Minds Behind Maps

Dan Hammer co-founded & build the first few versions of Global Forest Watch, and is now working on Earthrise Media, a non-profit that brings data scientists, designers and storytellers together to tackle global environmental challenges.

We talk about how Global Forest Watch was built, how journalists have leveraged the platform to tell stories and how it lived on until today. We also touch on the importance of design in addition to data science, and the power of telling stories.

Dan Hammer

• Website
• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Show notes:

• Global Plastic Watch
• Global Forest Watch
• Earthrise Media
• SpaceKnow
• Apollo 8 Earthrise image
• Frank Borman Apollo 8 Wikipedia article
• Pew Research survey: 2018 public survey on NASA Priorities
• Captain Fantastic

Time stamps:

• 03:00 - Conversation starts, Dan presents himself
• 08:30 - The tools behind monitoring deforesting back in 2009
• 12:00 - How Global Forest Watch 2.0 started
• 18:45 : Why Global Forest Watch continued on
• 25:40 - Collaborating with journalists
• 29:50 - An example of leveraging Earth Observation data for policy making : Global Plastic Watch
• 31:00 - Having an impact
• 38:50 - Precision vs Accuracy
• 45:45 - Earthrise Media: Design, Data science & story telling
• 51:35 - The importance of Design
• 56:50 - Dealing with & communicating uncertainty
• 1:02:00 - Non-profit or for-profit?
• 1:08:10 - Building a team
• 1:10:20 - Origin of the name "Earthrise" & Inspiration through space
• 1:21:15 - Book / Media Recommendation

Please feel free to reach out!

• My Twitter
• For news about the podcast
• Reach out by email: [email protected]

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 as a company, and how thinking is an important task in itself.

Charles Blanchet:

• LinkedIn

Show notes:

• Iceye Solutions
• Charles blog post on hiring
• New Philosopher magazine

Time Stamps:

• 04:00 - Episode begins: Charles presents himself
• 8:45 - Finding product-market fit in Earth Observation
• 13:10 - The importance and need for focus
• 17:00 - Is the space industry different than any other field?
• 21:30 - Is SaaS a good model for companies like Iceye?
• 26:30 - "Deriving value out of imagery and turning it into information is a tough business"
• 36:20 - Can there be too much focus?
• 39:00 - Charles thoughts on Iceye’s current focus on flood monitoring
• 41:46 - Building startups over and over again
• 48:30 - Assembling a team
• 58:10 - The life story interview question
• 1:08:40 - How Charles joined Iceye
• 1:12:20 - Charles’ next 5 years
• 1:14:10 - Taking dedicated time to think
• 1:25:25 - Media recommendation

Please feel free to reach out!

• My Twitter
• For news about the podcast
• Reach out by email: [email protected]

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 Internet of Things, which he now applies those to Influunt. 

About Chinmay:

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Influunt

Show notes:

• Tech stars
• Weather data company, Tomorrow
• Chinmay's Twitter thread on founding an Earth Observation company
• Book & Media recommendation:
  • "Enemy of All Mankind" by Steven Johnson

Time stamps:

• 2:20 - Episode Begins, Chinmay presents himself
• 4:05 - Chinmay’s entry into the satellite imagery market
• 9:10 - Reality check, what customers want compared to what can be done
• 14:50 - Finding a fitting business model
• 16:40 - Context is king
• 22:10 - Staying in Earth Observation after closing a previous company
• 24:30 - Choosing to work on water damage monitoring
• 32:30 - How do we move from assessing damage to preventing it?
• 38:45 - Chinmay’s thoughts on the Earth Observation industry
• 44:40 - Parallels with the Internet of Things world
• 47:15 - Microsoft Planetary Computer & Google Earth Engine
• 51:45 - Chinmay’s ties to India
• 55:10 - Climate change is tackled by people from all over the world
• 1:01:25 - Experience at Techstars
• 1:08:10 - Incremental changes over revolutions
• 1:12:00 - Book & Media recommendation

Please feel free to reach out!

• My Twitter
• For news about the podcast
• Reach out by email: [email protected]

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 trying to change how satellite imagery is sold. Joe compares the current Earth Observation market to the railroad companies of a few hundred years ago, and we discuss making predictions in public. 

