About

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Jason’s Youtube channel: Boone Loves Videos

Shownotes

Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.

• Jack Joyce
• Johnny Harris
• Google Earth Studio
• The Origins of European Imperialism by Johnny Harris
• “How Johnny Harris rewrites history” by Present Past
• Mapal
• Every Frame a painting
• Book & Podcast recommendation
  • Vagabonding (Affiliate Link)
  • This American Life Documentary Series
  • Range by David Epstein (Affiliate Link)

Timestamps

(00:00) - Introduction

(00:44) - Sponsor: Planet

(01:58) - How would you describe yourself

(04:22) - Jason's path to becoming a YouTuber

(12:43) - Documentary itch

(15:43) - Maps!

(21:30) - Geo layers

(24:07) - Leaning into a niche

(27:40) - Getting the data you need to tell a story

(32:02) - Working with Johnny Harris

(36:49) - Telling Stories

(40:37) - Travelling through maps

(43:05) - Joining a tech startup

(43:16) - Felt

(45:22) - Income as a freelancer

(54:54) - Helping others get jobs

(56:09) - A story of respecting Johny Harris

(59:52) - Tech Startups

(01:03:04) - Youtubers also run startups

(01:05:14) - Current YouTube landscape

(01:06:54) - Do I need film school?

(01:10:16) - One hit wonders of YouTubers

(01:13:32) - YouTube algorithm

(01:15:06) - Jason's relationship to analytics

(01:16:50) - Advice for content creators

(01:20:57) - Embracing a niche

(01:24:25) - Family privacy

(01:30:51) - Book & podcast recommendation

(01:36:20) - Behind The Scenes available on Patreon

• Support the podcast on Patreon
• My satellite image introduction video
• My Twitter
• Podcast Twitter
• Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
• Edited by Peter Xiong
• Find more of his work

Javier de la Torre started a Biologist Researcher, went on to start Vizzuality and later Carto where he is now. Javier works at the intersection mapping, software based companies & geospatial. He is also one of the founding members of the Tierra Pura Foundation focused on mitigation and adaptions tactics to climate change.

Sponsor: Felt

Check out their QGIS Plugin to easily share your QGIS projects

About Javier

• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Carto

Shownotes

Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.

• Vizzuality
• Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth documentary
• Tierra Pura Foundation
• Andrej Karpathy’s tweet
• Geospatial + AI Javier talk at Spatial Data Science Conference
• Book & Podcast recommendation
  • Freakonomics Podcast
  • The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf (Affiliate Link)

Timestamps

(00:00) - Introduction

(00:53) - Sponsor: Felt

(02:19) - Javier Describes Himself

(03:49) - Curiosity as a driving factor

(07:16) - From Researcher to Starting a Company

(14:42) - Policy is 10 years behind Science

(18:04) - Solving the Worlds Biggest Problems

(21:01) - Focusing on a single problem

(27:38) - Carto

(31:29) - Commercial viability as a key to success

(39:00) - Buiding a company vs Doing the work

(43:01) - So, why host a conference?

(47:52) - Online vs in person community

(51:13) - Geo and AI

(55:46) - English is the ultimate programming language

(01:05:03) - Will SQL survive?

(01:13:00) - The valuable skills in a post-AI world

(01:17:29) - Book/podcast

- Support the podcast on Patreon
- My video on an introduction to satellite images
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work

Hongwei Liu is the CEO & Co-Founder of MappedIn, a company focused on indoor mapping. I know a lot about what it takes to map the outdoor world, but little about what’s required to map indoors. That’s what this conversation is about.

Episode Sponsor: SkyFi

Get high resolution imagery easily, with prices up front on SkyFi.com

About Hongwei

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Shownotes

Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.

• MappedIn
• Maker, their free new iOS app
• My conversation with James Killick
• 3D Gaussian Splatting Github repository
• Hongwei’s blog
  • How I got into startups
• My video on how satellite images work
• Book & podcast recommendation:
  • Hardcore History
  • The Catcher in the Rye (Amazon Affiliate)

Timestamps

(00:00) - Introduction

(01:03) - Sponsor: SkyFi

(02:13) - Hongwei Describes Himself

(04:45) - "Accidentally" Starting a company

(08:15) - Solving a technological vs a people problem

(10:21) - Starting a business as students

(13:45) - Sales is about convincing people

(17:50) - Continuing to experiment

(21:42) - What does it actually take to map the indoors?

(26:32) - Maps vs Models

(28:01) - Why do we even need good indoor maps?

(34:58) - An indoor approach to Tesla's mapping

(41:04) - All Privacy aside, what would it take to automate indoor mapping?

(45:39) - Making a free mapping app

(48:25) - Product vs Sales lead companies

(01:02:12) - "Only the paranoid survive"

(01:06:15) - AR/VR

(01:09:35) - Hongwei's hard work ethic

(01:11:05) - Unconventional path

(01:16:42) - Difficulty of finding your own lane

(01:21:38) - Grinding for the people that coming after

(01:25:21) - Faith

(01:28:45) - Visiting China

(01:34:50) - Misunderstandings through language

(01:40:22) - Leveraging the internet

(01:43:16) - Book & Podcast Recommendations

(01:45:29) - Consider supporting me on Patreon

- Support the podcast on Patreon
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work

Sean Gorman is currently on his 4th start-up, Zephr, working on improving smartphone location. Previously he worked on 3D mapping (acquired by Snap), mapping fibre optics infrastructure (and caught the NAS's attention as a grad student). I was recently in Colorado and got to spend a few days with Sean, at the end of which we recorded a conversation about building great teams, finding what to work on and building businesses around maps

Sponsor: Felt
Try out collaborative online mapping with Felt
Check out their Youtube Channel for walkthroughs of their latest features

About Sean

• Twitter
• LinkedIn

Shownotes

Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.

• We recorded this conversation right after SatCamp, that we mentioned a few times
• Matthew Ball Essays
• Zephr
• Book & Podcast Recommendations
  • Radiolab
  • Hard Fork
  • New York Times Daily
  • Malazan Book of the Fallen 01: Garden of the Moon by Steven Erikson (Affiliate Link)
  • Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (Affiliate Link)

Timestamps

(00:00) - Introduction

(00:48) - Sponsor: Felt

(01:53) - Sean Describes Himself

(05:22) - Accidentally becoming an entrepreneur

(11:36) - Ending up in front of the NSA as a grad student

(25:33) - Propelled into starting a company as a grad student

(30:45) - Not Everybody has to code

(35:40) - Base, Hits or Bunts: A Baseball Analogy to start-up exits

(41:15) - VC vs Angel investing

(45:02) - Deciding what to work on

(59:25) - Building a library of ideas

(01:02:35) - Sean's current project: Zephr

(01:11:05) - Smartphone location information isn't that good

(01:18:51) - How do you solve the trust problem

(01:26:33) - Advice for people wanting to build things

(01:29:39) - Building a Good Team

(01:33:35) - Gravitating towards small teams

(01:37:37) - Predictions on the AR market

(01:40:15) - Podcast/book recommendation

- Support the podcast on Patreon
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work

Harold Goddijn is one of the co-founders & the CEO of TomTom. TomTom has pivoted many times, from it's beginnings making PDA software in the early 90s, stumbling onto map applications, building its own hardware to millions of devices sold in a day, to its current form today. TomTom is a fascinating company in the mapping industry and I'm excited to share a conversation with the person leading it all, Harold Goddijn.

Episode Sponsor: SkyFi
Get high resolution imagery easily, with prices up front on SkyFi.com

About Harold

• LinkedIn
• TomTom

Shownotes

Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.

• Psion
• TomTom Go
• The Overture Maps Foundation
• My interview with Mark Prioleau the Executive Director of Overture
• Books & Podcast Recommendations:
  • Napoleon: A concise biography from Davis A. Bell. (Affiliate Link)

Timestamps

(00:00) - Introduction

(00:58) - Sponsor: SkyFi

(02:07) - Harold describes himself

(03:49) - Being an entrepreneur

(06:53) - TomTom in the early days

(11:26) - Why get into mapping in the early days?

(17:41) - Technical hurdles to mapping

(21:06) - The not-so-smooth relationship with data providers

(25:55) - The 2000s down turn

(28:52) - Launching TomTom Go

(30:11) - From a downturn to sudden growth

(33:31) - Going IPO without raising capital

(35:18) - 2008 was a rough year

(41:40) - Pivoting the company

(45:35) - What is TomTom today?

(47:42) - The challenges of making maps today

(53:04) - Working with car manufacturers

(56:44) - Products for entreprises vs consumers

(01:00:53) - One map to rule them all?

(01:05:12) - How does TomTom make money while providing a free map?

(01:07:07) - Why collaboration with Meta, Amazon & Microsoft?

(01:08:04) - What is Harold excited about for the future?

(01:12:27) - Mapping attracts many people

(01:14:59) - Appreciating beautiful maps

(01:16:03) - Advice for entrepreneurs

(01:22:55) - Book/podcast recommendation

- Support the podcast on Patreon
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work

James Killick worked at Apple from 2013 to 2022 on the Maps team and has worked in mapping for the past 40 years. I've been wondering why Apple has gotten so much into Maps; Google makes sense to me, they're just the same ad business as search, but on a map. So, why -and how- did Apple get into Map?

Sponsor: Felt
Try out collaborative online mapping with Felt
Check out their Youtube Channel for walkthroughs of their latest features

About James

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Shownotes

Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.

• Map Happenings
• Tim Cook apologises for Apple Maps (2012)
• The Underlying Angst of Google Maps and Apple Maps
• Book & podcast recommendations:
  • Build by Tony Fadell (Affiliate Link)
  • Daring Fireball
  • Dithering
  • Lex Fridman

Timestamps

(00:00) - Introduction

(01:15) - Sponsor: Felt

(02:20) - James Describes Himself

(04:37) - Car navigation in 1985

(12:25) - Etak's customers

(14:33) - Analog Maps

(22:22) - From Analog to Digital

(29:07) - MapQuest's business model: Ads on a map

(32:36) - MapQuest after the Dot Com Bubble

(41:28) - The Origins of Apple Maps

(45:04) - Shortcomings with Google's data

(46:29) - Apple wanting full control of their own maps

(47:36) - Justifying the costs of owning everything

(51:11) - A Rocky Apple Maps launch

(54:24) - James's role joining Apple in 2013

(59:45) - Indoor mapping

(01:02:29) - Crafted vs automated approaches

(01:06:38) - The OpenStreetMap approach

(01:10:56) - Contribution vs Curation

(01:15:09) - So why does Apple have Apple Maps?

(01:19:25) - Would Apple move towards more advertising?

(01:27:41) - Anti-consumerism in Apple's products

(01:29:39) - Shortcomings of Google's model

(01:31:51) - Apple Maps reviews

(01:34:51) - Incentivizing contributions

(01:41:08) - Michelin Stars comparison

(01:46:36) - Apple's Spatial computing

(01:52:11) - Books/podcasts

(01:57:19) - James' blog: Map Happenings

- Support the podcast on Patreon
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work

Aravind Ravichandran is the founder of TerraWatch Space, where he does consulting and strategy with the goal, in his words, to demystify Earth Observation. This is an introduction to the 5 layers Aravind identifies as making the Earth Observation industry. Aravind writes one of the most popular newsletter gathering the latest news and featuring deep dives analysing the industry. We also hosts a podcast -albeit on pause at the moment- so was the perfect person to discuss Earth Observation at a high level.

Episode Sponsor: SkyFi
Get high resolution imagery easily, with prices up front on SkyFi.com

About Aravind

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• TerraWatch space
• Aravind's Newsletter
• Aravind's podcast

Shownotes

Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.

• This conversation is based around Aravind's State of Earth Observation deep dive
• Aravind's previous appearance on Minds Behind Maps
• My interview with Andrew Blum
• Sentinel Hub
• My interview with Grega, the founder of Sentinel Hub on building a platform for satellite imagery
• Global Forest Watch
• Forest Pulse: The Latest on the World's Forests
• ESA WorldCover Land Use Land Cover map
• Flight Radar 24
• Book & podcast recommendations
  • To Sell is Human by Daniel H. Pink (Affiliate Link)
  • The Weather Machine by Andrew Blum (Affiliate Link)
  • The Climate Book by Greta Thunberg (Affiliate Link)
  • How to Avoid a Climate Disaster by Bill Gates (Affiliate Link)
  • Lenny's podcast

Timestamps

(00:00) - Introduction

(01:00) - Sponsor: SkyFi

(02:10) - Explaining Earth Observation from scratch

(03:57) - Why do we need satellites in the first place?

(05:43) - Why not use ground measurements?

(08:22) - What happens after satellites take images?

(11:55) - 5 Layers of satellite imagery

(12:24) - Layer 1: Data

(13:50) - Layer 2: Platform

(18:35) - A Streaming App Analogy to Platforms

(20:55) - Layer 3: Analytics

(23:10) - Edge Computing

(24:37) - Layer 4: Insights

(28:12) - Layer 5: Application

(31:42) - What is TerraWatch?

(39:15) - How TerraWatch makes money

(44:13) - Sharing Information for free, but sustainably?

(51:33) - Pausing the TerraWatch podcast

(59:05) - Aravind's course on Earth Observation

(01:03:39) - Defining Edge Compute

(01:15:07) - Where Aravind finds his information

(01:21:58) - Book & Podcast Recommendations

- Support the podcast on Patreon
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work

Steve Brumby is the founder & CTO of Impact Observatory, a company working on providing rapid land cover maps anywhere on Earth. He puts it as wanting to provide "the maps the US takes for granted, all around the globe". Steve was also a co-founder & the CTO at Descartes Labs and worked at National Geographic.

