Minds Behind Maps

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, but well worth it.

I highly recommend you watch this one on YouTube

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Episode Sponsor: OpenCage
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About Steve:

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

• OSM timelapse over England from Geofabrik
• Peter Thiel: Zero to One
• Mark Zuckerberg on The Joe Rogan Experience
• Naval
• Cellular Automaton
• Rule 110 (not 238 as I eluded to)
• John Boyd
• The book of OSM
• Stephen Wolfram
• Neal Stephenson: The Diamond Age
• James Dyson: Invention: A Life
• The 48 Laws of Power
• Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach
• Podcast Recommendation: EconTalk
• Book Recommendation: Travels by Michael Crichton

03:47 - Conversation begins, Steve Describes Himself 
06:30 -Why Does Steve think he's Good at Predicting Trends 
12:22 - Steve's Predictions for the Future of Maps 
21:36 - Maps will Disappear 
26:46 - Incentives for a Location Based Social Media 
33:26 - Steve's Detachment to Maps 
38:17 - Past Achievements as Mental Frameworks 
50:37 - The Start of OpenStreepMap 
59:33 - Why Did OpenStreetMap work (and not other projects)? 
01:04:44 - Simplicity Over Anything Else 
01:17:05 - How does one build Simple Products? 
01:20:35 - The influence of Cellular Automaton 
01:25:18 - Pushing One's Self to Think Outside the Box 
01:32:53 - Steve's Understanding of Maps when he started OSM 
01:36:38 - Everything is Illegal, Except Tech 
01:52:40 - Steve's Current Interests 
01:58:00 - Crypto, Why it's At Least Worth Paying Attention To 
02:03:22 - Putting Maps on the Blockchain, and Why You'd Even Want to Do That 
02:12:13 - The Next Thing that Will Kill OpenStreetMap 
02:21:10 - All the Maps are the Same Today, But Don't Need to Be 
02:31:28 - Believing (or Not) in Early Projects
02:33:38 - Advice for (not Only) Young People 
02:44:53 - Steve on Podcasts 
02:49:02 - Steve's Book Recommendations

Feel free to reach out! 
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Previous Newsletter: Why I want to do more interviews in person
- Sponsor the Podcast
- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work

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 Twitter
• Muthu's LinkedIn
• Aleks's Twitter
• Alek's LinkedIn

And of course find more on the Geoawesomeness website

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Episode Sponsor: 
Element84
Dan Pilone’s appearance on the podcast
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Time stamps

00:00 - Introduction 
02:30 - Muthu & Aleks describing each other 
05:40 - What is Geoawesomeness 
10:40 - Geoawesomeness's Early Days: 2011
14:40 - Impacts of Writing 
15:45 - Muthu & Aleks’s story of meeting up 
22:00 - Choosing Topics to Cover 
28:01 - Ambitions & Thoughts being a Media Company 
32:13 - Going Full Time 
39:15 - Making money on the Internet 
50:30 - Being Open about Business Models 
57:40 - Privacy/ethics of geospatial data 
1:07:26 - Finding the Right Partner 
1:12:10 - The of social media (TikTok & YouTube) 
1:18:45 - Advice for younger people 
1:27:20 - Books & Podcasts recommendation
 

• GeoMundus

Books & Podcast Recommendations:

• Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
• Peak Performance: Elevate Your Game, Avoid Burnout, and Thrive with the New Science of Success by Brad Stulberg
• Rational Reminder

Feel free to reach out! 
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Previous Newsletter: Why I want to do more interviews in person
- Sponsor the Podcast
- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work

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: 
Element84
Dan Pilone’s appearance on the podcast
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About Kevin: 
- LinkedIn
- Twitter 
- More about him

