Minds Behind Maps

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.

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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

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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

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]

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.

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Episode Sponsor: GeoAwesomeness & UP42 EO Hub
Geoawesomeness
UP42
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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

Andrew Peterson is the Co-Founder & CEO of Array Labs, with a simple mission: Mapping the whole world in 3D, at 20cm in near real time.

We peel the layers as to what it takes to get there: the engineering that’s required, how to build a constellation to do that, how you fund such a project.

Sponsor: OpenCage

Use OpenCage for your geocoding needs with their API
Geomob

About Andrew

• LinkedIn
• Array Labs

Shownotes

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

• My 20min video explaining radar satellite images
• Find USGS 1m LiDAR data across the US
• Y Combinator
• My episode with Ashlee Vance
• My episode with Brian McClendon
• Albedo
• Book & Podcast recommendation
  • Spin Selling by Neil Rackham (Affiliate Link)
  • Acquired

Timestamps

(00:00) - Intro

(01:08) - Sponsor: OpenCage

(02:34) - "Being a Recovering Engineer"

(03:15) - Mapping the world in 3D

(09:59) - "Near Real Time"

(15:46) - Applications will only use what's available, by definition

(18:15) - Why use radar for 3D images?

(22:23) - The coolest Space Shuttle mission, period

(27:19) - Tradeoff between resolution & coverage

(36:26) - Building cheap radar satellites

(39:46) - Array Labs's image resolution

(45:10) - A GPU Analogy

(50:34) - A story of image processing & computers

(56:07) - Array Labs today

(57:57) - Let's talk $$$

(01:06:38) - Low barrier to entry: Comparing XRay & MRI

(01:12:09) - Why stop at 10 satellites?

(01:15:50) - Focus

(01:19:53) - Max & Andrew's 1st chat during covid

(01:23:22) - Subscription model for satellite images?

(01:32:50) - Convincing the rest of the world your idea is worth something

(01:43:58) - Engineer to Founder

(01:47:30) - Book & Podcast recommendation

(01:51:06) - Array Labs's next 4 years?

(01:53:45) - Support the podcast on Patreon

• 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

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 :)