---
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About Steve Brumby

• Twitter
• LinkedIn

Shownotes

• Alexnet Wikipedia
• ImageNet
• Prof Fei-Fei Li
• Roadrunner supercomputer
• IBM's Cell-based Roadrunner is world's fastest (2008)
• Mediations: A Requiem for Descartes Labs by Mark Johnson
• 2015 Bloomberg article on Descartes Labs Corn prediction
• Impact Observatory
• Promptpod podcast
• True Names by Vernor Vinge (Affiliate Link)

Timestamps

(00:00) - Introduction

(01:37) - Sponsor

(03:17) - How would you describe yourself

(04:07) - Academia vs Entrepreneurship

(05:21) - The urge to implement

(12:03) - The rise of Deep Learning in Computer Vision after AlexNet

(17:24) - Making a Dataset Equivalent to how much a Human Eye Sees

(18:50) - A SuperComputer made of PlayStation 3s

(22:17) - Descartes Labs

(28:25) - Working at National Geographic

(41:06) - Rate of Innovation in different organisations

(47:53) - The Cost of Raising Venture Capital

(53:30) - Difference between Impact / Angel and VC investors

(01:00:17) - Impact Observatory

(01:04:45) - Working with the United Nations & US Government

(01:13:47) - Greenwashing

(01:19:59) - Trust in government/private company

(01:22:01) - Validation work

(01:28:08) - Communicating Uncertainty

(01:30:20) - What are you excited about

(01:37:27) - Book/podcast Recommendation

(01:41:17) - Googling as the early prompt engineering

- Support the podcast on Patreon
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work

Robert Cheetham is the founder of Azavea, founded all the way back in 2000 and Dan Pilone one of the founders of Element84, started in 2010. Recently Element84 acquired Azavea to expand from large scale computing to also analysis. I wanted to talk to Robert & Dan about why they went for an acquisition and why now, if both companies had both been around for so long. Both companies also have not taken outside investment, which made this acquisition all the more interesting

Support the podcast on Patreon

About Dan & Robert

• Dan's LinkedIn
• Robert's LinkedIn

Shownotes

Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.

• Element84
• Azavea
• Dan's Previous Appearance on Minds Behind Maps
• B-Corporation Certification
• Book & Podcast Recommendations
  • Thinking In Bets by Annie Duke (Affiliate Link)
  • Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (Affiliate Link)
  • Mike Duncan: History Of Rome
  • Mike Duncan: Revolutions
  • Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker (Affiliate Link)
  • The better Angles of Our Nature (Affiliate Link)

Timestamps

(00:00) - Introduction

(03:05) - How would you describe yourself?

(04:26) - What is Element84 today?

(08:13) - History of Element84

(10:43) - From Landscaping & Japanese Studies to Starting a Software Company

(24:57) - What prompted Robert to start a business

(29:00) - From Solo Entrepreneur to Building a Team

(32:56) - From Desktop GIS to Developing Open Source Tools

(42:09) - Building Companies that Last

(53:43) - Why a B-corp?

(01:01:53) - What is a B-corp?

(01:07:39) - Why An Acquisition?

(01:29:42) - What does the future look like for Element 84?

(01:41:16) - Balance Long Term Thinking with the Urgency of Climate Change

(01:49:56) - Beyond Geospatial?

(01:56:39) - Deciding on a Company Strategy

(01:59:57) - What are Robert & Dan Excited about for the Future?

(02:14:28) - Book and podcast Recommendations

- Support the podcast on Patreon
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work

Dr Este Geraghty is the Chief Medical Officer at Esri, a former Deputy Director of the California Department of Public Health and a certified public health professional; so the perfect person to talk about how we map diseases, health and all the support around medical care. Este also wrote a book about the learning of mapping applied to covid, which we discuss.

Support the podcast on Patreon

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Use OpenCage for your geocoding needs with their API. 
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About Este

- Twitter
- LinkedIn
-  Esri Profile

Shownotes

Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.

• Ensheng (Frank) Dong
• John Hopkins Covid map (discontinued)
• Lauren Gardner
• Este's book: Learnings from Covid-19 (Amazon Affiliate)
• Bill Gates Ted Talk: The next outbreak? We're not ready
• Book & Podcast recommendations:
  • Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who've Lived the Longest by Dan Buettner (Amazon Affiliate)
  • Public Health Podcast Network by Dr April Moreno

Timestamps

(00:00) - Introducing Este

(02:52) - Este describing herself

(03:25) - How do you describe the work that you do?

(05:43) - Why work in Health?

(08:22) - How has being a practitioner helped you?

(11:19) - Communication in public health

(13:53) - Open data vs privacy

(16:47) - Anonymising data

(18:41) - Geography vs GIS: Is there a difference?

(19:39) - The Power of Visualising Data

(21:39) - The Covid Map viewed Trillion of times

(26:28) - Open data, why not also use open tools?

(28:23) - Learnings From Covid-19: Este's Book

(32:01) - Contact Tracing

(36:35) - Role of private sector

(40:42) - Prevention is Hard

(45:30) - Has Covid made it easier to Advocate for Public Health

(48:11) - Funding Going Down as Covid Slowly Stops

(50:52) - End of the Covid Dashboard

(51:52) - Keeping a Positive Mindset

(55:58) - Este's current preoccupations

(58:21) - Satellite Imagery

(01:01:45) - One Health

(01:03:46) - Climate Change

(01:06:41) - Solving Long Term Problems when people struggle today

(01:09:15) - Nomadic Lifestyle as an Executive

(01:12:16) - Not Always Climbing the Career Ladder

(01:15:03) - Reflecting on 1 year of Nomadic Life

(01:18:54) - Book/podcast

(01:21:41) - What does it take to go to 150 (years old)?

- Support the podcast on Patreon
- Website
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- Podcast Twitter
- Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work

Can Duruk is the co-founder & CTO at Felt, a company working on bringing maps to the browser. In Can's own words they want to make maps fun and collaborative. Think of Felt as the Figma or Notion of Maps.

Episode Sponsor: satellite-image-deep-learning newsletter
To keep up with all things satellite images & deep learning, follow Robin Cole's newsletter here

About Can

• Twitter
• LinkedIn

Shownotes
(Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books)

- Felt

- Check all the shownotes on a Felt map

- Westchester Land Trust

- The World Bank using Felt

- Bicycle & Pedestrian planning

- QGIS & Felt

- Read Margins, Can's newsletter

Book & Podcast Recommendation:

• Captialisn't
• Notes on a Foreign Country: An American Abroad in a Post-American World by Suzy Hansen (Affiliate Link)
• My Dad Wrote a Porno

Timestamps

(00:00) - Introduction 

(01:37) - Sponsor: satelitte-image-deep-learning 

(02:26) - Can Describes Himself 

(03:30) - What is Felt? 

(04:11) - Making Maps Fun (and Why That's Important) 

(06:27) - Building Something the Feels Fun 

(09:21) - Why Maps Specifically? 

(13:30) - The Story of Felt 

(15:13) - Working with First Responders 

(18:04) - Making Maps Collaborative 

(21:37) - Unexpected Technical Problems 

(25:34) - Dealing with User Input Data 

(29:09) - Browser-based mapping 

(34:27) - Figma set the stage 

(35:21) - Anything that can be built on the web ultimately will 

(36:25) - Technical Details of Building Felt 

(43:18) - Where does the name come from? 

(44:43) - felt.com 

(46:34) - Target audience 

(52:42) - Can's Favorite Felt Use Cases 

(54:38) - Shownotes brought to you by Can 

(55:16) - Make maps for everyone 

(56:57) - Having a vision 

(58:19) - QGIS partnership 

(01:03:13) - Writing Online 

(01:06:27) - Can's Twitter 

(01:08:25) - Languages 

(01:09:49) - Thinking Differently in Different Languages 

(01:11:06) - Coming to the US 

(01:12:31) - Does Felt work in multiple languages? 

(01:15:30) - Book/podcast recommendation

- Support the podcast on Patreon
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work

Zhuang-Fang Nana Yi is a Senior Machine Learning Engineer at Regrow, though today's conversation is about her story from going to school not speaking the language, to mapping rubber tree plantations and ultimately using global satellite imagery methods to solve local problems.

Support the podcast on Patreon

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About Zhuang-Fang:

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Shownotes

Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.

• Qiusheng Wu's Twitter
• Zhuang-Fang's art
• Book & Podcast recommendations:
  • The Alchemy of Air by Thomas Hager (Affiliate Link)
  • Know My Name by Chanel Miller (Affiliate Link)
  • No Filter by Sarah Frier (Affiliate Link)

Timestamps

(00:00) - Introduction

(02:17) - Sponsor: OpenCage

(03:57) - Conversation Begins: Zhuang-Fang presents herself

(07:34) - Nana's Story

(13:01) - Going to a Chinese school without speaking Chinese

(17:57) - From wanting to be a doctor to geography

(22:57) - Picking up English

(28:27) - Working with Limited English

(30:20) - Rubber Trees: A Geopolitical Tool

(36:35) - Working with Local Governments

(38:24) - Process for change

(42:38) - Navigating financial incentives

(47:32) - International collaboration vs Chinese gov

(55:41) - Work as a data engineer

(58:20) - On the ground vs Satellites

(01:01:06) - Data alone doesn't lead to action

(01:02:28) - Art

(01:09:55) - Art in China vs US

(01:12:23) - AI Art

(01:17:38) - Book & Podcast Recommendations

- Support the podcast on Patreon
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work

Jed Sundwall is the Executive Director of Radiant Earth, and formerly worked on creating AWS's Open Data Registry, starting by putting Landsat images and then other Earth Observation datasets on the cloud. Radiant Earth is an NGO focused on making geospatial data more accessible, specifically for Machine Learning applications.

Support the Podcast on Patreon to prevent ChatGPT from ruining traffic to these conversations, taking over the world and crushing all of humanity; or just because you like my work, that's fine too

About Jed 

• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Radiant Earth

Shownotes

• Genome Aggregation Database
• Common Crawl
• Amazon's Open Data Registry
• The Naive Origins of the Clouds Optimized GeoTIFF
• Radiant Earth Announces New Initiatives to Accelerate Sharing of Earth Science Data
• cogeo.org
• Stack Overflow Will Charge AI Giants For Training Data
• ChatGPT is the fastest growing app in the history of Internet applications
• The end of the English Major
• Book & Podcast recommendations:
  • Seeing Like a State by James C Scott: (Affiliate Link)
  • Analogia by George Dyson: (Affiliate Link)

Timestamps

(00:00) - Introduction

(01:36) - Patreon

(05:40) - From Humanities to Tech

(06:45) - Marketing

(09:39) - Amazon

(14:01) - AWS's business rationale for hosting free data

(17:16) - History of Amazon Opening Up Data

(18:39) - Common Crawl

(23:09) - How Earth Observation became a big part of AWS's Open Registry

(25:09) - How Cloud Optimized Geotiffs Started

(29:56) - Increasing adoption worldwide

(31:26) - How Sentinel ended up on AWS

(33:26) - Challenges working with non-American companies

(37:17) - What does open and free actually mean?

(42:24) - Marketing Open Data

(43:39) - CERN opening up their data... and nobody knows how to use it

(46:18) - Copernicus Program

(49:16) - Work at Radiant Earth

(52:43) - Mission statement

(01:00:59) - ChatGPT is Changing the value of Data

(01:03:58) - Twitter

(01:07:09) - Census Data Would be easier to get if we could pay for it

(01:11:33) - Search Engine Optimization for ChatGPT?

(01:13:59) - Regulating training data

(01:16:51) - ChatGPT, Google Search & Ads

(01:19:31) - Twitter Checkmarks

(01:21:57) - Podcast/books

(01:27:09) - The Value of Humanities in tech

- Support the podcast on Patreon
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work

Marc Prioleau is the newly appointed Executive Director to the Overture Maps Foundation (at the date this episode comes out). Overture was originally announced in December 2022, founded by Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and TomTom, with the goal of providing a open map data. That sounds a lot like what OpenStreetMap set out to achieve... so why start something new? Marc has some answers to that question, and it isn't his first time thinking about the future of mapping

Support the podcast on Patreon

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About Marc

• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Overture Maps Foundation

Shownotes

Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.

• Overture Maps Foundation
• Segment Anything
• segment-geospatial
• Tackle the monkey first
• Books & Podcast recommendations
  • Never lost again by Bill Kilday (Affiliate Link)
  • The Good Fight podcast

Timestamps

(00:00) - Introduction

(01:42) - Sponsorship: OpenCage

(03:22) - Conversation begins

(06:10) - From Chemical Engineering to Mapping

(09:00) - Early Days of GPS: Innovating despite Limitations

(11:02) - Having a Long Term Vision

(13:12) - Science Fiction as a Tool to Imagine the Future

(14:07) - Defining the Overture Maps Foundation

(17:56) - But OpenStreetMap already Exists, why make something new?

(22:54) - Artist vs Merchant Analogy

(27:23) - Companies already are involved in OSM

(30:38) - Users don't care how their map was made

(33:05) - The face of updates keeps increasing

(35:22) - 10 years ago you'd be lucky to have an Estimated Time of Arrival

(40:06) - Overture's value: Data or Tools?

(44:32) - New tools: Example of Segment Anything

(46:35) - Why a Foundation rather than a For Profit?

(51:28) - Open means wider adoption

(51:28) - Open means wider adoption

(55:07) - Google & Apple aren't a part of Overture

(59:22) - There are precedents to map "domination"

(01:03:18) - Making Decisions as a Foundation

(01:10:45) - How many people work at the foundation

(01:13:11) - Engineering contributors

(01:14:16) - Hiring engineers within the foundation?

(01:17:34) - Copyright & Licensing

(01:21:30) - Commonalities with Earth Observation & Satellite Images

(01:28:20) - Books/podcasts

(01:32:36) - Back to Science Fiction & Making Predictions

(01:33:23) - Bonus question: Do you ever think about how far we've come?

