Geospatial FM

This continues discussion around effects of The International Charter Space and Major Disasters. This was mentioned 2 episodes ago by Andrew Schroeder of Direct Relief. Development Seed, via Kevin Bullock, continues this discussion. Kevin came up on LinkedIn shortly after the #LAfires. He catalogued all open spatial data released for example from satellite imagery providers . He provides extra detail on LinkedIn, along with several other experts in the comments.

Kevin's point is that, if the industry was responding effectively to this charter, he would not have to spend a week curating this list of open data. Yes, it is 2025 and the best we've got is a Google Sheet someone volunteered their time to make. We have to ask what incentives are necessary to stop this happening again.

THE GEOSPATIAL INDEX

The Geospatial Index is a comprehensive listing of all publicly traded geospatial businesses worldwide. Why? The industry is growing at ~5.4% annually (after inflation and after adjusting for base rates). This rate varies significantly, however, by sub index. For ~$400,000 to start, this growth rate is $5,000,000 over a working life. This channel, Bluesky account, newsletter, watchlist and podcast express the view that you are serious about geospatial if you take the view of an investor, venture capitalist or entrepreneur. You are expected to do your own research. This is not a replacement for that. This is not investment advice. Consider it entertainment.

NOT THE OPINION OF MY EMPLOYER

NOT YOUR FIDUCIARY

NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE

Bluesky: ⁠https://bsky.app/profile/geospatial.money⁠

LinkedIn: ⁠https://uk.linkedin.com/in/geospatialindex⁠

Watchlist: ⁠⁠https://www.tradingview.com/watchlists/123254792/⁠

Newsletter: ⁠https://www.geospatial.money⁠

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5gpQUsaWxEBpYCnypEdHFC

Jed Sundwall⁠ is Executive Director of ⁠Radiant Earth⁠. This organization increases '...shared understanding of our world through community-led initiatives that make data easier to access and use.' This organization is motivated by our incapacity to address global issues such as accumulation of greenhouse gases and deforestation. They have identified poor collaboration and difficulty sharing data as causes. To foster easier collaboration and data sharing, we discuss a couple of Radiant Earth initiatives - Source Cooperative and Cloud Native Geospatial Forum. An example of results from the latter is CNG Virtual Conference 2024. ⁠Recordings here⁠.

Jed was an incredibly effective communicator. He also wins for having the best microphone of any guest so far. Thanks Jed for being up for this.

THE GEOSPATIAL INDEX

The Geospatial Index is a comprehensive listing of all publicly traded geospatial businesses worldwide. Why? The industry is growing at ~5.4% annually (after inflation and after adjusting for base rates). This rate varies significantly, however, by sub index. For ~$400,000 to start, this growth rate is $5,000,000 over a working life. This channel, Bluesky account, newsletter, watchlist and podcast express the view that you are serious about geospatial if you take the view of an investor, venture capitalist or entrepreneur. You are expected to do your own research. This is not a replacement for that. This is not investment advice. Consider it entertainment.

NOT THE OPINION OF MY EMPLOYER

NOT YOUR FIDUCIARY

NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE

Bluesky: ⁠https://bsky.app/profile/geospatial.money⁠

LinkedIn: ⁠https://uk.linkedin.com/in/geospatialindex⁠

Watchlist: ⁠⁠https://www.tradingview.com/watchlists/123254792/⁠

Newsletter: ⁠https://www.geospatial.money⁠

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5gpQUsaWxEBpYCnypEdHFC

Andrew Schroeder is Vice President of Research and Analysis at Direct Relief. He talks about the #LAfire situation and Direct Relief's response. He goes on to cover the use of human mobility data for analysis, geospatial AI models for damage detection and health system impact analysis. It was a privilege to encounter an analyst of the world as it turns.

THE GEOSPATIAL INDEX

The Geospatial Index is a comprehensive listing of all publicly traded geospatial businesses worldwide. Why? The industry is growing at ~5.4% annually (after inflation and after adjusting for base rates). This rate varies significantly, however, by sub index. For ~$400,000 to start, this growth rate is $5,000,000 over a working life. This channel, Bluesky account, newsletter, watchlist and podcast express the view that you are serious about geospatial if you take the view of an investor, venture capitalist or entrepreneur. You are expected to do your own research. This is not a replacement for that. This is not investment advice. Consider it entertainment.

NOT THE OPINION OF MY EMPLOYER

NOT YOUR FIDUCIARY

NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE

Bluesky: ⁠https://bsky.app/profile/geospatial.money⁠

LinkedIn: ⁠https://uk.linkedin.com/in/geospatialindex⁠

Watchlist: ⁠⁠https://www.tradingview.com/watchlists/123254792/⁠

Newsletter: ⁠https://www.geospatial.money⁠

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5gpQUsaWxEBpYCnypEdHFC

Priscilla Cole is the organizer of Geospatial Risk Summit. It is booked for the greatest location ever, Hard Rock Hotel in Manhattan. You can join the LinkedIn group for more info prior to the event.

