Ep 14 - Beth Tellman - Cloud2Street, Open Science within a For-Profit Company & The Role of Insurance in Actionable Flood Analytics

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.

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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