- Support the podcast on Patreon
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work

Grega Milčinski is the founder of Sinergise, the company behind Sentinel Hub & EO Browser which recently got acquired by Planet. While the deal of the acquisition isn't closed just yet at the time of publishing, we discuss the story behind Sinergise, how it's more of an engineering than remote sensing company and why they decided to get acquired.

Support the podcast on Patreon

--- 
Episode Sponsor: Steven Feldman

• Geomob podcast
  • Jérémy Garniaux - Mapstodon
• Mappery.org
  • My favourite
  • Steven's favourite

---

About Grega:

• LinkedIn
• Sinergise

Shownotes

• Planet to acquire Sinergise
• Horizon Europe
• EO Browser
• Sentinel Playground
• Postcards from Space
• BBC article using Copernicus imagery to track Penguin colonies
• Twitter thread breaking down how lost hiker was found
• Book recommendations:
  • Ready Player One by Cline Ernest: (Affiliate Link)
  • Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams: (Affiliate Link)

Timestamps

(00:00) - Introduction 
(02:05) - Sponsor: Steven Feldman 
(03:16) - Conversation Begins, Grega Describing Himself 
(04:51) - Addressing the recent acquisition by Planet 
(07:27) - A Physicist Who Didn't Finish his Studies 
(12:28) - The Origin Story of Sinergise 
(23:12) - How Copernicus Data Got Managed by Sinergise 
(27:05) - Sinergise's ties to agriculture projects 
(30:27) - Machine Learning 
(34:32) - Sinergise's 2022 revenue 
(36:09) - Sentinel Hub's business model 
(39:27) - Sentinel Hub's Value is Easy Access 
(42:09) - Marketplaces are hard 
(49:30) - The story of EO Browser 
(55:24) - EO browser as a marketing tool 
(57:46) - Grega's favourite Sentinel Hub Use Cases 
(01:00:52) - Community & Hosting Competitions 
(01:04:31) - Money Talk: Bootstrapping 
(01:08:08) - Why Get Acquired (by Planet) 
(01:12:28) - Book/podcast recommendation

- Support the podcast on Patreon
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work

Mila Luleva is the Head of Remote Sensing at Rabobank, the 2nd biggest bank in the Netherlands. Specifically she works on the Acorn Initiative which aims at supporting small holder farmers transition to more sustainable agriculture practices by selling carbon credits for the biomass these farmers produce. Carbon credits are a messy, complicated and often times controversial topic, all of which I wanted to ask Mila about. 

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About Mila:

• LinkedIn
• Rabobank

Shownotes

Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.

• Rabobank
• Project Acorn
• Acorn methodology for Quantifying Carbon Benefits
• Book & Podcast Recommendation
  • Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography by Walter Isaacson (Affiliate Link)
  • Jay Shetty Podcast

Timestamps
(00:00) - Introduction

(01:29) - Sponsor: Geoawesomeness

(02:14) - Conversation begins: Mila Describes Herself

(04:10) - Mila's Motivations

(05:50) - So why does a Bank care about Satellite Imagery?

(10:01) - Some of the Bank's Inner Workings

(12:08) - The Acorn Initiative

(16:00) - Small Holder Farmers

(17:46) - Carbon Removal Units

(20:09) - Monoculture & Agroforestry

(22:57) - The Farmers Financial Incentives

(26:37) - Scale of the Acorn Initiative

(29:15) - Biomass Estimation (the reason for satellite data)

(32:26) - External Certification

(35:51) - The Challenge of Segmenting Small Farm Parcels

(42:51) - Hiring & The Team

(45:54) - Mila's Role

(47:50) - Banks Still Need to Make Money

(53:35) - Quality

(55:52) - Navigating the Carbon Credits Scandals

(59:09) - Leaving academia

(01:02:59) - Open Source & Transparency

(01:06:28) - Slow Nature of Peer Review

(01:08:49) - Book & Podcast recommendation

- Support the podcast on Patreon
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work

Renny Babiarz is a former Analyst at the NGA (National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency) and the VP of Analysis & Operations at AllSource Analysis, a company focused on providing geospatial Intelligence investigations. One of the angles of Renny's work is better understanding China's Nuclear testing using satellite imagery, Open Source Intelligence methods & location data.

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Support the podcast on Patreon

About Renny:

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• AllSource Analysis

Shownotes

• AllSource
• 2021 NPR Report “A New Tunnel is Spotted At a Chinese Nuclear Test Site”
• Jeffrey Lewis Interview
• Washington Post Chine Nuclear Missile Silo Article
• Renny's book
• Books & Podcast recommendations:
  • The Realignment
  • Making Sense by Sam Harris
  • Industry (could not find it!)
  • China Built the Bomb by John W Lewis & Litai Xue (Affiliate Link)
• Flipping the tables, Max's book & podcasts:
  • Lex Fridman
  • Joe Rogan
  • Kanye West on Lex Fridman
  • “La Horde du Contrevent” by Alain Damasio (Affiliate Link)

Timestamps

(00:00) Introduction 

02:51) Conversation starts: Renny's Journey with the NGA 

(12:45) AllSource's work 

(15:55) Defining Open & Proprietary 

(18:42) Deciding which Analysis to publish 

(23:12) Researching China's Nuclear Program 

(29:43) How Projects Get Started 

(34:39) Starting from Known Areas of Interest 

(37:50) Automating Change Detection 

(42:20) The Importance of Communicating Nuance 

(48:13) Misinformation vs Disinformation 

(51:21) The Hard Execrcise of Social Media Communication 

(55:21) Twitter 

(57:08) Sources & 'Peer Review' 

(01:03:19) Working with Outside Analysts 

(01:10:03) Teaching Geospatial Intelligence 

(01:13:09) Teaching Soft Skills & Communications 

(01:18:33) Renny's book 

(01:23:52) Importance of staying hands on 

(01:27:59) Micromanaging 

(01:30:23) Book and podcast recommendation 

(01:35:32) Flipping the tables: Max's Book & Podcast recommendation

- Support the podcast on Patreon
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work

Kuo-Yu 'Slayer' Chuang is the co-founder of GeoThings, a Taiwanese company leveraging SMS to share GPS location, images & any useful information for disaster response. He was also on the board of the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team; and has focused on applying mapping to supporting humanitarian endeavours mostly in Asia. 

---
Episode Sponsor: GeoAwesomeness & UP42 EO Hub
Geoawesomeness
UP42
---

Support the podcast on Patreon

About Slayer:

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• GeoThings

Shownotes:

• Cell Tower data source (used in the intro animation): OpenCellid
• GeoThings
• CrisisMappers
• Asian Development Bank
• Open GeoSMS Standard
• HOT: Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team
• ITRI: Industrial Technology Research Institute
• Line
• Book Podcast (and games) recommendations:
  • BBC Podcasts
  • Xbox Game Pass

Timestamps:

(00:00) Introduction

(02:20) Conversation starts: Slayer describes himself

(07:47) Tech, Preparation & Emergency Situations

(12:18) Deciding what to work on

(16:56) From Idea to Application

(22:03) Focusing on Humanitarian Applications

(26:17) Apps are only useful if people have phones

(31:42) Mobile App or SMS?

(33:30) Aggregating data (Command center)

(36:25) Dealing with Sensitive Data

(40:25) Emergency phone notifications

(42:27) Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team

(48:54) State of OpenStreetMap (& open source) in Taiwan

(53:44) Language barrier in Open Source & Programming

(58:26) Line, the most popular app in Taiwan

(01:05:55) Tech literacy

(01:11:06) Taiwan's jump directly to mobile

(01:16:22) Social Enterprise Company

(01:19:40) The Incentives of a Social Entreprise

(01:24:19) GeoThing's Business Model

(01:27:46) Long term support

(01:36:42) Geopolitics of working in Taiwan

(01:47:57) Book/podcast (& games) recommendations

(01:52:04) Sidetrack conversation on Xbox's business model

(01:54:49) Launching a Patreon

- Support on Patreon
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work

Benjamin Grant is the founder of Overview, which started as a project of sharing 1 satellite image per day on Instagram, now to an audience of nearly 1.5 million. It has since turned into books, exhibitions and collaboration with huge brands like Louis Vuitton; all in an effort to showcase Earth using satellite images.

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About Benjamin:

• Overview's website
• Daily Overview on Instagram
• LinkedIn

Shownotes

Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.

• Overview by Planetary Collective
• Planetary Collective's Twitter
• Benjamin's Books on Amazon (Affiliate Links)
  • Timelapse (2020)
  • Overview: A New Perspective on Earth (2016)
• Books & Podcast recommendations:
  • Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman (Affiliate Link)
  • Lex Fridman's podcast

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction
03:01 Conversation begins: Benjamin describes himself
04:42 What is Overview?
06:50 The Origin Story of Overview
21:43 The serendipitous value of unexpected software use
25:20 Is it Photography or Curation?
32:23 Talking about Climate, without being Doom and Gloom all the time
36:24 Overview's Access to Images; Partnerships & Collaboration with image providers
50:01 Thinking of satellite images like a photographer
54:10 The Louis Vuitton collaboration
01:00:53 Financials: How does a business like Overview run?
01:04:47 Using anything else than optical?
01:09:50 Having a specific audience in mind when sharing something
01:14:17 Changing formats in social media
01:18:28 Feedback from people following Daily Overview
01:21:57 Books and podcast recommendation
01:25:15 Benjamin's collaboration offer to the industry

Feel free to reach out! 
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work

Iain Woodhouse is a Professor of Applied Earth Observation at the University of Edinburgh, the author of multiple books & course on Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and one of the best people to explain radar remote sensing with decades of experience teaching but also working in the industry.

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Episode Sponsor: GeoAwesomeness & UP42 EO Hub
Geoawesomeness
UP42
---

About Iain

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Blog
• Iain's current course on Earth Observation at the University of Edinburgh

Shownotes
Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.

• Introduction to Microwave Remote Sensing (Affiliate Link)
• Echoes in Space MOOC by ESA
• How Earth Observation Ends: or, Everything you wanted to know about typing pools but were afraid to ask.
• Earthblox
• 101 Tips for PhD Students: (Affiliate link)
• Book & Podcast recommendation
  • Thinking Fast & Slow by Daniel Kahneman (Affiliate Link)
  • Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss (Affiliate Link)
  • Harvard Business Review Podcast

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction

02:03   Conversation Begins: Getting Into Earth Observation

07:30   Remote Sensing in the 80s

10:25   NASA's Inspirational Power

13:47   The Moment Iain Knew He Wanted to Become An Educator

16:10   Free Education

19:11   Explaining SAR from the beginning

24:56   The 'Intuitive' Way of Understanding SAR

29:08   The Most Interesting Aspects of SAR

37:20   Comparing Optical to Radar

40:17   SAR's Military History

45:48   Military Contracts Subsidise Commercial SAR

49:35   The Impact of New Space on SAR

52:41   The trendline of SAR

57:41   What most excites Iain in Earth Observation today

01:01:44    Earthblox

01:03:57    Who is Earthblox for?

01:05:33    Earthblox's business model

01:08:37    Open Source & Closed Platforms

01:13:58    Closed Platforms in an Educational setting

01:20:04    Typing Pools: Automation Is Coming

01:30:30    Having a foot in Academia & Industry

01:35:59    The Importance of Art

01:40:51    Fostering creativity for scientific people

01:44:25    Advice for People entering Earth Observation

01:48:21    Book and Podcast Recommendation

Feel free to reach out! 
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work

As 2022 wraps up, I wanted to bring some of the most insightful moments from conversations over the past year: 12 clips from 12 conversations. 

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Timestamps: 
00:00 Introduction 
02:32 Steve Coast: The Next Thing that would Blow Up Openstreetmap 
06:39 Barbara Ryan: How Landsat Became Free & Open 
17:52 Jeffrey Lewis: Calling Out the Invasion of Ukraine an hour before it happened 
23:47 Arjen Vrielink: Using Remote Sensing to Prevent Deforestation 
32:07 Indra Den Bakker: Finding Product Market Fit with Satellite Image Analytics 
37:49 Jeff Crusey: How Venture Capitalism Works (Applied to Earth Observation) 
44:01 Mo Islam: Why Investors Don't Quite Understand Earth Observation Just Yet 
50:46 Kevin Pomfret: Why Law Makers Don't Understand Geospatial 
54:50 Andrew Blum: Concerns About the Privatisation of Weather Forecasting 
58:32 Hamed Alemohammad: Difference Between Google Earth Engine, Microsoft Planetary Computer & AWS 
01:03:47 Catherine Nakalembe: Food Security is More than Food in Stores 
01:10:00 Jean Martin Bauer: We Need More than Knowing Where Food is Needed 
01:15:10: Conclusion

Links to full conversations: 
- Steve Coast
- Barbara Ryan
- Jeffrey Lewis
- Arjen Vrielink
- Indra Den Bakker
- Jeff Crusey
- Mo Islam
- Kevin Pomfret
- Andrew Blum
- Hamed Alemohammad
- Catherine Nakalembe
- Jean-Martin Bauer

Feel free to reach out! 
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter

Andrew Blum is the author of 'The Weather Machine', which provides a history & global overview of how we predict the weather, from the data collection to forecast modelling. His book came out in 2019 so we also discuss the current evolutions & changes since its release.

