Minds Behind Maps
Minds Behind Maps features conversations with people who create maps. Host Maxime Lenormand talks with cartographers, data scientists, and researchers about their mapmaking processes. Each episode explores the stories, ideas, and challenges behind the maps we use every day. The podcast offers insight into how maps are designed, built, and understood.
Épisodes
My Favourite Books of 2024 - MBM79
On every Minds Behind Maps episode I ask guests for books they've read they think are worth sharing. This time I'm sharing with you the books I read & recommend from my 2024 reading.ShownotesNote: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.Utopia For Realists (Amazon Affiliate)The Capitalist Manifesto (Amazon Affiliate)The New Breadline (Amaz
How Bloomberg's Data Scientists use Satellite Images for Reporting: Krishna Karra - MBM78
Krishna Karra is a data scientist & report for Bloomberg, having used machine learning & satellite images for reporting. Recent stories from him & his team include mapping refugee camps in Rafah & exposing illegal ship oil transfers in the middle of the Ocean.Sponsor: Beemaps by HivemapperGet access to high quality, fresh map data at https://beemaps.com/mindsUse promo code MINDS to get 50% off you
How Ex-Vox Video Producer Phil Edwards thinks about Maps to tell stories - MBM77
Phil Edwards is a video producer who worked at Vox for nearly 10 years, and now runs his own Youtube channel exploring the history of businesses, and lately has been using more and more maps. We go over one of his latest videos, “The Secret Economics of Google Street View” as a case study of how Phil thinks about maps to tell stories. We also talk about journalism on Youtube, and the business behi
What Hyperspectral constellations have to offer: Pixxel’s example - Awais Ahmed #MBM76
Awais Ahmed is the co-founder & CEO of Pixxel, a company building a constellation of hyperspectral imaging satellites. Unlike “traditional” cameras, these satellites can see across hundreds of bands, opening up a lot more applications. We talk about the engineering -and funding- required to pull this off and how Awais manages a company between India (where Awais is from) and the US. But that’s jus
The Ex-Uber Data Scientist Who wants to simplify Data Science with Serverless Computing: Sina Kashuk
Sina Kashuk is the co-founder & CEO of Fused, who wants to make iterating & deploying in Python faster with serverless computing. We break down what that actually means, why it matters and what data science workflows could look like over the next few years.This also isn’t Sina’s first company, a few years ago he started Unfolded.ai, focused on making visualisations for data scientists faster. The
Meet the man trying to build a 20cm 3D map of the world: Andrew Peterson - #MBM74
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: OpenCageUse OpenCage for your geocoding needs with their APIGeomobAbout AndrewLinkedInArray LabsShown
Jamie McMichael-Phillips: How We're Planning to Map All our Oceans by 2030 - #MBM73
Jamie McMichael-Phillips is the Director of the Seabed 2030 Project, which aims to map all of the world's oceans, by 2030. For context, in 2024, we’re at 26.1%. This is conversation is about why, how we get to 100% and why it’s important in the first place.Sponsor: SatCampSatCamp is a different kind of conference, from October 1st to October 3rd 2024, in Boulder ColoradoAboutBio on Seabed 2030 web
[Bonus] Books, Tech & Life: A Long conversation with Jed Sundwall
Check out Jed’s Techs on Text podcastJed has also been on Minds Behind Maps before. We talked open data, AI, and the role of books for people building things
Jean-Martin Bauer: How the World Food Program tackles Hunger - #MBM72
Jean-Martin Bauer has been working at the World Food Program for over 20years, and the author of the “The New Breadline”. Most recently he was the Country Director for Haiti, in charge of helping make sure the country doesn’t run out of food.Sponsor: SatCampSatCamp is a different kind of conference, from October 1st to October 3rd 2024, in Boulder ColoradoAbout Jean-MartinLinkedInJean-Martin’s boo
Ashlee Vance: The Man telling us the Stories of the New Space Industry - #MBM71