Joe Morrison:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/mouthofmorrison
• Substack Blog: https://joemorrison.substack.com/welcome
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-morrison/

Time stamps:

• 6:30 - Episode begins, Joe presents himself
• 8:48 - How does a people person end up in the map business?
• 10:25 - Joe's story entering the geospatial field
• 15:15 - People who use the word "geospatial" hate maps
• 21:20 - Is "New Space" changing the industry?
  • (22:25 - Audio starts degrading a bit)
• 29:00 - Why work on the infrastructure when applications are lacking?
• 32:20 - Why Joe joined Umbra
• 34:25 - What if buying X were like sat imagery
• 37:25 - Is infrastructure ever solved?
  •  (Audio is better again)
• 40:18 - The importance of the people we work with
• 49:05 - Space attracts people
• 53:12 - Working with people who’ve interacted with your content & how we both create our content
• 59:22 - Coming from a Space background
• 1:06:10 - Fighting impostor syndrome
• 1:10:55- A great team isn’t just great people
• 1:17:40 - Is Umbra a data company?
• 1:26:00 - Moving towards selling data as cheap as possible
• 1:31:25 - Relationship between image providers and Defense & Governments
• 1:36:10 - Umbra’s target audience
• 1:42:58 - The technical barrier to entry and Joe’s thoughts on Analysis Ready Data
• 1:45:40 - SAR imagery isn’t valuable in it’s own, it’s like salt
  •  (Audio quality drops again a bit)
• 1:52:28 - Making predictions about the industry in public
• 2:00:33 - Insanity & Obsessions
  •  (Audio quality is good again)
• 2:08:02 - Joe’s Book Recommandation

Show notes:

• Umbra: https://umbra.space/
• Azavea: https://www.azavea.com/
• NACIS (National American Cartographic Information Society): https://nacis.org/
• GIS definition, video of guy trying to explaining his job to non geo people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sg4YsAjreOA
• Musk presenting Starship in 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7Uyfqi_TE8
• Joe’s prediction Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/mouthofmorrison/status/1447917122772946951?s=20
• Book recommendation: “A river runs through it” by Norman Maclean
• Band recommendation: Lawrence, their latest album: Hotel TV

Please feel free to reach out!

• My Twitter: https://twitter.com/MaxLenormand
• Reach out by email: [email protected]
• For news about the podcast: https://twitter.com/MindsBehindMaps

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/brunosan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nasonurb/
• Website: https://brunosan.eu/
• Bruno's book "Impact Science, The science of getting to radical social and environmental breakthroughs": https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46137268-impact-science?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=jvKJBnRM5k&rank=1
• "Impact Science" on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SN1L4L2/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1

Timestamps:

• 4:20 : Conversation starts, Bruno presents himself
• 10:30 : How Bruno entered Academia
• 14:20 : Science / Engineering duality
• 18:05 : Skills over Knowledge
• 21:15 : How education could be more skill centered
• 29:05 : How Bruno entered geospatial
• 31:51 : At the edge of human knowledge of the Sun
• 36:07 : Leaving NASA to focus on more applied projects
• 40:04 : Trying to work for an NGO: “Bruno we don’t need a rocket scientist”
• 47:53 : Cheap Data Science
• 51:20 : Limitations & Playfulness for clever ideas
• 55:18 : Writing “Impact Science”
• 1:05:01 : From outputs to outcomes: a missing layer in Data Science
• 1:11:08 : Data Informed instead of Data Driven
• 1:17:44: Bruno's work at Microsoft as Program Director of the Planetary Computer
• 1:33:18: Partnerships within the Planetary Computer project
• 1:38:25 : Books & media recommendations

Show notes:

• OpenStreetMap: https://www.openstreetmap.org
• Fast.ai : Applicable Machine Learning framework & lessons
• Kaggle.com: Data Science competition platform
• Origin of the term data science (under 'Etymology'): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_science
• Bruno’s Medium blog post “In Defense of Cheap Data Science”: https://towardsdatascience.com/in-defense-of-cheap-data-science-f630f248d400
• Chai time data science interview of Jeremy Howard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=205j37G1cxw
• India’s night light mapping project: http://india.nightlights.io/
• Microsoft's Planetary Computer: https://planetarycomputer.microsoft.com/
• Book recommendations:
  • A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
  • The Martian by Andy Weir
  • Humankind by Rutger Bregman
  • Factfulness by Hans Rosling
  • Bruno's Goodread: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19228134.Bruno_S_nchez_Andrade_Nu_o

I'm sorry I couldn't find the story related to Youtube's video loading times!