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Episode Sponsor: GeoAwesomeness & UP42 EO Hub
Geoawesomeness
UP42

---

About Andrew:

Website

Twitter

Shownotes:

Andrew Blum's books

• The Weather Machine
• Tubes

Micheal Lewis, author of the Big Short

Book & Podcast recommendation

• Tomorrow & tomorrow & tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
• The Carbon Copy
• Wind of Change
• Patrick Radden Keefe

Timestamps: 
00:00 Introduction 
02:50 Andrew Presents Himself 
03:46 Difference between author and journalist 
08:14 Choosing What to Write About 
12:35 The Goal of Writing a Book 
14:34 The Importance of Going on Location 
17:04 The Duality of Talking About People / Facts 
20:12 Initial Email Outreach is takes a lot of care 
25:37 Weather Is International Yet Competitive 
27:52 Bringing An Outsiders Perspective to Understanding the Weather 
32:55 Being Knowledgeable is Simply Asking Better Questions 
37:36 The Difference Between Facts, and how we Find those Facts 
41:13 The Need for Separating Building & Owning 
45:10 Feedback on the Weather Machine, a few years After its Release 
51:52 The Dangers of Privatising Weather 
01:01:11 How Good do we Actually Need Forecasts to be? 
01:05:23 Weather is THE mainstream Earth Observation application 
01:09:00 Data Inequality in Weather Forecasting Quality 
01:14:44 How Much Does it Cost to run the Weather Machine? 
01:18:15 Tips on Writing & Editing, for non-writers 
01:21:44 Advice for the Scientific Community 
01:27:21 Book/podcast recommendation

Feel free to reach out! 
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work

Hamed Alemohammad was the previous Executive Director of the Radiant Earth Foundation, a Non-Profit focused on building open machine learning tools & datasets for satellite imagery through projects like the ML Hub & STAC, Spatio Temporal Asset Catalog. 

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Use OpenCage for your geocoding needs with their API. 
They have a generous Free trial you can sign up to! 
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About Hamed 
- Twitter
- LinkedIn

Shownotes

• LandCoverNet
  • Paper
  • ML Hub datasets
• Radiant Earth Foundation
• Data Driven
• Clark names inaugural director of Clark Labs: Center for Geospatial Analytics
• Book Recommendation
  • Atomic Habits by James Clear

Timestamps 
00:00 Introduction 
03:01 Hamed's Interest for Earth Observation 
08:53 Joining the Radiant Earth Foundation 
10:25 What is the Radiant Earth Foundation? 
12:14 Why a Non-Profit? 
15:34 Finances & Incentives: Where does the money come from? 
19:10 Choosing to focus on Machine Learning; ML Hub 
26:43 Capacity & Community Building 
30:42 Only a 10 people team 
34:44 Comparing to Google Earth Engine, AWS & Microsoft Planetary Computer 
41:01 Making Decisions & Measuring Progress in a Non-Profit 
44:12 Machine Learning Competitions & Kaggle 
48:22 Challenges of Working with External Organizations 
51:19 Building Models is Sexy but only a small part of Machine Learning 
55:55 Who is the ML Hub build for? 
57:59 From Researcher to Executive Director 
01:01:37 What does being on the Board of Directors Mean? 
01:06:18 Hamed's Journey from Iran to working in the US 
01:11:03 Advice for people outside the US & Europe 
01:15:46 The limitations of English for a truly worldwide reach

Feel free to reach out! 
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work

Mo Islam is the Co-Founder & CEO of Payload, a Modern Media Company build around a daily newsletter reporting on the Space Industry.

--- 
Episode Sponsor: GeoAwesomeness & UP42 EO Hub
Geoawesomeness
UP42
---

Shownotes: 
- Subscribe to Payload! 
- Pathfinder, their podcast
- Crowdfunded SpaceX round of investment
- Book & Podcast Recommendations 
     - Engines that move markets
     - The Portal, Episode with Peter Thiel
- For All Mankind
- Payload's space-themed playlist

Timestamps: 
00:00 Introduction 
03:34 Episode Begins: From Banking to Space Media 
07:41 Deciding to start a Newsletter 
12:19 Doing to Media what Happened to New Space 
14:21 Deciding to Focus on 'High Value Readers'' 
19:50 Getting Feedback 
21:52 Payload's Target Audience 
31:21 Earth Observation 
35:33 Challenges of Reporting on Technical Fields 
38:18 What Is Worth Reporting On 
43:05 Earth Observation is Tough for Investors 
50:18 Information Over Opinion 
55:04 What Happened to the Earth Observation SPACs 
59:35 Predictions: Earth Observation companies Getting Acquired 
01:01:58 Would Google or Facebook buy an EO Company? 
01:05:19 Other Forms of Media & TikTok 
01:09:11 The Media Funnel 
01:13:27 Focus & Analogy With Software Products 
01:15:34 Payload's EndGame 
01:18:10 Books & Podcast Recommendations 
01:22:59 Music & Other Arts Around Space 
01:24:24 Pathfinder Spotify Playlist 

Feel free to reach out! 
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work

Daniel O'Donohue is the host of the Mapscaping Podcast, the biggest geospatial podcast out there. Over the past 5 years and 180 episode Daniel has talked to hundreds of professionals in the geospatial industry. This is his 2nd time on the podcast, since last time the podcast has grown, he's become a close friend, and recently quit his job

---
Episode Sponsor: OpenCage
Use OpenCage for your geocoding needs with their API. 
They have a generous Free trial you can sign up to!
---

About Daniel:

• Twitter
• LinkedIn

Shownotes

• Mapscaping podcast
• My interview with Steve Coast
• The million follower instagram account that only shows satellite images
• Podcast Recommendations:
  • Akimbo
  • Hidden Brain
• Podcast Addict
• Fountain
• Overcast

Timestamps: 
00:00 - Introduction 
03:17- Daniel's Evolution Over the Past Year 
06:16 - Why Daniel Quit His Job 
14:40 - Learning from Past Experiences 
16:46 - Stay Motivated Over the Long Run 
19:25 - Deciding To Show Up As A Professional 
25:24 - Authenticity 
28:49 - Editing Is Caring 
30:09 - Behind The Scenes of Steve Coast's Interview 
34:20 - Packaging Ideas & The Burden of Understanding 
38:55 - A Piece of Unsolicited Advice 
41:53 - Mentorship 
45:30 - What Daniel Gets Out of Mentorship 
49:04 - What I Get Out of It 
52:41 - Finding Mentorship in Your Career 
56:14 - What's Next For Daniel & Mapscaping? 
01:01:55 - Hiring 
01:07:35 - Having Been An Employee Helps Hiring 
01:13:56 - Marketing in Geospatial 
01:20:58 - The Million Follower Instagram Account About Satellite Images 
01:25:25 - Getting Better at Communicating 
01:28:20 - Daniel's Twitter Isn't His Name 
01:31:48 - Podcast Recommendations 
01:33:29 - Youtube is The Biggest Podcast Player (Or Is It?)

Feel free to reach out! 
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work

Joshua Stevens is the Lead Visualiser at NASA's Earth Observatory. Him & his team works on making satellite imagery more accessible to the general public by making visualisation of common imagery like Landsat or MODIS.

--- 
Episode Sponsor: Geoawesomeness & UP42
EO Hub
Geoawesomeness
UP42
---

About Joshua:

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Website

Shownotes

• FEMA
• NASA Earth Observatory
• Tom Patterson
• Book & Podcast Recommendations:
  • Radio Lab
  • Thematic Cartography and Geovisualization

Timestamps 

00:00 - Introduction 

02:46 - Conversation Begins: Joshua Presenting Himself 

04:52 - From Photography to Computer Science 

06:14 - Joshua's Current Role: Lead Visualizer at Nasa Earth Observatory 

07:04 - Why are Visualisations Important 

08:25 - Is it Important that the Public Understands Satellite Imagery? 

11:50 - Graphic Design & Scientific Data 

16:35 - Storms: Visualisation Example 

18:20 - Deciding where to look at, which Stories to Tell 

22:18 - Collaborations: Governmental Agencies & Media 

27:20 - Accessible Designs: Colour-blindness 

31:47 - A Tangent on Data Formats: NetCDF & GeoTiff 

37:34 - Teaching 

38:54 - Tools & Methods 

42:42 - Interactive & Online Media driving different Visualisations 

46:41 - Satellite Data in the Movie & Ad Industry 

48:43 - Interactive Data 

51:02 - Advice for People Working with Scientific Data 

54:20 - Writing & Being Present Online 

55:35 - Favourite Visualisations 

57:46 - Books & Podcast Recommendations

Feel free to reach out! 
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work

Steve Coast is the Founder of OpenStreetMap, one of the most successful open source projects; started in 2004 and now used everywhere from Apple's Maps, Mapbox and even Pokemon Go recently. Steve has worked at places like Microsoft, TomTom, Telenav & Digital Globe.

We talk about the future of mapping and Tech in general as well as how Steve thinks maps will disappear.
Buckle up this is a long one, but well worth it.

I highly recommend you watch this one on YouTube

---

Episode Sponsor: OpenCage
Use OpenCage for your geocoding needs with their API. 
They have a generous Free trial you can sign up to!

---

About Steve:

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Shownotes

• OSM timelapse over England from Geofabrik
• Peter Thiel: Zero to One
• Mark Zuckerberg on The Joe Rogan Experience
• Naval
• Cellular Automaton
• Rule 110 (not 238 as I eluded to)
• John Boyd
• The book of OSM
• Stephen Wolfram
• Neal Stephenson: The Diamond Age
• James Dyson: Invention: A Life
• The 48 Laws of Power
• Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach
• Podcast Recommendation: EconTalk
• Book Recommendation: Travels by Michael Crichton

Timestamps

03:47 - Conversation begins, Steve Describes Himself 
06:30 -Why Does Steve think he's Good at Predicting Trends 
12:22 - Steve's Predictions for the Future of Maps 
21:36 - Maps will Disappear 
26:46 - Incentives for a Location Based Social Media 
33:26 - Steve's Detachment to Maps 
38:17 - Past Achievements as Mental Frameworks 
50:37 - The Start of OpenStreepMap 
59:33 - Why Did OpenStreetMap work (and not other projects)? 
01:04:44 - Simplicity Over Anything Else 
01:17:05 - How does one build Simple Products? 
01:20:35 - The influence of Cellular Automaton 
01:25:18 - Pushing One's Self to Think Outside the Box 
01:32:53 - Steve's Understanding of Maps when he started OSM 
01:36:38 - Everything is Illegal, Except Tech 
01:52:40 - Steve's Current Interests 
01:58:00 - Crypto, Why it's At Least Worth Paying Attention To 
02:03:22 - Putting Maps on the Blockchain, and Why You'd Even Want to Do That 
02:12:13 - The Next Thing that Will Kill OpenStreetMap 
02:21:10 - All the Maps are the Same Today, But Don't Need to Be 
02:31:28 - Believing (or Not) in Early Projects
02:33:38 - Advice for (not Only) Young People 
02:44:53 - Steve on Podcasts 
02:49:02 - Steve's Book Recommendations

Feel free to reach out! 
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Previous Newsletter: Why I want to do more interviews in person
- Sponsor the Podcast
- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work

Muthu Kumar & Aleksander Buczkowski are the Editor-In-Chief & Managing Editor (and creators) of the Geoawesomeness website, which has been running as an independent geospatial media for the past 11 years.

More about Muthu & Aleks:

• Muthu's Twitter
• Muthu's LinkedIn
• Aleks's Twitter
• Alek's LinkedIn

And of course find more on the Geoawesomeness website

--- 
Episode Sponsor: 
Element84
Dan Pilone’s appearance on the podcast
--- 
 

Time stamps

00:00 - Introduction 
02:30 - Muthu & Aleks describing each other 
05:40 - What is Geoawesomeness 
10:40 - Geoawesomeness's Early Days: 2011
14:40 - Impacts of Writing 
15:45 - Muthu & Aleks’s story of meeting up 
22:00 - Choosing Topics to Cover 
28:01 - Ambitions & Thoughts being a Media Company 
32:13 - Going Full Time 
39:15 - Making money on the Internet 
50:30 - Being Open about Business Models 
57:40 - Privacy/ethics of geospatial data 
1:07:26 - Finding the Right Partner 
1:12:10 - The of social media (TikTok & YouTube) 
1:18:45 - Advice for younger people 
1:27:20 - Books & Podcasts recommendation
 

Shownotes

• GeoMundus

Books & Podcast Recommendations:

• Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
• Peak Performance: Elevate Your Game, Avoid Burnout, and Thrive with the New Science of Success by Brad Stulberg
• Rational Reminder

Feel free to reach out! 
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Previous Newsletter: Why I want to do more interviews in person
- Sponsor the Podcast
- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work

Kevin Pomfret is a Space and Spatial Corporate and Transaction Attorney at Williams Mullen and one of the references in terms of Law around spatial data & within the geospatial community more globally. 

--- Episode Sponsor: 
Element84
Dan Pilone’s appearance on the podcast
--- 

About Kevin: 
- LinkedIn
- Twitter 
- More about him

Shownotes: 
- Geospatial World's Ambassador of the Year 
- CCPA: California Consumer Privacy Act 
- GDPR: General Data Protection Regulation
- Locus Charter
- Github Copilot
- Books & Podcasts: 
    - Space Business Podcast
    - Author: Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Timestamps: 
00:00 Introduction 
02:11 Kevin Presents Himself 
06:33 Geosptial Law back in the Early 2000s 
09:43 The Satellite Imagery is a Tricky Legal Problem
14:24 Law-markers don't yet understand the Nuances of Location Data 
17:38 Getting Individual Consent for Location Data doesn't always make sense 
20:26 Law is Hard to Get a Grasp Over 
26:10 Kevin's Critical view on the Current Focus on Ethics 
31:37 The Differences between Ethics & Law 
34:17 Why is the Geospatial Community so Focused on Ethics over Law?
40:48 The Impact of Covid on Location Data Law 
45:42 Location Data Law Issues go Way Beyond Covid 
46:56 How Laws get Written 
49:35 Getting Laws Changed 
53:33 International Dynamics 
56:09 Teaching Geospatial Law & Ethics 
01:08:29 Book & Podcast Recommendations

Feel free to reach out! 
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Previous Newsletter: Why I want to do more interviews in person
- Sponsor the Podcast

Jeffrey Lewis is a Professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey and one of the most influential people in the Open Source Intelligence Community. He is also the host of the "Arms Control Wonk" podcast.