Ashlee Vance is a Tech Journalist, the author of Elon Musk's 1st biography in 2015, the host of "Hello World" on Youtube and the author of "When the Heavens Went on Sale" as well as the accompanying documentary "Wild Wild Space" following 4 New Space companies. We nerd out on rocket companies, 1 rogue NASA administrator, and the time I got to meet Vladimir Putin years ago.Sponsor: OpenCageUse Open
Luke Fischer: Who would want to start a Satellite Image Marketplace? SkyFi - #MBM70
Luke Fischer is the Co-Founder & CEO of SkyFi, a company that we'll describe in a few ways in this episode, but boils down to an Earth Observation marketplace. We talk about Luke's 20 year time in the military before getting into startups, why Luke is bullish on their approach and many moreSponsor: SatCampSatCamp is a different kind of conference, from October 1st to October 3rd 2024, in Boulder C
Ben Strong: We have Foundation Models of Earth, now What? Earth Index - MBM#69
Ben Strong is the Science & Machine Learning Lead at Earth Genome, an NGO working on the intersection of data, science & digital design. Most recently they've been working on Earth Index, an application built on top of Earth embeddings from foundation models. This conversation is the "so what" of Earth foundational modelSponsor: OpenCageUse OpenCage for your geocoding needs with their APIGeomobAbo
Ib Green: Browser based visualisation rendering - MBM#68
Ib Green led the development of 3D visualisation tools like for example Uber’s deck.gl and is now working at Foursquare, after having started Unfolded, which Foursquare acquired. During this conversation we touch on how browser based visualisations are changingThis episode is supported by all the people on PatreonAccess Behind the Scenes and support the podcast by joining too!AboutLinkedInShownote
What does a Foundational Model of Earth look like? Clay Foundation: Bruno Sanchez-Andrade Nuño - MBM#67
Bruno Sanchez is the Executive Director of the Clay Foundation, which just released their v1 of a “Foundational Model of Earth”. We talk about what that means, building open source & non profits and can’t help but draw parallels to the not-so-open anymore OpenAI. Previously Bruno was the Program Director of the Microsoft Planetary ComputerSponsor: OpenCageUse OpenCage for your geocoding needs with
How to Map Mars (to Land Rovers) - Fred Calef III - MBM#66
Dr Fred Calef III has the unofficial title of "Keeper of Maps" at NASA JPL, he's the Lead Mapping Specialist for most of JPL's Mars Rover missions, most recently that being Perseverance & Curiosity. But to land -and navigate- a rover, one needs maps, and Fred makes them.Sponsor: Nimbo by KermapTry out Kermap's monthly mosaic viewer Nimbo for yourselfSupport the podcast on PatreonAbout FredTwitterM
Creating the most used map animation tool: GEOLayers - Markus Bergelt - MBM#65
Sponsor: OpenCageUse OpenCage for your geocoding needs with their APIGeomobShownotesNote: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.GeoLayersgeolayers.appJohnny HarrisMarkus’s cameo in a recent videoSearch PartyFeltProcreate dreamsJason Boone’s episodePodcast recommendation: Syntax.fmTimestamps(00:00) - Intro(02:26) - Sponsor: OpenCage(03:52
Volodymyr Agafonkin: The Story of Leaflet, Building the Simplest Mapping Library & Life in Ukraine
Volodymyr Agafonkin is the creator of Leaflet, an open-source JS mapping library started in 2008 that is used pretty much everywhere on the Internet today. We end up nerding out on what makes building simple open source software & rendering maps online tricky but also so endlessly interesting. Volodymyr lives in Ukraine, a country shaken by a war for the past few years, which we also talk about.Sp
Qiusheng Wu: Building & Sharing Open Source Software - MBM#63
Qiusheng Wu is an Associate Professor in Geography, an active open source contributor behind projects like geemap, leafmap or segment-geospatial also sharing tutorials on his popular Youtube channel. Qiusheng has a desire to teach, share and lower the barrier to entry to geospatial, all things I'm always curious to talk more aboutSponsor: OpenCageUse OpenCage for your geocoding needs with their AP
Ryan Abernathey: Taking Scientific Computing to the next level - MBM#62