I am very pleased to say that one of the speakers, Will Cadell, has already come on the show. Another speaker is Ken Zockoll, CEO of Spatial Risk Systems. As it happens I’ve already had them on the show too, via their chief scientist Alex Vengerovsky. Then there are the tech workshops. Again I’m pleased to say I’ve already given you a flavor of what they’ll say through having Frank Romo and Wherobots on.

So I feel well prepared myself, at least, for attending on Jan 29-30th. Will be a great start to the year! If you’re nearby NYC and want to chat, I recommend attending or sending me a message if you want to hang out.

THE GEOSPATIAL INDEX

The Geospatial Index is a comprehensive listing of all publicly traded geospatial businesses worldwide. Why? The industry is growing at ~5.4% annually (after inflation and after adjusting for base rates). This rate varies significantly, however, by sub index. For ~$400,000 to start, this growth rate is $5,000,000 over a working life. This channel, Bluesky account, newsletter, watchlist and podcast express the view that you are serious about geospatial if you take the view of an investor, venture capitalist or entrepreneur. You are expected to do your own research. This is not a replacement for that. This is not investment advice. Consider it entertainment.

NOT THE OPINION OF MY EMPLOYER
NOT YOUR FIDUCIARY
NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/geospatial.money
LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/geospatialindex
Watchlist: ⁠https://www.tradingview.com/watchlists/123254792/
Newsletter: https://www.geospatial.money

AlexWagner⁠ is a datascientist at ⁠SeerAI⁠. This is a start up thathas produced Geodesic, a spatiotemporal data fusion platform. The discussionwas triggered by a video 12 days ago from popular YouTuber Johnny Harris,"⁠Why Saudi Arabia is Building a$1 Trillion City in the Desert"⁠.Alex responded on LinkedIn with an ⁠animation of all evidence ofconstruction activity at Neom since 2023⁠.

This was a perfect accompaniment to a conversation threadover the past two episodes with ⁠Valrie Grant⁠and ⁠Jordan Regenie⁠. Across these two episodesI have raised the issue of human rights abuses on Neom related to landownership. The first time I did it was with Valrie, who is the deputy chair ofa UN body - the private sector network of the UN's council of experts on globalgeospatial information management. Noting that Jordan has a law degree and thatI am a new migrant to the US, I took the opportunity to discuss the firstamendment with him in the context of whistle blowing about Neom.

Both conversations were useful in building up a picture ofhow I am going to respond as a ⁠Geographic Information SystemsProfessional (GISP) certification holder⁠.I started by gaining the awareness of someone associated with the world's peakhuman rights body, the UN. I continued with understanding my rights regardingspeech to do with this circumstance in the world's largest economy, the US. NowI am continuing the conversation here by looking at how geospatial analysis canassist in understanding the whole affair. It is good that this can occur in thecontext of what one of the most popular map related YouTubers recently had tosay about the project.

Overall it shows how dynamic insightful our industry is.This conversation highlights how we have a global bench of talent independentlyresearching and responding to the world as it happens.

THE GEOSPATIAL INDEX

The Geospatial Index is a comprehensive listing of allpublicly traded geospatial businesses worldwide. Why? The industry is growingat ~5.4% annually (after inflation and after adjusting for base rates). Thisrate varies significantly, however, by sub index. For ~$400,000 to start, thisgrowth rate is $5,000,000 over a working life. This channel, Bluesky account,newsletter, watchlist and podcast express the view that you are serious aboutgeospatial if you take the view of an investor, venture capitalist orentrepreneur. You are expected to do your own research. This is not areplacement for that. This is not investment advice. Consider it entertainment.

NOT THE OPINION OF MY EMPLOYER
NOT YOUR FIDUCIARY
NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE

Bluesky: ⁠https://bsky.app/profile/geospatial.money⁠
LinkedIn: ⁠https://uk.linkedin.com/in/geospatialindex⁠
Watchlist: ⁠⁠https://www.tradingview.com/watchlists/123254792/⁠
Newsletter: ⁠www.geospatial.money⁠
Podcast: ⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/5gpQUsaWxEBpYCnypEdHFC

LEGAL DISCLAIMER

This episode contains commentary only on the first and fourth amendments of the US constitution. It is not legal advice. The guest is not an attorney. Do not use this episode to make decisions about what is right for you regarding these constitutional amendments.

Jordan Regenie is the founder and principal consultant at Peace, Love, Freedom LLC. This is a strategy consultancy for "scaling the acquisition, processing, and production of high-quality geospatial data products" . I came across Jordan on LinkedIn through an article he wrote about working on Bing Maps. I immediately knew I had to request an episode to continue the story Stephanie May started telling about how the tech companies all made their own base maps over the past decade.