--- 

Episode Sponsor: Element84
Dan Pilone’s appearance on the podcast

---

About Jeffrey:
- Twitter
- LinkedIn

Shownotes:

• Dino Brugioni
• Seeing the Secrets Growing the Leaders
• HawkEye 360 GPS Interference
• Yandex changing the borders on maps
• Jeffrey’s Tweet announcing the invasion of Ukraine an hour before it happened
• Jeffrey’s podcast: Arms Control Wonk
• Books & Podcast Recommendations:
  • The Mapmakers by John Noble Wilford
  • The Essentials of SAR: A Conceptual View of Synthetic Aperture Radar and Its Remarkable Capabilities by Thomas Ager
  • BBC Witness History

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction 
02:42 Conversation begins: Jeffrey is an Open Spy 
05:05 The appeal of doing Intelligence Analysis in Public 
09:36 Jeffrey's OSINT early days: the War in Irak 
16:49 An example of 'bad OSINT' 
20:49 The Tricky Nature of Confirmation Bias 
25:05 How an OSINT Story Starts 
28:10 Being Right, or at least Wrong for the Right Reasons 
30:30 Reputation in reporting, especially in the Open 
35:55 Monitoring for news 
39:26 Machine Learning in OSINT 
41:37 The Difficult Yet Informative Nature of Synthetic Aperture Radar 
47:58 Partnering with Satellite Image Providers 
59:22 Satellite images yes, but they're only 1 component 
01:06:40 The use of Open Satellite Imagery Data 
01:17:55 Teaching OSINT 
01:25:07 The ever faster increase in our access to Data 
01:29:40 Filtering out the crap 
01:33:20 Knowing who to trust: The Ukraine use-case 
01:37:43 How Jeffrey's team called out the Russian Invasion 1h before it happened 
01:43:21 The power of Companies 
01:48:52 Funding & How to Stay Independent 
01:52:51 Advocacy 
01:59:00 The tools used for OSINT 
02:07:48 The Surprising Impact of Ukraine on the Public's View of Nuclear Dissuasion 
02:10:54 Nuclear weapons are not fun, like really not 
02:14:18 Working with a Community 
02:17:37 Jeffrey's podcast: Arms Control Wonk 
02:22:51 Books & Podcast Recommendations

Feel free to reach out! 
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Previous Newsletter: Why I want to do more interviews in person
- Sponsor the Podcast

Jean Martin Bauer is the Country Director for the World Food Programme in Haiti, where his job is in simple terms to ensure the population does not run out of food. This conversation focuses on the use of data - specifically satellite imagery & maps - and how it helps feed the country.

---
Episode Sponsor: Element84
Dan Pilone’s appearance on the podcast
--- 

About Jean-Martin: 

- Twitter
- LinkedIn
- World Food Programme

Shownotes:

• World Food Program
• Hunger Map
• WFP’s Prism
• WFP’s Van Project
• FEWS NET: Famine Early Warning System Network
• Stanford’s Monica Lam
• Jean-Martin Bauer on the Humanitarian AI Today Podcast

Books & Podcasts Recommendations:

• Masters of the Dew by Jacques Roumain (”Gouverneurs de la rosée” in French)
• Stuffed And Starved: Markets, Power And The Hidden Battle For The World Food System by Raj Patel
• Humanitarian AI Today Podcast

Time-stamps:

- 00:00 Introduction 01:53 Conversation Starts: Jean-Martin presents himself
- 03:08 Humanitarian Geography
- 10:31 Jean-Martin's current role: WFP's Haiti Director
- 16:39 How do we know the food situation in a country?
- 21:10 Gathering Data To Understand the Food Situation in a Country
- 26:18 Modelling at a Global & Local level
- 31:03 Distributing Data is also hard
- 32:14 Getting people involved
- 35:56 Online Human Rights
- 40:34 What New Space means for WFP
- 45:21 What's in it for Private Companies to work wit NGOs?
- 48:57 Building Trust when Predictions come First from Machine Learning
- 52:25 Disruption is Not Always the Goal
- 53:32 Financing Collecting Data in the Humanitarian World
- 01:01:19 The Role of Data for Jean-Martin's role as Country Director
- 01:05:56 Making Hard Decision when Numbers represent real People's Livelihood
- 01:09:58 Jean-Martin's Critical Look on the Data Science Community
- 01:14:19 Books & Podcast Recommendations
- 01:17:16 Outro

Please feel free to reach out, I truly do want to hear what you think of this :)
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Previous Newsletter: Why I want to do more interviews in person

Indra Den Bakker is the CEO & Co-Founder of Overstory, a company providing vegetation information to electric utility companies about the state of (mostly) trees around power lines by using high resolution satellite imagery. This can lead to prevention of wildfires by finding hazardous vegetation before it falls on a line.

--- 
Episode Sponsor:
Element84
Dan Pilone’s appearance on the podcast
--- 

About Indra: 
- Twitter
- LinkedIn
- Overstory

Shownotes: 
- Kaggle
- Planet
- Global Forest Watch
- Vandersat’s Acquisition by Planet
Book recommendations;
-  Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation by Paul Hawken
-  The Overstory by Richard Powers

Timestamps: 

00:00 - Teaser 
00:29 - Introduction 
02:18 - Conversation begins, Indra Describes Himself 
05:20 - Indra's description of Overstory 
08:44 - The Story of Overstory 
10:57 - From a Kaggle Competition to Founding a Company 
13:54 - Talking to Customers in Early Days 
16:58 - Find Product-Market Fit : Why utility companies?
19:37 - Finding a Sweet Spot in the Imagery Resolution - Price trade-off 
22:02 - Deciding to build a product, not focusing on imagery 
28:34 - Bringing in a dedicated designer in an early stage data start-up 
30:12 - Finding focus as a company 
33:44 - Could Earth Observations Companies ever have millions of customers? 
36:13 - Could Overstory get to more consumer facing applications? 
39:58 - Failures along the way 
42:14 - Moving from bootstrapped to taking investment 
44:31 - Staying on the Mission while raising money & losing control 
47:49 - Preventing Green-washing 
53:20 - What does Indra do today? 
55:42 - The transition from Data Scientist to CEO 
58:56 - Does a Data Scientist background help as a Leader? 
01:00:14 - Hiring 
01:04:12 - Deciding to become a Remote First Company 
01:07:20 - Building a start-up in a post-covid recession 
01:11:15 - A supermarket analogy to the Earth Observation industry 
01:15:57 - Is Indra worried of data providers eating into downstream company's business? 
01:18:20 - Balancing exits strategies with keeping on a Mission 
01:19:51 - Newly public space start-ups are going down in valuation 
01:23:45 - What is Overstory's current main challenge? 
01:25:44 - Dealing with number of employee growth: Not knowing what everyone does anymore 
01:34:00 - Book & Podcast recommendations
01:35:48 - Having the same company name as book

Please feel free to reach out, I truly do want to hear what you think of this :) 
- Website: https://mindsbehindmaps.com/
- My Twitter: https://twitter.com/MaxLenormand
- Podcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/MindsBehindMaps
- Previous Newsletter: Why I want to do more interviews in person

Dr Catherine Nakalembe is an Associate Research Professor at University of Maryland and the Program Head of NASA Harvest Africa. We talk about some of her work on using satellite imagery for Food Security in her home country of Uganda & how she got into this field in the first place.

---

Episode Sponsors:

• Element84
  • Dan Pilone’s appearance on the podcast

---

About Catherine:

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Website

Shownotes:

- NASA Harvest
- Catherine’s Bio on University of Maryland’s website

Books & Recommendations:

- The New Humanitarian

- BBC Discovery

- Africa Today

- Little Stories for Tiny People

- Catherine’s appearances on Science in Action

- Leadership Journey

- The Divide by Jason Hickel

- Jason Hickel’s Twitter

Time-stamps: 

00:00:00 Introduction 
00:02:04 Conversation begins: Catherine describes herself 
00:08:19 Starting by wanting to play badminton 
00:20:45 Wanting to work back in Uganda 
00:24:32 How Catherine got into Food Security 
00:32:15 What even is Food Security? 
00:34:14 The Role of Remote Sensing in Food Security 
00:37:58 Who benefits mapping food security? 
00:44:23 How do people on the ground perceive insights from satellites? 
00:48:54 Creating insights that actually get used 
00:52:43 You can't improve what you can't measure 
00:55:41 The Double-Edge Sword that comes with Remote Sensing at Scale 
01:00:52 Not getting lost in the Maps 
01:03:32 Incentives: Working from a University in the US, helping Uganda 
01:10:40 The relationship between Private & Public sector in regards to Climate Change 
01:13:13 The Government as the main Private Sector's Government 
01:20:10 Story Telling as a Source of Change 
01:27:02 Inspiring & Helping Others 
01:30:53 Books & Podcast recommendations

If you want to hear more about me & the podcast:

• My Twitter
• For news about the podcast
• Website

Emily Darling & Kim Fisher both work at the Wildlife Conservation Society, respectively as the Director of Coral Reef & as Spatial Analyst. They have developed MERMAID, a platform enabling coral reef scientists to aggregate & share their data together.  One of the main challenges they tackle being most measurements need to happen in the field as opposed to being able to leverage satellite imagery. 

---

Episode Sponsors:

• Radiant Earth Foundation: Apply for the 2022 Radiant MLHub Impact Award for agriculture-related applications for Africa - with a $5,000 cash prize.
• Element84
  • Dan Pilone’s appearance on the podcast

---

About Emily:

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

About Kim:

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

World Conservation Society

Shownotes

• MERMAID
• Wildlife Conservation Society
• Allen Coras Atlas
• SparkGeo
• Books & Podcast Recomendations:
  • We can do hard things
  • Where should we begin
  • Song Exploder
  • Data Feminism: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/data-feminism
  • Here GOES Radiotelescope
  • Mannahatta/Welikia:
    • book: https://www.amazon.com/Mannahatta-Natural-History-York-City/dp/1419707485/
    • website: https://welikia.org/

Timestamps

• 00:00 - Introduction
• 03:07 - Kim & Emily presenting themselves
• 07:49 - Computer Science & Data at the service of Science
• 17:30 - A symbiotic relationship Software Engineering & Marine Biology
• 23:38 - High level overview of what MERMAID is
• 26:52 - What problem does MERMAID solve?
• 32:28 - Getting traction on a scientific tool
• 37:37 - Stories on top of the data
• 46:00 - Another simple question: Why is coral reef important?
• 49:55 - Working with Policy Makers
• 55:28 - Coral Reef is still measured with pen & paper
• 1:01:55 - Partnering with SparkGeo, a geospatial consultancy
• 1:10:54 - Thinking about projects over the long term
• 1:12:45 - Financing a Non-Profit project
• 1:19:40 - Transparency in Non-Profits through Open-Source
• 1:25:45 - The impact of Data Science on Emily’s work
• 1:29:01 - Book & Podcast Recommendations

Feel free to reach out!

• My Twitter
• For news about the podcast
• Website

Arjen Vrielink is the Director & co-founder of Satelligence, dedicated to stopping deforestation by leveraging satellite imagery. They work directly with commodity companies who sell things like cacao or coffee to understand the causes of deforestation and how alternatives can be found.

About Arjen:

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Satelligence

---

Episode Sponsors:

• Radiant Earth Foundation: Apply for the 2022 Radiant MLHub Impact Award for agriculture-related applications for Africa - with a $5,000 cash prize.
• Element84
  • Dan Pilone’s appearance on the podcast

---

Shownotes:

• Zero to One by Peter Thiel
• Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics
• Planet Acquiring Vandersat
• Range by David Epstein
• Steve Ballmer
• Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction by Bret Victor
• xkcd: Adjective Foods
• Superforecasting by Philip E. Tetlock, Dan Gardner
• Book recommendations:
  • Man’s Fate (La Condition Humaine) by André Malraux
  • The Stranger (L’Etranger) by Albert Camus
  • The Plague (La Peste) by Albert Camus
  • The Mandarins by Simone de Beauvoir

Timestamps:

00:00 - Introduction

02:55 - Conversation Begins

07:56 - Arjen quoting me to describe work environment

13:02 - The origin story of Satelligence

17:45 - What Satelligence does

19:05 - Remote Sensing to solve deforestation: Solution looking for a Problem?

26:48 - Data comes in to convince bosses

34:38 - Financial incentives & shareholders

40:27 - How Satelligence makes money & long term vision

45:02 - Why Satelligence decided to raise a first round after a few years

51:25 - Downsides to raising

55:14 - What happens to the mission after an exit?

59:30 - Creating a work culture

1:03:43 - Lunch is more important for your culture than your Strategy day

1:13:17 - Hiring

1:17:47 - Why Arjen hired me as an intern

1:29:48 - Open Source in Geospatial

1:42:28 - Importance of technical knowledge in leadership roles

1:44:36 - Layers of Abstraction

1:51:16 - Committing to one specific thing

1:57:18 - Why maps aren’t (always) the best way to communicate insights

2:06:43 - Geospatial is incredibly niche

2:12:57 - Book recommendations

2:21:15 - Asking for advice

Feel free to reach out!

• My Twitter
• For news about the podcast
• Website

Barbara Ryan was instrumental in the policy change in 2008 that opened up the Landsat data to being freely & openly available for anyone to access. This resulted in more than 100x uptake in the number of imagery downloaded and fundamentally changed the Earth Observation industry.