Ryan Abernathey is a Climate Scientist, open-source software developer and the CEO & co-founder of Earthmover, a company trying to simplify how scientific computing is done. Ryan also co-founded the Pangeo project in 2016, one of the major efforts to build better tools for scientific computing today.Sponsor: Nimbo by KermapTry out Kermap's monthly mosaic viewer Nimbo for yourselfAbout RyanTwitterL
Gilberto Camara - Brazil's Fight Against Deforestation; Politics & Open Data - MBM#61
Gilberto Camara was the director of INPE, Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research from 2005 to 2012, working there 35y in total and leading the use of satellite imagery to fight deforestation in Brazil, leading to what Nature declared “One of the biggest environmental wins of the 2000s”Sponsor: OpenCage Use OpenCage for your geocoding needs with their API GeomobAbout GilbertoTwitterBlogShow
Thomas Ager: The Essentials of SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) - MBM#60
Thomas Ager worked for 30y at the National Geospatial Agency on Radar satellite images and recently released ‘The Essentials of SAR’ a book breaking down Synthetic Aperture Radar for, as he puts it, “non electrical engineers”Sponsor: PlanetFind more about accessing Planet's high resolution & high frequency imagesAbout TomLinkedInHis book: The Essentials of SAR (Affiliate Link)Also available in Man
Brian McClendon: The Story of Google Maps, Pokemon Go & Keyhole - MBM#59
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 GoSponsor: OpenCage Use OpenCage for your geocoding needs with t
Ariel Seidman - Taking on Google Maps, Crowdsourced mapping & Crypto - MBM#58
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: PlanetFind more about accessing Planet's high resolution & high frequency imagesAbout ArielTwitterLinkedInHivemapperShownotes
Best of 2023: 12 Conversations About Maps, Satellite Images & Tech - MBM#57
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 PatreonListen to the full episodes mentioned today:Harold GoddijnSean GormanCan DurukJames KillickMila Lule
Jason Boone: Animating Maps for a Living, Working with Johnny Harris & Joining a Tech Startup - #MBM56
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: PlanetFind more abo
Javier de la Torre: From Biologist to Entrepreneur, How Maps Help Preserve Biodiversity & Hosting Conferences - MBM#55
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: FeltCheck out their QGIS Plugin to easily share your QGIS projectsA
Hongwei Liu: What It Takes to Actually Map the Indoors, Hard Work & Finding the Right Things to Work on - MBM#54
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: SkyFiGet high resolution imagery easily, with prices up front on SkyFi.comAbout HongweiLinkedInTwitterShownotesNote: Links to books are Amazon Affilia
Sean Gorman: Startups, Coding Isn't for Everyone, Finding What (& with whom) to work on - MBM#53
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
Harold Goddijn: The Full Story of TomTom, Selling Millions of Devices, the impact of the iPhone & mapping today - MBM#52
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 a
James Killick: Why Did Apple get into Maps? (And how they got there) - MBM#51
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: FeltTry out collaborative online mapping with FeltCheck out their Youtube Channel for walkt
Aravind Ravichandran: From Images to Actions: An Introduction to Earth Observation - MBM#50
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 po
Steve Brumby: Governments Need Better Maps, Impact Observatory, Descartes Labs & National Geographic - MBM#49
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.---Episode Sponsor: OpenCageUse OpenCage for your geocoding needs with their API. They ha
Robert Cheetham & Dan Pilone: Building Businesses that Last, Bootstrapping & Acquisitions - MBM#48
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 tak
Este Geraghty: The Importance of Mapping Diseases & Health - MBM#47
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---Epis
Can Duruk: Felt, Making Maps Fun & Collaborative - MBM#46
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 newsletterTo keep up with all things satellite images & deep learning, follow Robin Cole's newsletter hereAbout CanTwitterLinkedInShownotes(Note: Lin
Zhuang-Fang Nana Yi: Satellite Imagery to Solve Local Problems - MBM#45
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---Episode Sponsor: OpenCageUse OpenCage for your geocoding needs with their API. They have a
