TerraWatch Space Podcast

Today, I am speaking with Yana Gevorgyan, the Secretariat Director of the Group on Earth Observations (or GEO). GEO is a unique global network connecting government institutions, academic and research institutions, data providers, businesses, engineers, scientists and experts to create innovative solutions based on Earth observation.

Today, I am speaking with Nadine Alameh, the CEO of Open Geospatial Consortium, an international organisation dedicated to making geospatial data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR) through consensus-based standards, collaborative innovation projects, and industry partnerships.

Today, I am speaking with Abe Tarapani, CEO of Atlas AI. In this episode, Abe and I discuss the problem Atlas AI is trying to solve and why their approach is different from a typical data company, their product strategy and knowing where to draw the line, why they publish details about their science & methodology, the recent announcement on the project with the Rockefeller Foundation and e-Guide, the need for the advisory service layer in EO and more.

Today, I am speaking with Jonny Dyer, co-founder and CEO of Muon Space. In this episode, Jonny and I discuss his background, how he decided to not built another "EO dataset company", Muon's differentiated approach, the climate narrative, Muon's plans and more.

Today, I am speaking with Prof Chris Rapley from University College London. In this episode, we discuss the use of satellite data for climate, whether the decision makers and end users care where the data comes from, how we can bridge the gap in communicating EO, the importance of a multidisciplinary approach, leveraging climate as a narrative to communicate about the importance of satellites and more.

Today, I am speaking with Daniel Wicks, head of geospatial intelligence at Satellite Applications Catapult in the UK. In this episode, we discuss the state of adoption of Earth observation, the pilot project problem, importance of standards and interoperability, whether the Catapult-model can scale around the world and more.

The startup I want to highlight this month is Blue Sky Analytics, an Indian startup building climate intelligence solution using satellite data, for insurance and banking firms. I am speaking with Abhilasha Purwar and Kshitij Purwar, the co-founders of Blue Sky, who also happen to be siblings. I wanted to have Blue Sky because I think they have an interesting outlook in EO but more importantly, centered on impact.

In this episode, we discuss what Blue Sky Analytics is building, their API-first approach, their data agnostic strategy, the business model and whether EO companies are SaaS companies, the benefits of building the company in India and more.

Looking back at the journey of TerraWatch Space podcast and its future - some gratitude, some learnings & some thoughts on how I want to see the podcast grow, as I go full-time on TerraWatch Space with the goal of making satellite data mainstream.

Today, I am speaking with Thomas Ormston, Deputy Spacecraft Operations Manager for the Sentinel-1 mission at the European Space Agency. Thomas has over 15 years of experience in spacecraft operations from being part of the operations team for the Mars Express mission to then becoming the spacecraft operations engineer for EarthCARE and Sentinel-1 missions.

In this episode, we discuss the role of a spacecraft operations engineer, his experience flying a spacecraft in Mars orbit, the differences with operating Earth observation missions, the Sentinel-1B incident, the growth of the space sustainability market and more.

Today, I am speaking with Julia Wagemann, an independent consultant and project manager in the Earth observation sector. Julia works in the intersection of data providers and users aiming to make large volumes of EO data better accessible and used. She has several years of experience in EO and she has worked with organisations including ESA, EUMETSAT, ECMWF and more.

For me, "boring problems" are categories of problems very few are interested in working on, but unless they are solved, the industry cannot grow. I call them "boring" in an ironic way - because there is more attention given to launching more satellites and getting more data down, than figuring out how to work with all that data together.

In this episode, Julia and discuss the similarities & differences between imaging data and meteorological data, the role of platforms in EO, the significance of standards and interoperability and diversity in EO, particularly focused on Women+ in Geospatial, an initiative that was co-founded by Julia.