Please feel free to reach out!

• My Twitter: https://twitter.com/MaxLenormand
• Reach out by email: [email protected]
• For news about the podcast: https://twitter.com/MindsBehindMaps

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: https://twitter.com/nadinesa
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nadinealameh/
• Open Geospatial Consortium: https://www.ogc.org/

Time stamps:

- 04:00 : Episode starts, Nadine presents herself

- 9:30 : Nadine’s childhood days in wartime in Lebanon and how it shaped her decision making

- 15:00 : Nadine talks about sharing her journey with her children

- 19:05 : Nadine’s journey at and after MIT

- 24:30 : Dance & activities outside of ones career

- 28:40 : How owning a dance franchise helps push the OGC forward

- 33:30 : Nadine’s previous startup experiences & why Consulting doesn’t scale

- 40:00 : Geospatial is mainstream but it’s not done

- 42:00 : The role of the Open Geospatial Consortium

- 48:15 : Prioritization of different issues that need solving

- 51:45 : Adoption of standards & working with a community

- 54:00 : The OGC as an organization

- 1:04:30 : Working with companies outside of the “normal” geospatial: Epic Games

- 1:12:00 : Lessons from the aviation industry

- 1:23:05 : Trust issues with satellite derived information

- 1:28:45 : Accessing data is still complex

- 1:30:20 : Speaking & learning multiple languages

- 1:40:10 : Book recommendations!

Show notes:

• Previous interview of Nadine I refer to a few times: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29bKEJ9jZsQ
• Talk about the overlap of geo with the entertainment industry (Starts at 9min): https://vimeo.com/340070941
• OGC Innovation Program Developer Survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/OGCDevSurvey
• Cesium on building the open metaverse: https://cesium.com/blog/2021/08/13/a-birds-of-a-feather-session-building-the-open-metaverse/
• Book & media recommendations:
  • Daniel O’Donohue’s podcast, Mapscaping: https://mapscaping.com/
  • Aravind Ravichandran’s podcast, TerraWatch Space: https://anchor.fm/terrawatch-space
  • Gap selling by Keenan
  • Culture Renovation by Kevin Oakes
  • Hello World: Being Human in the Age of Algorithms by Hannah Fry
  • Brick by Brick by David Robertson

Please feel free to reach out, I truly do want to hear what you think of this :)

• My Twitter: https://twitter.com/MaxLenormand
• Reach out by email: [email protected]
• New Twitter account for the podcast: https://twitter.com/MindsBehindMaps

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://twitter.com/MapScaping
• Mapscaping: https://mapscaping.com/

Timestamps:

- 4:15 : Beginning of episode, Daniel introduces himself

- 9:20 : The beginning of the Mapscaping podcast

- 15:30 : Leading a conversation

- 18:40 : Daniel’s editorial decisions

- 23:40 : Mapscaping’s “Grand Plan”

- 26:25 : Podcasting as a medium

- 37:50 : Finding one's voice online

 - 39:55 : Marketing the podcast & spreading the word

- 44:30 : Targeting a specific audience

- 51:00 : Building an audience is the true barrier to entry

- 55:00 : Where does the name “Mapscaping” come from?

- 57:40 : Starting doesn’t require much means

- 59:50 : Inspiring others

- 1:07:45 : The accessibility of the people within the geospatial field

- 1:11:50 : Building communities

- 1:15:05 : Building a business around Mapscaping

- 1:20:45 : Monetizing a podcast

- 1:30:10 : Daniel’s previous lives

- 1:44:15 : Daniel's last thoughts & media suggestions

Links towards topics in the conversation:

• Mapscaping episode about personal branding ("Building A Personal Brand In The Geospatial Industry"): https://t.co/fr7HpatKuV?amp=1
• Seth Godin's website: https://www.sethgodin.com/
• Seth Godin's Akimbo podcast: https://www.akimbo.link/

Welcome to the 4th episode of this experiment!

This was a insightful conversation talking about the big picture of where the Earth Observation market is and might be heading in the next few years.