Jed Sundwall: Making Open Data Actually Accessible (in a world with ChatGPT) - MBM#44
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 t
Marc Prioleau: The Overture Maps Foundation: Do We Need a New Open Mapping Project? - MBM#43
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,
Grega Milčinski: The Story of Sentinel Hub, EO Browser & Sinergise: Making Free & Open Satellite Imagery Actually Accessible - MBM#42
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: S
Mila Luleva: Why Would a Bank Care About Satellite Images? (Spoiler: It's Carbon Credits) - MBM#41
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 w
Renny Babiarz: Exposing China's Nuclear Testing - MBM#40
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.---Episode Sponsor: OpenCag
Kuo-Yu 'Slayer' Chuang: Leveraging Taiwan's Unique Infrastructure to Support Disaster Response - MBM#39
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 HubGeoawesomenessUP42---Support
Benjamin Grant: Generating Awe and Using Satellite Images to Inspire Millions - MBM#38
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.---Episode Sponsor: OpenCageUse OpenCage for your geocoding needs with their API
Iain Woodhouse: Understanding Radar Satellite Images - MBM#37
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.---Episode Sponsor: GeoAwesomeness & UP42 EO HubGeoawesomenessUP42---About IainTwitterLinkedInBlogIain's curr
2022 Recap: Best Moments From Conversations this Year - MBM#36
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. ---Episode Sponsor: OpenCageUse OpenCage for your geocoding needs with their API.They have a generous Free trial you can sign up to!---Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction 02:32 Steve Coast: The Next Thing that would Blow Up Openstreetmap 06:39 Barbara Ryan: How
Andrew Blum: Understanding How We Predict the Weather - MBM#35
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.---Episode Sponsor: GeoAwesomeness & UP42 EO HubGeoawesomenessUP42---About Andrew:WebsiteTwitter Shownotes:Andrew Blum's booksThe
Hamed Alemohammad: Open Machine Learning for Satellite Imagery - MBM#34
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. --- Episode Sponsor: OpenCageUse OpenCage for your geocoding needs with their API. They have a generous Free trial you can sign up to! ---About Ham
Mo Islam: The Space Industry is Changing, So Is How It's Reported On - MBM #33
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 HubGeoawesomenessUP42---Shownotes: - Subscribe to Payload! - Pathfinder, their podcast- Crowdfunded SpaceX round of investment- Book & Podcast Recommendations - Engines that move markets - The Portal, Episode with
Daniel O'Donohue (#2): Building Mapscaping: the Biggest Geospatial Podcast, Finding What to Do in Life & Mentorship - MBM #32
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: OpenCageUse OpenCage for your geocoding
Joshua Stevens - Visualising NASA's Satellite Imagery - MBM #31
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 & UP42EO HubGeoawesomenessUP42---About Joshua:TwitterLinkedInWebsiteShownotesFEMANASA Earth ObservatoryTom PattersonBook & Podcast Recommendations
Steve Coast: Discussing the Future of Maps & Tech with the Founder of OpenStreetMap (& why he thinks maps will disappear) - MBM #30
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, b
Muthu Kumar & Aleksander Buczkowski: Building an Independent Media over the long term: Geoawesomeness - MBM #29
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 TwitterMuthu's LinkedInAleks's TwitterAlek's LinkedInAnd of course find more on the Geoawesomeness website--- Episode Sponsor: Element84Dan Pilone’s appearance on
Kevin Pomfret: Ethics Isn't Enough & The Case For Geospatial Law - MBM #28
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: Element84Dan Pilone’s appearance on the podcast--- About Kevin: - LinkedIn- Twitter - More about himShownotes: - Geospatial World's Ambassador of the Year - CCPA: California Con
Jeffrey Lewis: The Work of an Open Source Intelligence Researcher: Keeping Goverments Accountable - MBM #27
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: Element84Dan Pilone’s appearance on the podcast---About Jeffrey:- Twitter- LinkedInShownotes:Dino BrugioniSeeing the Secrets Growing the LeadersHawk