Shownotes: 
- Geospatial World's Ambassador of the Year 
- CCPA: California Consumer Privacy Act 
- GDPR: General Data Protection Regulation
- Locus Charter
- Github Copilot
- Books & Podcasts: 
    - Space Business Podcast
    - Author: Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Timestamps: 
00:00 Introduction 
02:11 Kevin Presents Himself 
06:33 Geosptial Law back in the Early 2000s 
09:43 The Satellite Imagery is a Tricky Legal Problem
14:24 Law-markers don't yet understand the Nuances of Location Data 
17:38 Getting Individual Consent for Location Data doesn't always make sense 
20:26 Law is Hard to Get a Grasp Over 
26:10 Kevin's Critical view on the Current Focus on Ethics 
31:37 The Differences between Ethics & Law 
34:17 Why is the Geospatial Community so Focused on Ethics over Law?
40:48 The Impact of Covid on Location Data Law 
45:42 Location Data Law Issues go Way Beyond Covid 
46:56 How Laws get Written 
49:35 Getting Laws Changed 
53:33 International Dynamics 
56:09 Teaching Geospatial Law & Ethics 
01:08:29 Book & Podcast Recommendations

Feel free to reach out! 
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Previous Newsletter: Why I want to do more interviews in person
- Sponsor the Podcast

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.

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Episode Sponsor: Element84
Dan Pilone’s appearance on the podcast

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About Jeffrey:
- Twitter
- LinkedIn

Shownotes:

• Dino Brugioni
• Seeing the Secrets Growing the Leaders
• HawkEye 360 GPS Interference
• Yandex changing the borders on maps
• Jeffrey’s Tweet announcing the invasion of Ukraine an hour before it happened
• Jeffrey’s podcast: Arms Control Wonk
• Books & Podcast Recommendations:
  • The Mapmakers by John Noble Wilford
  • The Essentials of SAR: A Conceptual View of Synthetic Aperture Radar and Its Remarkable Capabilities by Thomas Ager
  • BBC Witness History

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction 
02:42 Conversation begins: Jeffrey is an Open Spy 
05:05 The appeal of doing Intelligence Analysis in Public 
09:36 Jeffrey's OSINT early days: the War in Irak 
16:49 An example of 'bad OSINT' 
20:49 The Tricky Nature of Confirmation Bias 
25:05 How an OSINT Story Starts 
28:10 Being Right, or at least Wrong for the Right Reasons 
30:30 Reputation in reporting, especially in the Open 
35:55 Monitoring for news 
39:26 Machine Learning in OSINT 
41:37 The Difficult Yet Informative Nature of Synthetic Aperture Radar 
47:58 Partnering with Satellite Image Providers 
59:22 Satellite images yes, but they're only 1 component 
01:06:40 The use of Open Satellite Imagery Data 
01:17:55 Teaching OSINT 
01:25:07 The ever faster increase in our access to Data 
01:29:40 Filtering out the crap 
01:33:20 Knowing who to trust: The Ukraine use-case 
01:37:43 How Jeffrey's team called out the Russian Invasion 1h before it happened 
01:43:21 The power of Companies 
01:48:52 Funding & How to Stay Independent 
01:52:51 Advocacy 
01:59:00 The tools used for OSINT 
02:07:48 The Surprising Impact of Ukraine on the Public's View of Nuclear Dissuasion 
02:10:54 Nuclear weapons are not fun, like really not 
02:14:18 Working with a Community 
02:17:37 Jeffrey's podcast: Arms Control Wonk 
02:22:51 Books & Podcast Recommendations

Feel free to reach out! 
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Previous Newsletter: Why I want to do more interviews in person
- Sponsor the Podcast

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.

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Episode Sponsor: Element84
Dan Pilone’s appearance on the podcast
--- 

About Jean-Martin: 

- Twitter
- LinkedIn
- World Food Programme

Shownotes:

• World Food Program
• Hunger Map
• WFP’s Prism
• WFP’s Van Project
• FEWS NET: Famine Early Warning System Network
• Stanford’s Monica Lam
• Jean-Martin Bauer on the Humanitarian AI Today Podcast

Books & Podcasts Recommendations:

• Masters of the Dew by Jacques Roumain (”Gouverneurs de la rosée” in French)
• Stuffed And Starved: Markets, Power And The Hidden Battle For The World Food System by Raj Patel
• Humanitarian AI Today Podcast

Time-stamps:

- 00:00 Introduction 01:53 Conversation Starts: Jean-Martin presents himself
- 03:08 Humanitarian Geography
- 10:31 Jean-Martin's current role: WFP's Haiti Director
- 16:39 How do we know the food situation in a country?
- 21:10 Gathering Data To Understand the Food Situation in a Country
- 26:18 Modelling at a Global & Local level
- 31:03 Distributing Data is also hard
- 32:14 Getting people involved
- 35:56 Online Human Rights
- 40:34 What New Space means for WFP
- 45:21 What's in it for Private Companies to work wit NGOs?
- 48:57 Building Trust when Predictions come First from Machine Learning
- 52:25 Disruption is Not Always the Goal
- 53:32 Financing Collecting Data in the Humanitarian World
- 01:01:19 The Role of Data for Jean-Martin's role as Country Director
- 01:05:56 Making Hard Decision when Numbers represent real People's Livelihood
- 01:09:58 Jean-Martin's Critical Look on the Data Science Community
- 01:14:19 Books & Podcast Recommendations
- 01:17:16 Outro

Please feel free to reach out, I truly do want to hear what you think of this :)
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Previous Newsletter: Why I want to do more interviews in person

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.

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Episode Sponsor:
Element84
Dan Pilone’s appearance on the podcast
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About Indra: 
- Twitter
- LinkedIn
- Overstory

Shownotes: 
- Kaggle
- Planet
- Global Forest Watch
- Vandersat’s Acquisition by Planet
Book recommendations;
-  Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation by Paul Hawken
-  The Overstory by Richard Powers

Timestamps: 

00:00 - Teaser 
00:29 - Introduction 
02:18 - Conversation begins, Indra Describes Himself 
05:20 - Indra's description of Overstory 
08:44 - The Story of Overstory 
10:57 - From a Kaggle Competition to Founding a Company 
13:54 - Talking to Customers in Early Days 
16:58 - Find Product-Market Fit : Why utility companies?
19:37 - Finding a Sweet Spot in the Imagery Resolution - Price trade-off 
22:02 - Deciding to build a product, not focusing on imagery 
28:34 - Bringing in a dedicated designer in an early stage data start-up 
30:12 - Finding focus as a company 
33:44 - Could Earth Observations Companies ever have millions of customers? 
36:13 - Could Overstory get to more consumer facing applications? 
39:58 - Failures along the way 
42:14 - Moving from bootstrapped to taking investment 
44:31 - Staying on the Mission while raising money & losing control 
47:49 - Preventing Green-washing 
53:20 - What does Indra do today? 
55:42 - The transition from Data Scientist to CEO 
58:56 - Does a Data Scientist background help as a Leader? 
01:00:14 - Hiring 
01:04:12 - Deciding to become a Remote First Company 
01:07:20 - Building a start-up in a post-covid recession 
01:11:15 - A supermarket analogy to the Earth Observation industry 
01:15:57 - Is Indra worried of data providers eating into downstream company's business? 
01:18:20 - Balancing exits strategies with keeping on a Mission 
01:19:51 - Newly public space start-ups are going down in valuation 
01:23:45 - What is Overstory's current main challenge? 
01:25:44 - Dealing with number of employee growth: Not knowing what everyone does anymore 
01:34:00 - Book & Podcast recommendations
01:35:48 - Having the same company name as book

Please feel free to reach out, I truly do want to hear what you think of this :) 
- Website: https://mindsbehindmaps.com/
- My Twitter: https://twitter.com/MaxLenormand
- Podcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/MindsBehindMaps
- Previous Newsletter: Why I want to do more interviews in person

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.

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Episode Sponsors:

• Element84
  • Dan Pilone’s appearance on the podcast

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About Catherine:

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Website

Shownotes:

- NASA Harvest
- Catherine’s Bio on University of Maryland’s website

Books & Recommendations:

- The New Humanitarian

- BBC Discovery

- Africa Today

- Little Stories for Tiny People

- Catherine’s appearances on Science in Action

- Leadership Journey

- The Divide by Jason Hickel

- Jason Hickel’s Twitter

Time-stamps: 

00:00:00 Introduction 
00:02:04 Conversation begins: Catherine describes herself 
00:08:19 Starting by wanting to play badminton 
00:20:45 Wanting to work back in Uganda 
00:24:32 How Catherine got into Food Security 
00:32:15 What even is Food Security? 
00:34:14 The Role of Remote Sensing in Food Security 
00:37:58 Who benefits mapping food security? 
00:44:23 How do people on the ground perceive insights from satellites? 
00:48:54 Creating insights that actually get used 
00:52:43 You can't improve what you can't measure 
00:55:41 The Double-Edge Sword that comes with Remote Sensing at Scale 
01:00:52 Not getting lost in the Maps 
01:03:32 Incentives: Working from a University in the US, helping Uganda 
01:10:40 The relationship between Private & Public sector in regards to Climate Change 
01:13:13 The Government as the main Private Sector's Government 
01:20:10 Story Telling as a Source of Change 
01:27:02 Inspiring & Helping Others 
01:30:53 Books & Podcast recommendations