He has a fantastic story to tell.

We also leveraged his law background to answer some questions a new migrant to the US might have about the first and fourth amendments. This was prompted by another one of his articles, on fourth amendment implications for geospatial.

Overall an incredibly fruitful conversation for me. This is because his response to my question about the first amendment involved mentioning Larry Lessig's 4 modalities of change. These are law, markets, norms and architecture. This was a really helpful framework to begin to tackle a hard problem where change is necessary. I really recommend listening to that part of the discussion.

Jordan's patience, thoughtfulness and obvious taste for adventure made him a great guest and we are so very privileged to have had him on.

THE GEOSPATIAL INDEX

The Geospatial Index is a comprehensive listing of all publicly traded geospatial businesses worldwide. Why? The industry is growing at ~5% annually (after inflation and after adjusting for base rates). This rate varies significantly, however, by sub index. For $480,000 to start, this growth rate is $5,000,000 over a working life. This channel, Bluesky account, newsletter, watchlist and podcast express the view that you are serious about geospatial if you take the view of an investor, venture capitalist or entrepreneur. You are expected to do your own research. This is not a replacement for that. This is not investment advice. Consider it entertainment.

NOT THE OPINION OF MY EMPLOYERNOT YOUR FIDUCIARYNOT INVESTMENT ADVICE

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/geospatial.money

LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/geospatialindex

Watchlist: ⁠https://www.tradingview.com/watchlists/123254792/

Newsletter: www.geospatial.money

Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/5gpQUsaWxEBpYCnypEdHFC

Interview with the deputy chair of the board, Valrie Grant. Through Mapping The Conversations, she is the most charismatic and professional podcaster of the geospatial industry.

A couple of guests ago we had Nadine Alemeh on the show. She represents Taylor Geospatial Institute, but she is also on the board of the UNGGIM-PSN. I wanted to find out what this is, so I went to Valrie and she was nice enough to come on and explain it to us all. More here.

THE GEOSPATIAL INDEX

The Geospatial Index is a comprehensive listing of all publicly traded geospatial businesses worldwide. Why? The industry is growing at ~5% annually (after inflation and after adjusting for base rates). This rate varies significantly, however, by sub index. For $480,000 to start, this growth rate is $5,000,000 over a working life. This channel, Bluesky account, newsletter, watchlist and podcast express the view that you are serious about geospatial if you take the view of an investor, venture capitalist or entrepreneur. You are expected to do your own research. This is not a replacement for that. This is not investment advice. Consider it entertainment.

NOT THE OPINION OF MY EMPLOYERNOT YOUR FIDUCIARYNOT INVESTMENT ADVICE

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/geospatial.money

LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/geospatialindex

Watchlist: ⁠https://www.tradingview.com/watchlists/123254792/

Newsletter: www.geospatial.money

Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/5gpQUsaWxEBpYCnypEdHFC

Atlas is the 11th web mapping system we have profiled. I am very pleased with this episode. The CTO and co-founder Harald was a succinct, eager and engaged interviewee who gave excellent answers to the standard set of business profiling questions. He had a particularly useful message for apprentices or graduates in our industry. I really encourage you to listen to the end and hear what he has to say.

Here are some links to items mentioned.

1. Note that I could not recall what GDAL stood for, it is geospatial data abstraction library.

2. Harald mentioned Kyle Barron is a very worthy technical contributor to our field.

3. S2 is a spherical projection with no compromises. Store an entire planet's data using a single dimension with centimeter accuracy.

4. We got talking about how what holds the industry back is not web mapping systems but rather easy access to spatial data for non professionals. ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World is an example from Esri.

5. We know from listening to Stephanie May that Natural Earth is another:

6. Another one is Overture Maps.

7. Foursquare has also recently released its data.

And that’s it! Again, really cool episode, have a go on the platform, here is me adding a bunch of layers.

THE GEOSPATIAL INDEX

The Geospatial Index is a comprehensive listing of all publicly traded geospatial businesses worldwide. Why? The industry is growing at ~5% annually (after inflation and after adjusting for base rates). This rate varies significantly, however, by sub index. For $480,000 to start, this growth rate is $5,000,000 over a working life. This channel, Bluesky account, newsletter, watchlist and podcast express the view that you are serious about geospatial if you take the view of an investor, venture capitalist or entrepreneur. You are expected to do your own research. This is not a replacement for that. This is not investment advice. Consider it entertainment.

