Minds Behind Maps

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
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About Aravind

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

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
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- 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

• 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
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- 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

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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About Este

- Twitter
- LinkedIn
-  Esri Profile

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)?

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- 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
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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
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- 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
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- 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

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- 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?

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- 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

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Episode Sponsor: Steven Feldman

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

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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
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- 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
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- Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work