About Aravind:

• Aravind's Twitter: https://twitter.com/aravind_raves
• Aravind's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aravindravichandran/
• TerraWatch Space consulting: https://www.terrawatch.space/services
• TerraWatch Space podcast: https://anchor.fm/terrawatch-space

Time stamps:

• 04:05 : Aravind presents himself
• 13:25 : How a software background helped in Aravind's consulting work
• 17:00 : Explaining the field at a high level / low level
• 21:50 : Helping companies get "out of the Earth Observation bubble"
• 25:20 : Working with non-geospatial industries that need Earth Observation data
• 31:45 : How to manage expectation for people not familiar with geospatial data?
• 38:10 : Is the SaaS (Software as a Service) model leading to some of rise in funding?
• 41:00 : IaaS; Insights as a Service instead of SaaS
• 46:25 : The relationship between Big Tech and Earth Observation
• 53:10 : The iPhone moment in Earth Observation
• 1:00:00 : Public / Private sector interaction
• 1:12:20 : The value of working on the boring stuff
• 1:17:25 : The Indian EO market
• 1:28:35 : Trying to understand why the West hears little about the Indian scene
• 1:31:00 : Aravind's podcast: TerraWatch Space
• 1:41:25 : Book recommendations!

Links towards topics in the discussion:

• Kerbal Space Program: https://www.kerbalspaceprogram.com/
• PwC: https://www.pwc.com/
• Planet acquiring Google's Terra Bella constellation in 2017: https://spacenews.com/planet-to-acquire-terra-bella-from-google/
• Indian Space Research Organization: https://www.isro.gov.in/
• Pixxel: https://www.pixxel.space/
• Tim Ferris Show: https://tim.blog/podcast/

Book recommendations:

• Sapiens, a Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
• When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

As always feel free to reach out to me if you have anything to say about the podcast:

• [email protected]
• or through Twitter: @MaxLenormand

Thanks for taking the time to listen :)

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 Initiative: https://benchmarkinitiative.com/

- Strava reveals location of US military bases: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/28/fitness-tracking-app-gives-away-location-of-secret-us-army-bases

- Elaine Ball's Get Kids Into Survey: https://www.getkidsintosurvey.com/

- Andrew Zolli, from Planet: https://twitter.com/andrew_zolli

- Book recommendation: Bill Gates': 'How to Avoid a Climate Disaster'

And some time stamps:

3:00 : Episode Starts, Denise presenting herself

5:20 : Why is location data ethics important?

7:35 : Public involvement & outreach

9:05 : The Locus Charter

13:35 : How would applications & companies share their experiences

19:05 : Response to the Locus Charter

21:40 : Covid increasing the public's' interest in location data

29:50 : How do we decide what is ethical?

35:00 : Laws / Policies

39:05 : Denise's early career path

45:05 : The term "geospatial"

49:15 : Education in geospatial (& geography)

55:25 : Data Trusts

61:15 : Difference between Locus Charter & Data Trust

1:02:55 : The data take of open source

1:08:15 : The Non-for-Profit scene

1:14:45 : Book recommendations!

For those who do check these show notes, and if you feel like it, you can reach out to me ;)

• [email protected]
• https://twitter.com/MaxLenormand

Most importantly though, thanks for listening :)

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
• @sparkgeo

Links 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/sponsors/index.html
• Even Rouault, current maintainer of GDAL: @EvenRouault
• STAC (SpatioTemporal Asset Catalogs): http://stacspec.org/
• Google Earth Engine: https://earthengine.google.com/

Seems like time-stamps were appreciated, so here they are:

00:00 : Intro

02:35 : Beginning of episode: Will presents himself and the story of creating Sparkgeo

20:30: Do you miss coding?

23:25 : Keeping up with the ever changing technical side of things

27:00 : 3 main reasons that make geospatial so popular today

32:02 : Do we have a role in educating people outside of geospatial about the field?

37:40 : OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) & STAC (SpatioTemporal Assets Catalog)

40:30 : Our responsibility to explain what we are doing with geospatial data

46:25 : The "geospatial product trap"

55:10 : How is Sparkgeo not falling for this trap?

1:06:00 : Choosing the projects Sparkgeo works on

1:09:50 : GDAL (Geospatial Data Abstraction Layer) & open source

1:18:50 : Cloud infrastructure in geospatial

1:27:55 : Google Earth Engine

1:31:22 : Will's Book recommendations

Feel free to drop me a line, I'd love to know what you think of this!

• @MaxLenormand
• [email protected]

Thanks for listening!