Jean-Martin Bauer: How Data Enables the World Food Program to Effectively Feed a Country - MBM #26
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: Element84Dan Pilone’s appearance on the podcast--- About Jean-Martin: - Twitter- LinkedIn- Wor
Indra Den Bakker - Overstory & Tackling Climate by Monitoring Vegetation with Satellite Data - MBM #25
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:Element84Dan Pilone’s appearance on the podcast--- About
Catherine Nakalembe - Food in Stores Isn't Enough: Food Security in Africa - MBM #24
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:Element84Dan Pilone’s appearance on the podcast---About Catherine:TwitterLinkedInWebsiteShownote
Emily Darling & Kim Fisher - The Challenges of Mapping Coral Reefs When Satellites Can't See Them - #MBM 23
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.
Arjen Vrielink - Getting to Zero Deforestation with Satellite Images - MBM #22
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:TwitterLinkedInSatelligence---Episode Sponsors:Radiant Earth Foundation: Apply for the 2022 Radiant M
Barbara Ryan - How Landsat Became Free & Open - MBM #21
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 Founda
Ep 20 - Jonathan Lacoste - From Founder to Investor in the Space Industry, Making Space Un-Sexy & Building in Public
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. —Epis
Ep 19 - Jeff Crusey - Basics of Venture Capital Investing in Earth Observation, Weighing Risk & The Difference between Data & Analytics Companies
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 VC
1 Year of Podcasting
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 YouTube00:18 - Introduction00:41 -
Ep 18 - Jakub Dziwisz - Orbify, No Code Earth Observation & Saas-like Business Models
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.Element84Dan Pilone’s appearance on the podcast—About Jakub:TwitterLinkedIn
Ep 17 - Jacopo Margutti - Red Cross, Humanitarian Data Science & Moving from Physical to Digital Aid
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 ti
Ep 16 - Dan Pilone - Element84, Large Scale Computing, Enabling Open Data & People Focused Growth
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 wif
Ep 15 - April Speight - Spatial Computing at Microsoft, Augmented & Virtual Reality, Fashion & Branding
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
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
Ep 13 - Keith Masback - Angel Investing, Geospatial Intelligence & Leadership
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 i
Ep 12 - Tyler Erickson - Google Earth Engine, Curiosity & Working With and For a Community
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
Ep 11 - Dan Hammer - Global Forest Watch, Design & Story Telling
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 i
Ep 10 - Charles Blanchet - Finding focus, Building a scalable product & Dedicating time to thinking
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
Ep 9 - Chinmay Adhvaryu - Founding and closing Earth Observations companies, Solving a problem people care about, and Bringing Context
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 Inte
Ep 8 - Joe Morrison - Selling Satellite Imagery, Synthetic Aperture Radar & Making Predictions in Public
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
Ep 7 - Bruno Sánchez - Microsoft's Planetary Computer, Education & Impact Science
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/brunosanLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nasonurb/Website: https
Ep 6 - Nadine Alameh - Standards, Dance & Geo Data Accessibility
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:
Ep 5 - Daniel O'Donohue - Being a voice online
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:
Ep 4 - Aravind Ravichandran - Earth Observation markets & value propositions
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_ravesAravind's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aravindravichandran/TerraWatch Space consulting: https://www.terrawatch.space/servicesTerra
Ep 3 - Denise McKenzie - Location data ethics
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
Ep 2 - Will Cadell - Geospatial Consulting
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@sparkgeoLinks 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/sp