NOT THE OPINION OF MY EMPLOYER
NOT YOUR FIDUCIARY
NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/geospatial.money
LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/geospatialindex
Watchlist: ⁠https://www.tradingview.com/watchlists/123254792/
Newsletter: www.geospatial.money

Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/5gpQUsaWxEBpYCnypEdHFC

Eldar Rubinov is Positioning and Geodesy Technical Lead at Frontier SI. This is a centre of excellence for spatial information in Melbourne, Australia (https://frontiersi.com.au). We had a great chat about a recent presentation he gave in Malaysia about use of an Australian/New Zealand SBAS for high accuracy positioning in Malaysia. He also tested Gallileo there. Even though both systems are not designed to offer high accuracy positioning in Malaysia, it could nevertheless be achieved with them.

SBAS means satellite based augmentation system. It corrects a position from a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) like GPS or Galileo and broadcasts that from a geostationary satellite for a given area. A example is SouthPAN, covering Australia and New Zealand. In 2020 I arranged an Adelaide Mapup attended by Eldar. He gave us all instructions how to make our own receiver. I dutifully did so, here is the build log.

We had a broader discussion about some of the technical details of these systems and how they can fail, such as spoofing and jamming. We then moved on to Eldar's comments on the Positioning, Navigation and Timing subindex of the Geospatial Index. It was good to have a review of my work by an expert. Finally, Eldar offered some reflections from his time at Fugro. I asked him for this given they are struggling in the market of late.

Some links for those interested in topics discussed:

1. Kuching location
2. SouthPAN
3. SBAS
4. Galileo
5. Galileo authenticated signals
6. GPS
7. PNT Subindex is found amongst this watchlist
8. Listing of a few on LinkedIn
9. Jammers (possibly illegal where you live)
10. Landing in Queenstown, NZ
11. Ramform Tita
12. MyRTK

THE GEOSPATIAL INDEX

The Geospatial Index is a comprehensive listing of all publicly traded geospatial businesses worldwide. Why? The industry is growing at ~5% annually (after inflation and after adjusting for base rates). This rate varies significantly, however, by sub index. For $480,000 to start, this growth rate is $5,000,000 over a working life. This channel, Bluesky account, newsletter, watchlist and podcast express the view that you are serious about geospatial if you take the view of an investor, venture capitalist or entrepreneur. You are expected to do your own research. This is not a replacement for that. This is not investment advice. Consider it entertainment.

NOT THE OPINION OF MY EMPLOYER

NOT YOUR FIDUCIARY

NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE

Resources:

1. Bluesky
2. LinkedIn
3. Watchlist
4. Newsletter
5. Podcast

Nadine Alameh is the best example I can find in the geospatial industry of the value of immigration to the US. We can understand through what she does now and how she got there. Nadine is the inaugural Executive Director of the Taylor Geospatial Institute. Prior to this, she was CEO of the Open Geospatial Consortium. Rounding out the picture of her current service, she is on these committees/boards:

1. UN Geospatial Global Information Management - Private Sector Network

2. US National Geospatial Advisory Committee (NGAC)

3. LebNet

The latter is a network to assist Lebanese Americans in tech. We started our discussion on Nadine’s family connection to the country (more here). At the time of recording, Israel and Hezbollah were at war. Nadine gave a personal account of an earlier civil war in Lebanon that occurred when she was a child. She survived and went on to be an outstanding student at the American University of Beirut. She was rewarded with a scholarship to MIT, completing two masters degrees and a PhD there.

She then embarked upon a glittering career leading organisations that produce and spread standards so we can all efficiently work together. We are in a period of upheaval in the US to do with immigration. As such, we are confronted with timely evidence of the value of international scholarship programmes and immigration to the United States. Nadine’s career is a continuous string of achievements serving the nation. Let alone the broader impact she now has through the UN GGIM.

Here are some links to things discussed:

1. WMS standard

2. Unreal Engine georeferencing

3. MapsGPT

4. Taylor Geospatial Engine

5. Ethics: Locus Charter

6. My T shirt: Conspiracy of Cartographers

Neom:

1. NEOM Is The Parody Of The Future

2. Neom - The Line - The Rise and Fall of Saudi Arabia's Linear City.

3. Saudi Arabia’s giant money pit: NEOM | If You’re Listening

THE GEOSPATIAL INDEX

The Geospatial Index is a comprehensive listing of all publicly traded geospatial businesses worldwide. Why? The industry is growing at ~5% annually (after inflation and after adjusting for base rates). This rate varies significantly, however, by sub index. For $480,000 to start, this growth rate is $5,000,000 over a working life. This channel, Bluesky account, newsletter, watchlist and podcast express the view that you are serious about geospatial if you take the view of an investor, venture capitalist or entrepreneur. You are expected to do your own research. This is not a replacement for that. This is not investment advice. Consider it entertainment.

NOT THE OPINION OF MY EMPLOYER

NOT YOUR FIDUCIARY

NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/geospatialindex.bsky.social

LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/geospatialindex

Watchlist: ⁠https://www.tradingview.com/watchlists/123254792/

Newsletter: https://www.geospatial.money

Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/5gpQUsaWxEBpYCnypEdHFC