She is currently the Executive Director of the World Geospatial Industry Council

---

Episode Sponsors:

• Radiant Earth Foundation: Apply for the 2022 Radiant MLHub Impact Award for agriculture-related applications for Africa - with a $5,000 cash prize.
• Element84
  • Dan Pilone’s appearance on the podcast

---

About Barbara:

• Twitter
• LinkedIn

Shownotes:

• We recorded this interview while Barbara was in Amsterdam for the Geospatial World Forum
• Landsat policy change document
• Gilberto Camara at the time Chief of INPE: Brazilian National Institute for Space Research
• Mark Mayers, former Director of USGS
• World Geospatial Industry Council
• GEO: Group on Earth Observations: the organization, not the field ;-)
• Books recommendations:
  • Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
  • Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

Timestamps:

00:00 - Introduction

02:56 - Importance of in-person conversation

05:52 - Connecting people

08:00 - Reaching people beyond languages

10:43 - Landsat pre-2008: before it was free & open

19:09 - Impact of the giving the data away for free

21:51 - Details on the policy change: push-backs & financial incentives

28:43 - The direct impact on the USGS

30:39 - International collaboration

32:32 - Domino Effect: The impact of Landsat on offer Open Data Policies

36:02 - Potential unexpected negative effects

37:41 - The scale of the impact opening up Landsat had

41:13 - Don’t use data as your transactional currency

44:14 - Making satellite imagery accessible beyond the data

52:00 - Distributing data as easily as possible

57:07 - Spicy politics story involving the Secretary of Interior

1:04:21 - Open Data should not be taken for granted

1:11:31 - Thoughts on Commercial Earth Observation

1:14:16 - Open Data Policies for Commercial EO: Parallels with the Gaming Industry

1:23:18 - Improving Communications in Science

1:28:41 - Earth Observation could learn to tell stories from the Gaming Industry

1:34:21: Barbara’s current role

1:39:04 - Being better ambassadors of Geospatial

1:42:32 - WGIC’s funding model

1:45:36: - Barbara retiring only to come back multiple times

1:51:12 - Book recommendations

1:53:21 - Advice for younger people

Feel free to reach out!

• My Twitter
• For news about the podcast
• Website

Jonathan Lacoste is an Investor at Space.VC, a Venture Capital firm he started in 2021 after having founded & sold Jebbit (a company focused on aggregating & analyzing user data online for businesses for advertising).

We talk about how his experience at Jebbit translates to the Earth Observation industry, why he moved from founding to investing and the learning-in-public approach he's taking. 

—

Episode Sponsors:

• Radiant Earth Foundation: Apply for the 2022 Radiant MLHub Impact Award for agriculture-related applications for Africa - with a $5,000 cash prize.
• Element84
  • Dan Pilone’s appearance on the podcast

—

About Jonathan:

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Space.VC

Shownotes:

• Tomorrow.io
• “Why I’m starting a space fund”: Jonathan’s blog post on his decision to start Space.VC
• Pixxel
• Previous episode with Jeff Crusey, another Venture Capitalist in the space industry
• Settlers of Catan
• Books & Podcast recommendations:
  • All In Podcast
  • Acquired Podcast
  • Smartcuts: How Hackers, Innovators, and Icons Accelerate Success by Shane Snow
  • When Jesus Came to Harvard: Making Moral Choices Today by Harvey Cox

Timestamps:

• 00:00 - Introduction
• 02:45 - Episode starts, Jonathan presents himself
• 05:25 - Jonathan’s first experience: 10 years of Jebbit
• 08:50 - Finding a problem in the industry
• 12:10- Coming to a problem with a Beginner’s Mind
• 14:45 - Keeping a Beginner’s Mindset
• 16:50 - Choosing what to do after Jebbit
• 22:10 - Transferable & valuable skills
• 25:20- The space industry is 1st time founders
• 28:20 - Attracting more founders from outside the space industry
• 31:50 - Making space un-sexy
• 38:15 - How companies market themselves (and to whom)
• 40:55 - Creating a VC fund instead of starting a new company
• 44:00 - Continuing to learn
• 46:25 - Building in public
• 51:50 - Keeping up with new companies & Networking
• 56:25 - Deciding who to invest in
• 59:45 - Why Jonathan decided to invest in Pixxel
• 1:03:45 - Software vs Hardware companies
• 1:08:00 - Disagreeing with respect
• 1:13:35 - Jonathan’s take on the wave of companies going public
• 1:19:35 - Dealing with impostor syndrome
• 1:24:56 - Being wrong
• 1:29:30 - Settlers of Catan
• 1:32:00 - Books & Podcast recommendations

Feel free to reach out!

• My Twitter
• For news about the podcast
• Website

Jeff Crusey is the Investment Director of Seraphim Space, an investing firm specialised in the space industry. They have invested in mulitple Earth Observation companies including Spire, Iceye, HawkEye 360 and Pixxel.

This episode in many ways serves as an introduction to investing - specifically Venture Capital (VC in short) - applied to the world of Earth Observation: How funds are raised, how VCs decided who to invest in and how they do it.

—

Episode Sponsors:

• Radiant Earth Foundation: Apply for the 2022 Radiant MLHub Impact Award for agriculture-related applications for Africa - with a $5,000 cash prize.
• Element84
  • Dan Pilone’s appearance on the podcast

—

About Jeff:

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Seraphim Space

Shownotes:

• Ursa Space
• Jeff’s tweet having invested in 20+ space companies
• “Most Microsoft Flight Simulator players flew home in first journey”
• Books & Podcast recommendations
  • Sam Harris podcast: Making Sense
  • Lex Fridman podcast
  • Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter

Time-stamps:

00:00 - Introduction

04:30 - Conversation starts - Jeff presents himself

06:56 - Jeff’s early days

08:48 - Climate Tech in 2008

12:16 - How Jeff got into investing

15:12 - Skills that make a good investor

18:05 - Venture Capital investing at a high level

23:31 - Finding companies to invest in

27:58 - Weighing risk before investing

28:49 - Investing in the Space industry

31:18 - Early projects Jeff invested in in 2012

32:39 - Investing in Earth Observation

36:39 - Data companies & Analytics companies: different models

39:05 - A centralized “Search Engine” of geospatial data

41:53 - Is Google Earth Engine this centralized search engine?

47:12 - Is Earth Observation a giant House of Cards?

49:16 - Metaverse: one of potential huge commercial application

54:04 - Who would build & own a metaverse

55:37 - Monitoring vs Mapping

58:20 - Weather doesn’t make it in most people’s “Earth Observation” list

1:03:15 - Projects that aren’t suited for Venture Capital

1:05:10 - Analytics applications from an investment point of view

1:07:33 - Where does the venture money come from?

1:10:50 - Investing in long term projects

1:13:53 - The exit process

1:14:05 - Exists in Earth Observation: Valuations & Bubbles

1:19:42 - The impact of Starship

1:21:55 - Book & Podcast recommendations

Feel free to reach out!

• My Twitter
• For news about the podcast
• Website

A year ago, I started this podcast, not knowing where it would go. 18 interviews later, I'm more excited than ever to keep doing more of these, and get even better at it.

This episode is also on Youtube if you'd like to see the video too

Reach out and let me know who you'd like to see on the podcast!

- On the website

- On Twitter

Timestamps:

00:00 - Episode also on YouTube

00:18 - Introduction

00:41 - Quick look back on 1 year

02:14 - Future of Minds Behind Maps

03:18 - The Goal of this podcast

04:22 - Who would you like on the podcast?

05:53 - Thanks

07:08 - Working with Sponsors

09:16 - Conclusion

Thanks for listening!

Jakub Dziwisz is the founder & CEO of Orbify, a company that is attempting to simplify the process of building Earth Observation solutions for any application. 

—

Episode Sponsors:

• Radiant Earth Foundation: Apply for the 2022 Radiant MLHub Impact Award for agriculture-related applications for Africa - with a $5,000 cash prize.
• Element84
  • Dan Pilone’s appearance on the podcast

—

About Jakub:

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Orbify

Shownotes:

• Orbify
• Book & Media recomendation:
  • You’re already listening to the first one ;-)
  • Mapscaping
  • The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos by Christian Davenport
  • The Case for Space by Robert Zubrin
  • 9 Lies about Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World by Marcus Buckingham, Ashley Goodall
  • Twenty Minute VC

Time stamps:

• 00:00 - Introduction
• 02:48 - Episode begins, Jakub presents himself
• 09:40 - Jakub’s first few jobs: Travel Agencies
• 19:10 - Travel Agencies used to look a lot like the Earth Observation industry today
• 21:48 - Jakub’s entry in Earth Observation
• 25:28 - A Shopify analogy to self-service
• 31:30 - Orbify
• 35:40 - Specializing versus Diversifying
• 43:31 - Rethinking User Interfaces
• 45:50 - A SaaS-like business model
• 51:52 - Some of Orbify’s current clients
• 54:50 - Jakub’s point of view coming from outside Earth Observation
• 59:00 - Keeping a fresh eye
• 1:01:27 - How much programming does Jakub still do?
• 1:05:26 - Book & Podcast recommendation

Feel free to reach out!

• My Twitter
• For news about the podcast
• Website

Jacopo Margutti is a Data Scientist at 510, the Data branch of the Netherlands Red Cross which uses remote sensing, ground measured data and insights from social media to understand & react to humanitarian crisis. During this conversation, we touch on the the work the Red Cross does around impact forecasting of typhoons, how they have helped covid vaccine distribution, but also how to work on a tight budget to provide the maximum amount of help. Jacopo talks about the desire to move towards digital aid - sending money digitally - over physical goods and what the undesired consequences of humanitarian aid might be. 

---

Sponsor of this episode: Element84

• Ep16: Conversation with Dan Pilone, CEO & co-founder of Element84
• Element84 website

---

Jacopo Margutti

• LinkedIn

Time-stamps:

• 03:07 - Conversation begins, Jacopo presents himself
• 05:30 - Being in the Netherlands Red Cross Offices
• 07:55 - 510: The Data Team of the Netherlands Red Cross
• 09:50 - Example of applications: Natural Disaster Impact Forecasting
• 13:09 - Timeline of work on a Typhoon event
• 17:00 - The 4 Disaster Phases
• 19:15 - Working with satellite imagery providers
• 23:19 - Understanding what people need, not only where
• 24:45 - Insights from the ground compared to remote sensing
• 31:30 - Effective Altruism: Trying to do the most “good”
• 32:45 - Leveraging Social Media data
• 38:35 - Measuring the impact of the Red Cross interventions
• 40:05 - Challenges of working with data in help of far away locations
• 43:08 - Longer Term Impact Work: Delivering Digital Aid
• 50:20 - Financial aspect of Humanitarian Aid
• 53:30 - Deciding what to work on, who to help and who not to
• 58:15 - The Importance and Need of Volunteers
• 1:01:20 - Impact of Covid on the Red Cross
• 1:04:19 - Jacopo’s journey, from Particle Physics to the Red Cross
• 1:12:12 - Rounding off, Books & Podcasts Recommendations

Shownotes:

• 510: Data Branch of the Netherlands Red Cross
• Books & Podcast Recommendations:
  • Good Economics for Hard Times: Better Answers to Our Biggest Problems by Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo
  • Hidden Brain by NPR
• Volunteer to 510:
  • Through their website
  • Reach out directly to Jacopo

Please feel free to reach out!

• My Twitter
• For news about the podcast
• Website

Dan Pilone is the CEO and co-founder of Element84, a software engineering company focused on building geospatial solutions at scale. We touch on Dan's experience working on geospatial software engineer problems and how those have changed over the past decade. We discuss the work Element84 has done to contribute to AWS's Open Data program, as well the journey of co-founding a company with Dan's wife Tracey, and how they're thinking of growth through a people-focused mindset.

---

Find previous episodes and other show notes at mindsbehindmaps.com

If you'd like to help support the podcast, please consider leaving a review directly on the website, or on Apple Podcast. This helps showcase the value of the podcast when reaching out to new potential guests. 

---

About Dan:

• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Element84 website

Time-stamps:

• 03:16 - Conversation starts, Dan present himself
• 07:03 - Presenting Element84
• 09:33 - Element84’s early days - Moving towards geospatial over time
• 12:16 - Problems change over time
• 16:15 - Scale changes too
• 20:48 - Contributing to Amazon’s Open Data Registry
• 26:16 - Making Sentinel data more accessible
• 34:30 - Getting nerdy: What do Dask & Xarray mean for the future of geospatial data processing
• 40:16 - Moving towards more layers of abstraction
• 41:52 - Business model behind different open data contributions
• 45:11 - A game theory approach to Open Source
• 50:28 - The Openness of Geospatial compared to other fields
• 56:16 - Co-founding a company as a couple
• 1:04:21 - Preventing people “careering out” of the company
• 1:11:19 - People-focus growth
• 1:16:58 - Element84’s hiring process
• 1:21:14 - Changing culture as the company grows
• 1:27:54 - How Dan’s role has changed over the years
• 1:30:47 - The relevance (or not) of keeping a foot in the code as a CEO
• 1:33:29 - Opportunity cost from Dan’s point of view
• 1:36:34 - Book & podcast recommendations

Show notes:

• Earth Search
• Book & podcast recommendation:
  • Great game of business Unlocking the Power and Profitability of Open-Book Management by  Jack Stack, Bo Burlingham
  • Dear White Friend: The Realities of Race, the Power of Relationships and Our Path to Equity by Melvin J. Gravely II
  • Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
  • Manager Tools podcast
• Tugboat Group
  • Interview with Dan & his wife Tracey on co-founding Element84 together

Please feel free to reach out!

• My Twitter
• For news about the podcast
• Website

April Speight leads the Spatial Computing Cloud Advocacy team at Microsoft. This team focuses on helping developers understand technology & raise awareness, mostly with the Mixed Reality team, most famous for the HoloLens.

We talk about April's work at Microsoft, but also about her journey from the the fashion industry, to entering the field of Tech in general. We touch on fashion and branding, and what the Tech world can take away from them. Finally, this is also a conversation about Augmented & Virtual Reality, on the privacy aspects of these technology and how they go hand in hand with technical literacy & education. 