If you want to hear more about me & the podcast:

• My Twitter
• For news about the podcast
• Website

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

• 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

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:

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Satelligence

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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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Shownotes:

• Zero to One by Peter Thiel
• Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics
• Planet Acquiring Vandersat
• Range by David Epstein
• Steve Ballmer
• Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction by Bret Victor
• xkcd: Adjective Foods
• Superforecasting by Philip E. Tetlock, Dan Gardner
• Book recommendations:
  • Man’s Fate (La Condition Humaine) by André Malraux
  • The Stranger (L’Etranger) by Albert Camus
  • The Plague (La Peste) by Albert Camus
  • The Mandarins by Simone de Beauvoir

Timestamps:

00:00 - Introduction

02:55 - Conversation Begins

07:56 - Arjen quoting me to describe work environment

13:02 - The origin story of Satelligence

17:45 - What Satelligence does

19:05 - Remote Sensing to solve deforestation: Solution looking for a Problem?

26:48 - Data comes in to convince bosses

34:38 - Financial incentives & shareholders

40:27 - How Satelligence makes money & long term vision

45:02 - Why Satelligence decided to raise a first round after a few years

51:25 - Downsides to raising

55:14 - What happens to the mission after an exit?

59:30 - Creating a work culture

1:03:43 - Lunch is more important for your culture than your Strategy day

1:13:17 - Hiring

1:17:47 - Why Arjen hired me as an intern

1:29:48 - Open Source in Geospatial

1:42:28 - Importance of technical knowledge in leadership roles

1:44:36 - Layers of Abstraction

1:51:16 - Committing to one specific thing

1:57:18 - Why maps aren’t (always) the best way to communicate insights

2:06:43 - Geospatial is incredibly niche

2:12:57 - Book recommendations

2:21:15 - Asking for advice

Feel free to reach out!

• My Twitter
• For news about the podcast
• Website

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

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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 Barbara:

• Twitter
• LinkedIn

Shownotes:

• We recorded this interview while Barbara was in Amsterdam for the Geospatial World Forum
• Landsat policy change document
• Gilberto Camara at the time Chief of INPE: Brazilian National Institute for Space Research
• Mark Mayers, former Director of USGS
• World Geospatial Industry Council
• GEO: Group on Earth Observations: the organization, not the field ;-)
• Books recommendations:
  • Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
  • Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

Timestamps:

00:00 - Introduction

02:56 - Importance of in-person conversation

05:52 - Connecting people

08:00 - Reaching people beyond languages

10:43 - Landsat pre-2008: before it was free & open

19:09 - Impact of the giving the data away for free

21:51 - Details on the policy change: push-backs & financial incentives

28:43 - The direct impact on the USGS

30:39 - International collaboration

32:32 - Domino Effect: The impact of Landsat on offer Open Data Policies

36:02 - Potential unexpected negative effects

37:41 - The scale of the impact opening up Landsat had

41:13 - Don’t use data as your transactional currency

44:14 - Making satellite imagery accessible beyond the data

52:00 - Distributing data as easily as possible

57:07 - Spicy politics story involving the Secretary of Interior

1:04:21 - Open Data should not be taken for granted

1:11:31 - Thoughts on Commercial Earth Observation

1:14:16 - Open Data Policies for Commercial EO: Parallels with the Gaming Industry

1:23:18 - Improving Communications in Science

1:28:41 - Earth Observation could learn to tell stories from the Gaming Industry

1:34:21: Barbara’s current role

1:39:04 - Being better ambassadors of Geospatial

1:42:32 - WGIC’s funding model

1:45:36: - Barbara retiring only to come back multiple times

1:51:12 - Book recommendations

1:53:21 - Advice for younger people

Feel free to reach out!

• My Twitter
• For news about the podcast
• Website