---

Find previous episodes and other show notes at mindsbehindmaps.com

If you'd like to help support the podcast, please consider leaving a review directly on the website, or on Apple Podcast. This helps showcase the value of the podcast when reaching out to new potential guests. 

---

About April:

• Website
• Twitter
• LinkedIn

Time stamps:

• 02:37 - Conversation begins, April presents herself
• 6:25 - Aprils’ journey from Fashion to Tech
• 18:22 - Entering the Tech industry with no Tech experience
• 27:25 - Dealing with impostor syndrome
• 30:48 - April’s current role: Spatial Computing Cloud Advocacy Lead at Microsoft
• 33:27 - Defining Mixed Reality
• 35:02 - The impact of covid on the public’s perception of Augmented & Virtual Reality
• 39:02 - Building virtual worlds
• 44:53 - Should we implement limitations on virtual environments?
• 47:02 - Privacy implications in virtual spaces
• 54:47 - How should users & developers think about privacy?
• 1:01:23 - Digital Literacy
• 1:04:52 - What Tech can learn from the fashion industry
• 1:10:12 - The Importance of Branding
• 1:13:35 - Creating content for developers
• 1:18:04 - Media & Book recommendation

Shownotes:

• Microsoft HoloLens
• Media Recommendations:
  • Business of Fashion
    • Unpacking Fashion’s Latest Waves of NFT Sales
  • The Little Prince
  • LingoPie

Please feel free to reach out!

• My Twitter
• For news about the podcast
• Website

Dr Beth Tellman is the Chief Science Officer at Cloud2Street, a company focused on flood monitoring using mostly satellite imagery. They recently published their “Global Flood Database” - featured in Nature  - containing 15 years of data on 913 floods with human settlement maps across 169 countries.

In this episode we talk about Beth’s journey to starting Cloud2Street, what being a scientists means to her, as well as what the impact of the Global Flood Database has been. We talk on what one needs to do to actually have an impact; the role data science modelling but also insurance both have and how they work hand in hand. We touch on the open-science approach Cloud2Street is taking, all the while being a privately held for-profit company.

---

Find previous episodes and other show notes at mindsbehindmaps.com

If you'd like to help me out, please consider leaving a review directly on the website, or on Apple Podcast.

---

About Beth:

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Cloud2Street

Time stamps

• 3:27 - Conversation begins, Beth presents herself
• 7:55 - Why be a scientist?
• 10:57 - Cloud2Street
• 12:19 - Building a company as a scientist
• 16:37 - Global Flood Database
• 20:41 - Impact doesn’t only come from better algorithms
• 24:12 - Impact of publishing the Global Flood Database
• 28:37 - Creating the Database
• 33:30 - Why insurance is important
• 39:58 - Making sure Data & Maps are actually useful
• 45:21 - How accurate does it need to be to solve the problem?
• 50:07 - Finding the right metric
• 54:42 - Cloud2Street’s Business Model
• 1:03:48 - Open Science in a private company
• 1:13:33 - Using / Finding the best data for the job
• 1:20:39 - Communicating limitations
• 1:24:02 - Book recommendations

Shownotes:

• Global Flood Database
• ARC: African Risk Capacity
• IEEE Podcast episode with Beth: Down to Earth S2:EP2
• Media recommendations:
  • Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty
  • Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed by James C. Scott
  • Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas
  • This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate by Naomi Klein

Please feel free to reach out!

• My Twitter
• For news about the podcast
• Website

Keith Masback was CEO of the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation for over a decade and is now an Angel Investor and Advisor to multiple start-ups, mostly related to Earth Observation & Remote Sensing. Keith started in the US Army, working as an Infantry Officer, and went on to join the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

We talk about Keith's perspective both in the military and in the civilian world of Earth Observation, or as he points out, Geospatial Intelligence. We also touch on what Angel Investing & Advising is and why he does it, as well as talk about the role of leader he's taken on multiple times. 

---

Find previous episodes and other shownotes at mindsbehindmaps.com

---

About Keith Masback:

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Time stamps:

• 02:05 - Episode starts, Keith introduces himself
• 10:00 - Keith’s introduction to geospatial in the military
• 14:00 - Learning from the people you lead
• 20:00 - Operationalizing imagery intelligence
• 26:10 - Building trust to change mentalities and processes
• 35:40 - Moving into advising start ups
• 39:10 - What does an advisor do?
• 46:05 - Deciding who & what to invest in
• 51:00 - Keeping an open mind to opportunities
• 54:05 - "Geospatial Intelligence"
• 59:25 - The value proposition brought by Planet
• 1:01:50 - Keeping up with the news
• 1:05:15 - Keith’s videos on explaining satellite images with WIRED
• 1:10:30 - Media Recommendations
• 1:14:50 - One last question: Are we lacking "getting mud on our boots” today?

Shownotes:

• United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation
• Hermeus
• Blogpost: The totally made-up word that’s changing the world
• Wired videos:
  • Spy Satellite Expert Explains How to Analyze Satellite Imagery
  • Spy Satellite Expert Breaks Down Surveillance Scenes From Movies & TV
• International Spy Museum
• Media recommendation:
  • Gettysburg
  • Killer Angels
  • A Bridge Too Far

Please feel free to reach out!

• My Twitter
• For news about the podcast
• Website

Tyler Erickson is a Developer Advocate at Google, more specifically working on Google Earth Engine - a platform providing access to many different Earth Observation datasets merged together - allowing users to focus more time on building their solutions.

We talk about the importance of curiosity across fields to foster innovation, go behind the scenes of Google Earth Engine, and explore OpenET, an application Tyler has worked on that leverages Earth Engine.

About Tyler:

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Shownotes:

• Range by David Epstein
• American Geophysical Union
• Rebecca Moore
• Google Earth Engine
• NASA Processing Levels
• OpenET
• Book & Media recommendations:
  • Bicycle Diaries by David Byrne
  • bikepacking.com
  • Jupyter Book
  • FastPages
  • The Evolution of Trust by Nicky Case

Time stamps:

• 03:10 - Conversation starts, Tyler introduces himself
• 8:45 - Generalists or Specialists
• 13:30 - Fostering innovations & ideas across fields
• 18:45 - Incentivizing sharing in research
• 21:45 - Reproduce & Replicate
• 30:00 - Tyler’s work: Developer Advocate at Google Earth Engine
• 34:20 - A Short History of Google Earth Engine
• 40:40 - Why did people use it?
• 45:00 - Behind the scenes: Python & JavaScript
• 52:20 - Opinionated Data Processing
• 59:50 - Working with a community
• 1:03:30 - Commercial partnerships
• 1:18:00 - OpenET
• 1:27:10 - Building a solution that solves specific problems
• 1:33:45 -Benefits & Drawbacks of Story Telling
• 1:42:00 - Book & Media Recommendations

Please feel free to reach out!

• My Twitter
• For news about the podcast
• Reach out by email: [email protected]

Dan Hammer co-founded & build the first few versions of Global Forest Watch, and is now working on Earthrise Media, a non-profit that brings data scientists, designers and storytellers together to tackle global environmental challenges.

We talk about how Global Forest Watch was built, how journalists have leveraged the platform to tell stories and how it lived on until today. We also touch on the importance of design in addition to data science, and the power of telling stories.

Dan Hammer

• Website
• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Show notes:

• Global Plastic Watch
• Global Forest Watch
• Earthrise Media
• SpaceKnow
• Apollo 8 Earthrise image
• Frank Borman Apollo 8 Wikipedia article
• Pew Research survey: 2018 public survey on NASA Priorities
• Captain Fantastic

Time stamps:

• 03:00 - Conversation starts, Dan presents himself
• 08:30 - The tools behind monitoring deforesting back in 2009
• 12:00 - How Global Forest Watch 2.0 started
• 18:45 : Why Global Forest Watch continued on
• 25:40 - Collaborating with journalists
• 29:50 - An example of leveraging Earth Observation data for policy making : Global Plastic Watch
• 31:00 - Having an impact
• 38:50 - Precision vs Accuracy
• 45:45 - Earthrise Media: Design, Data science & story telling
• 51:35 - The importance of Design
• 56:50 - Dealing with & communicating uncertainty
• 1:02:00 - Non-profit or for-profit?
• 1:08:10 - Building a team
• 1:10:20 - Origin of the name "Earthrise" & Inspiration through space
• 1:21:15 - Book / Media Recommendation

Please feel free to reach out!

• My Twitter
• For news about the podcast
• Reach out by email: [email protected]

Charles Blanchet is the VP of Solutions at Iceye. Charles has over 20 years of experience building start ups, more recently in companies focused around data. Iceye owns a constellation of Synthetic Aperture Radar satellites, and is also working on providing flood monitoring insights derived from the images these satellites take.

We talk SAR, how Charles joined Iceye, the importance of finding focus as a company, and how thinking is an important task in itself.

Charles Blanchet:

• LinkedIn

Show notes:

• Iceye Solutions
• Charles blog post on hiring
• New Philosopher magazine

Time Stamps:

• 04:00 - Episode begins: Charles presents himself
• 8:45 - Finding product-market fit in Earth Observation
• 13:10 - The importance and need for focus
• 17:00 - Is the space industry different than any other field?
• 21:30 - Is SaaS a good model for companies like Iceye?
• 26:30 - "Deriving value out of imagery and turning it into information is a tough business"
• 36:20 - Can there be too much focus?
• 39:00 - Charles thoughts on Iceye’s current focus on flood monitoring
• 41:46 - Building startups over and over again
• 48:30 - Assembling a team
• 58:10 - The life story interview question
• 1:08:40 - How Charles joined Iceye
• 1:12:20 - Charles’ next 5 years
• 1:14:10 - Taking dedicated time to think
• 1:25:25 - Media recommendation

Please feel free to reach out!

• My Twitter
• For news about the podcast
• Reach out by email: [email protected]

Chinmay Adhvaryu is the co-founder and CEO of Influunt, a company focused on providing insights around water damage using Earth Observation data. He previously founded, and then shut down Earthlab AI, a platform to aggregate, preprocess and analyze satellite imagery.

We talk about both of these experiences, how Chinmay learned from the first one and from his previous experience in the world of Internet of Things, which he now applies those to Influunt. 

About Chinmay:

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Influunt

Show notes:

• Tech stars
• Weather data company, Tomorrow
• Chinmay's Twitter thread on founding an Earth Observation company
• Book & Media recommendation:
  • "Enemy of All Mankind" by Steven Johnson

Time stamps:

• 2:20 - Episode Begins, Chinmay presents himself
• 4:05 - Chinmay’s entry into the satellite imagery market
• 9:10 - Reality check, what customers want compared to what can be done
• 14:50 - Finding a fitting business model
• 16:40 - Context is king
• 22:10 - Staying in Earth Observation after closing a previous company
• 24:30 - Choosing to work on water damage monitoring
• 32:30 - How do we move from assessing damage to preventing it?
• 38:45 - Chinmay’s thoughts on the Earth Observation industry
• 44:40 - Parallels with the Internet of Things world
• 47:15 - Microsoft Planetary Computer & Google Earth Engine
• 51:45 - Chinmay’s ties to India
• 55:10 - Climate change is tackled by people from all over the world
• 1:01:25 - Experience at Techstars
• 1:08:10 - Incremental changes over revolutions
• 1:12:00 - Book & Media recommendation

Please feel free to reach out!

• My Twitter
• For news about the podcast
• Reach out by email: [email protected]

Joe Morrison is the VP of Commercial Product at Umbra, who builds & operates Synthetic Aperture Radar satellites. He is determined to make satellite imagery more accessible, and has shared many of his thoughts about the Earth Observation industry on this blog "A Closer Look with Joe Morrison".

We talk about how buying satellite imagery is not a solved problem, how he builds a team and how Umbra is trying to change how satellite imagery is sold. Joe compares the current Earth Observation market to the railroad companies of a few hundred years ago, and we discuss making predictions in public. 

Joe Morrison:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/mouthofmorrison
• Substack Blog: https://joemorrison.substack.com/welcome
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-morrison/

Time stamps:

• 6:30 - Episode begins, Joe presents himself
• 8:48 - How does a people person end up in the map business?
• 10:25 - Joe's story entering the geospatial field
• 15:15 - People who use the word "geospatial" hate maps
• 21:20 - Is "New Space" changing the industry?
  • (22:25 - Audio starts degrading a bit)
• 29:00 - Why work on the infrastructure when applications are lacking?
• 32:20 - Why Joe joined Umbra
• 34:25 - What if buying X were like sat imagery
• 37:25 - Is infrastructure ever solved?
  •  (Audio is better again)
• 40:18 - The importance of the people we work with
• 49:05 - Space attracts people
• 53:12 - Working with people who’ve interacted with your content & how we both create our content
• 59:22 - Coming from a Space background
• 1:06:10 - Fighting impostor syndrome
• 1:10:55- A great team isn’t just great people
• 1:17:40 - Is Umbra a data company?
• 1:26:00 - Moving towards selling data as cheap as possible
• 1:31:25 - Relationship between image providers and Defense & Governments
• 1:36:10 - Umbra’s target audience
• 1:42:58 - The technical barrier to entry and Joe’s thoughts on Analysis Ready Data
• 1:45:40 - SAR imagery isn’t valuable in it’s own, it’s like salt
  •  (Audio quality drops again a bit)
• 1:52:28 - Making predictions about the industry in public
• 2:00:33 - Insanity & Obsessions
  •  (Audio quality is good again)
• 2:08:02 - Joe’s Book Recommandation

Show notes:

• Umbra: https://umbra.space/
• Azavea: https://www.azavea.com/
• NACIS (National American Cartographic Information Society): https://nacis.org/
• GIS definition, video of guy trying to explaining his job to non geo people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sg4YsAjreOA
• Musk presenting Starship in 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7Uyfqi_TE8
• Joe’s prediction Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/mouthofmorrison/status/1447917122772946951?s=20
• Book recommendation: “A river runs through it” by Norman Maclean
• Band recommendation: Lawrence, their latest album: Hotel TV

Please feel free to reach out!

• My Twitter: https://twitter.com/MaxLenormand
• Reach out by email: [email protected]
• For news about the podcast: https://twitter.com/MindsBehindMaps

Welcome back to another episode of Minds behind Maps!

In this episode I sit down with Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño, the Program Director of the Planetary Computer at Microsoft as well as the author of "Impact Science: The science of getting to radical social and environmental breakthroughs".

About Bruno:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/brunosan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nasonurb/
• Website: https://brunosan.eu/
• Bruno's book "Impact Science, The science of getting to radical social and environmental breakthroughs": https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46137268-impact-science?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=jvKJBnRM5k&rank=1
• "Impact Science" on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SN1L4L2/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1

Timestamps:

• 4:20 : Conversation starts, Bruno presents himself
• 10:30 : How Bruno entered Academia
• 14:20 : Science / Engineering duality
• 18:05 : Skills over Knowledge
• 21:15 : How education could be more skill centered
• 29:05 : How Bruno entered geospatial
• 31:51 : At the edge of human knowledge of the Sun
• 36:07 : Leaving NASA to focus on more applied projects
• 40:04 : Trying to work for an NGO: “Bruno we don’t need a rocket scientist”
• 47:53 : Cheap Data Science
• 51:20 : Limitations & Playfulness for clever ideas
• 55:18 : Writing “Impact Science”
• 1:05:01 : From outputs to outcomes: a missing layer in Data Science
• 1:11:08 : Data Informed instead of Data Driven
• 1:17:44: Bruno's work at Microsoft as Program Director of the Planetary Computer
• 1:33:18: Partnerships within the Planetary Computer project
• 1:38:25 : Books & media recommendations

Show notes:

• OpenStreetMap: https://www.openstreetmap.org
• Fast.ai : Applicable Machine Learning framework & lessons
• Kaggle.com: Data Science competition platform
• Origin of the term data science (under 'Etymology'): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_science
• Bruno’s Medium blog post “In Defense of Cheap Data Science”: https://towardsdatascience.com/in-defense-of-cheap-data-science-f630f248d400
• Chai time data science interview of Jeremy Howard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=205j37G1cxw
• India’s night light mapping project: http://india.nightlights.io/
• Microsoft's Planetary Computer: https://planetarycomputer.microsoft.com/
• Book recommendations:
  • A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
  • The Martian by Andy Weir
  • Humankind by Rutger Bregman
  • Factfulness by Hans Rosling
  • Bruno's Goodread: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19228134.Bruno_S_nchez_Andrade_Nu_o

I'm sorry I couldn't find the story related to Youtube's video loading times!

Please feel free to reach out!

• My Twitter: https://twitter.com/MaxLenormand
• Reach out by email: [email protected]
• For news about the podcast: https://twitter.com/MindsBehindMaps

Welcome to another episode of Minds behind Maps!

In this episode I sit down with Dr Nadine Alameh, current CEO of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). We talk about geospatial, standards, but also Nadine's earlier days in wartime Lebanon, dance, making life changing decisions, and just many different topics that I hope portray how people are complex, in many different ways. 

About Nadine:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/nadinesa
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nadinealameh/
• Open Geospatial Consortium: https://www.ogc.org/

Time stamps:

- 04:00 : Episode starts, Nadine presents herself

- 9:30 : Nadine’s childhood days in wartime in Lebanon and how it shaped her decision making

- 15:00 : Nadine talks about sharing her journey with her children

- 19:05 : Nadine’s journey at and after MIT

- 24:30 : Dance & activities outside of ones career

- 28:40 : How owning a dance franchise helps push the OGC forward

- 33:30 : Nadine’s previous startup experiences & why Consulting doesn’t scale

- 40:00 : Geospatial is mainstream but it’s not done

- 42:00 : The role of the Open Geospatial Consortium

- 48:15 : Prioritization of different issues that need solving

- 51:45 : Adoption of standards & working with a community

- 54:00 : The OGC as an organization

- 1:04:30 : Working with companies outside of the “normal” geospatial: Epic Games

- 1:12:00 : Lessons from the aviation industry

- 1:23:05 : Trust issues with satellite derived information

- 1:28:45 : Accessing data is still complex

- 1:30:20 : Speaking & learning multiple languages

- 1:40:10 : Book recommendations!

Show notes:

• Previous interview of Nadine I refer to a few times: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29bKEJ9jZsQ
• Talk about the overlap of geo with the entertainment industry (Starts at 9min): https://vimeo.com/340070941
• OGC Innovation Program Developer Survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/OGCDevSurvey
• Cesium on building the open metaverse: https://cesium.com/blog/2021/08/13/a-birds-of-a-feather-session-building-the-open-metaverse/
• Book & media recommendations:
  • Daniel O’Donohue’s podcast, Mapscaping: https://mapscaping.com/
  • Aravind Ravichandran’s podcast, TerraWatch Space: https://anchor.fm/terrawatch-space
  • Gap selling by Keenan
  • Culture Renovation by Kevin Oakes
  • Hello World: Being Human in the Age of Algorithms by Hannah Fry
  • Brick by Brick by David Robertson

Please feel free to reach out, I truly do want to hear what you think of this :)

• My Twitter: https://twitter.com/MaxLenormand
• Reach out by email: [email protected]
• New Twitter account for the podcast: https://twitter.com/MindsBehindMaps

Welcome to the 5th episode of Minds Behind Maps!

This is a bit of a special episode, though maybe one of my favorite conversations I've had the chance to have so far. We talk about creating content online, it gets a bit meta about geospatial podcasting but we also touch on some of the different paths one takes in life.

About Daniel:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielodonohue/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/MapScaping
• Mapscaping: https://mapscaping.com/

Timestamps:

- 4:15 : Beginning of episode, Daniel introduces himself

- 9:20 : The beginning of the Mapscaping podcast

- 15:30 : Leading a conversation

- 18:40 : Daniel’s editorial decisions

- 23:40 : Mapscaping’s “Grand Plan”

- 26:25 : Podcasting as a medium

- 37:50 : Finding one's voice online

 - 39:55 : Marketing the podcast & spreading the word

- 44:30 : Targeting a specific audience

- 51:00 : Building an audience is the true barrier to entry

- 55:00 : Where does the name “Mapscaping” come from?

- 57:40 : Starting doesn’t require much means

- 59:50 : Inspiring others

- 1:07:45 : The accessibility of the people within the geospatial field

- 1:11:50 : Building communities

- 1:15:05 : Building a business around Mapscaping

- 1:20:45 : Monetizing a podcast

- 1:30:10 : Daniel’s previous lives

- 1:44:15 : Daniel's last thoughts & media suggestions

Links towards topics in the conversation:

• Mapscaping episode about personal branding ("Building A Personal Brand In The Geospatial Industry"): https://t.co/fr7HpatKuV?amp=1
• Seth Godin's website: https://www.sethgodin.com/
• Seth Godin's Akimbo podcast: https://www.akimbo.link/

Welcome to the 4th episode of this experiment!

This was a insightful conversation talking about the big picture of where the Earth Observation market is and might be heading in the next few years.

About Aravind:

• Aravind's Twitter: https://twitter.com/aravind_raves
• Aravind's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aravindravichandran/
• TerraWatch Space consulting: https://www.terrawatch.space/services
• TerraWatch Space podcast: https://anchor.fm/terrawatch-space

Time stamps:

• 04:05 : Aravind presents himself
• 13:25 : How a software background helped in Aravind's consulting work
• 17:00 : Explaining the field at a high level / low level
• 21:50 : Helping companies get "out of the Earth Observation bubble"
• 25:20 : Working with non-geospatial industries that need Earth Observation data
• 31:45 : How to manage expectation for people not familiar with geospatial data?
• 38:10 : Is the SaaS (Software as a Service) model leading to some of rise in funding?
• 41:00 : IaaS; Insights as a Service instead of SaaS
• 46:25 : The relationship between Big Tech and Earth Observation
• 53:10 : The iPhone moment in Earth Observation
• 1:00:00 : Public / Private sector interaction
• 1:12:20 : The value of working on the boring stuff
• 1:17:25 : The Indian EO market
• 1:28:35 : Trying to understand why the West hears little about the Indian scene
• 1:31:00 : Aravind's podcast: TerraWatch Space
• 1:41:25 : Book recommendations!

Links towards topics in the discussion:

• Kerbal Space Program: https://www.kerbalspaceprogram.com/
• PwC: https://www.pwc.com/
• Planet acquiring Google's Terra Bella constellation in 2017: https://spacenews.com/planet-to-acquire-terra-bella-from-google/
• Indian Space Research Organization: https://www.isro.gov.in/
• Pixxel: https://www.pixxel.space/
• Tim Ferris Show: https://tim.blog/podcast/

Book recommendations:

• Sapiens, a Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
• When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

As always feel free to reach out to me if you have anything to say about the podcast:

• [email protected]
• or through Twitter: @MaxLenormand

Thanks for taking the time to listen :)

Welcome to the 3rd episode of Minds Behind Maps!
As I mention in the episode intro, Denise was one of the first people I wanted to talk to when starting this podcast. I hope you enjoy this conversation!

Denise's social media's:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/denisemckenzie/
• https://twitter.com/SpatialRed

Links towards topics of discussion:

- Locus Charter: https://ethicalgeo.org/locus-charter/

- Benchmark Initiative: https://benchmarkinitiative.com/

- Strava reveals location of US military bases: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/28/fitness-tracking-app-gives-away-location-of-secret-us-army-bases

- Elaine Ball's Get Kids Into Survey: https://www.getkidsintosurvey.com/

- Andrew Zolli, from Planet: https://twitter.com/andrew_zolli

- Book recommendation: Bill Gates': 'How to Avoid a Climate Disaster'

And some time stamps:

3:00 : Episode Starts, Denise presenting herself

5:20 : Why is location data ethics important?

7:35 : Public involvement & outreach

9:05 : The Locus Charter

13:35 : How would applications & companies share their experiences

19:05 : Response to the Locus Charter

21:40 : Covid increasing the public's' interest in location data

29:50 : How do we decide what is ethical?

35:00 : Laws / Policies

39:05 : Denise's early career path

45:05 : The term "geospatial"

49:15 : Education in geospatial (& geography)

55:25 : Data Trusts

61:15 : Difference between Locus Charter & Data Trust

1:02:55 : The data take of open source

1:08:15 : The Non-for-Profit scene

1:14:45 : Book recommendations!

For those who do check these show notes, and if you feel like it, you can reach out to me ;)

• [email protected]
• https://twitter.com/MaxLenormand

Most importantly though, thanks for listening :)

Welcome to the 2nd episode in this experiment!
It was a blast to sit down with Will, I hope you enjoy this, I certainly did. As last time here are most of the things we talked about:

Will Cadell & Sparkgeo on Twitter:

• @geo_will
• @sparkgeo

Links to materials we talked about:

• The geospatial product trap blog post: https://sparkgeo.com/blog/the-geospatial-product-trap/
• GDAL sponsors page: https://gdal.org/sponsors/index.html
• Even Rouault, current maintainer of GDAL: @EvenRouault
• STAC (SpatioTemporal Asset Catalogs): http://stacspec.org/
• Google Earth Engine: https://earthengine.google.com/

Seems like time-stamps were appreciated, so here they are:

00:00 : Intro

02:35 : Beginning of episode: Will presents himself and the story of creating Sparkgeo

20:30: Do you miss coding?

23:25 : Keeping up with the ever changing technical side of things

27:00 : 3 main reasons that make geospatial so popular today

32:02 : Do we have a role in educating people outside of geospatial about the field?

37:40 : OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) & STAC (SpatioTemporal Assets Catalog)

40:30 : Our responsibility to explain what we are doing with geospatial data

46:25 : The "geospatial product trap"

55:10 : How is Sparkgeo not falling for this trap?

1:06:00 : Choosing the projects Sparkgeo works on

1:09:50 : GDAL (Geospatial Data Abstraction Layer) & open source

1:18:50 : Cloud infrastructure in geospatial

1:27:55 : Google Earth Engine

1:31:22 : Will's Book recommendations

Feel free to drop me a line, I'd love to know what you think of this!

• @MaxLenormand
• [email protected]

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to the First Episode of Minds behind Maps!
I hope you enjoy this conversation with Ian Schuler. I'm going to try to keep track of most of the things we talked about in this episode if you want to go check them out yourself. 

Keep track of what Ian & Development Seed are doing:

• https://twitter.com/ianschuler
• https://twitter.com/developmentseed

Links to materials discussed in the episode:

• Development Seed school mapping: https://developmentseed.org/blog/2021-03-18-ai-enabling-school-mapping
• Joe Morrison's blog: https://joemorrison.substack.com/welcome
• Early days of Development Seed: https://www.linkedin.com/in/egundersen/, https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianshward/, 
• Signal's founder, Moxie Marlinspike: https://twitter.com/moxie

I'm going to try to provide a basic version of time-stamps if you want to skip by some sections:

00:00 : Intro

1:25 : Beginning of episode; Ian presenting himself

7:55 : Why open source?

19:00 : Trust in a world of AI models

26:25 : How to communicate the limitations of machine learning solutions

36:45 : Which data to use for which problem?

42:25 : What is important in satellite imagery?

55:00 : Data fusion

1:00:25 : Deciding who to work with

1:07:10 : Origins of Development Seed

1:11:00 : Ian's previous work

1:15:40 : So do you build & lead a company around impact?

1:30:05 : Working in the days of covid

1:40:35 : A last note on the future of geospatial data

Feel free to drop me a line, I'd love to know what you think of this!

• @MaxLenormand
• [email protected]

Thanks for listening

Welcome to this experiment!

If you want to follow this journey, I'm @MaxLenormand on Twitter!