PLANET

We have to use all kind of satellite data.

We're working up to now with Sentinel data, a lot of NASA data as well, but also with Planet, with GOI, with Maxar and with other companies.

And we have partners and partnership agreements and exploitation with some of the companies, with the other ones we are working on.

We are exploring to get Umbra as a new partner, Umbra, It's SAR, similar to ISI, but with another vision.

Those black squares with the white crosses in it, those are targets for GPS and they're one meter wide.

So just to give you a sense of scale, we're working with small plants they are also funny colors for plants just previewing that problem so the data that I'm working with for this is a combination of sentinel and planet imagery so the advantage of sentinel is that it has a lot more bands but it has 10 meter wide pixels for the the visible bands and wide like bigger Bigger pixels for the other things, which is unfortunate.

Planet is useful, but it's only what I have access to for this time period is only visible in IR.

And it has three meter pixels, so a little bit finer scale.

And then I have a DEM that was flown for wildfire purposes over this area from the USGS.

So previous work, things I did last year, I was looking at, can I detect? These are things you would do manually on air photos as a beach person, like someone who's interested in California beaches or even East Coast beaches for that matter.

We care about what is the extent of the beach? How close, where is it in relation to the water? So where's high water line? How far back does it go until we hit either stabilized vegetation or some human built thing like a sidewalk? And then also, where are the plants? Because I'm a plant person.

So I ran an NDVI analysis on both Sentinel and Planet and was like, well, OK, yeah, you can do that.

And they build a lot of different satellites.

And so, for example, there's Planet that does Earth observation.

But the most known one probably is SpaceX.

And they are known for their huge constellation, Starlink.

10, 15 years ago, we would have a satellite image, sort of a course view satellite image, once every couple of weeks.

Nowadays, led primarily by a company called Planet in San Francisco, we have imagery multiple times every day of everywhere on Earth, clouds notwithstanding.

And that's an absolute game changer in terms of sort of rapid understanding of these kinds of events, but not only geophysical disasters, but also war or drought or whatever the case may be.

Having timely information really is critical.

or real near time as one of the last remaining edges in the global market.

And that's where SkyFi being a marketplace, sort of an aggregator of 300 satellite sources with 50 different partners and partners, including some of the ones that you see on TV, such as the old Maxar Vantor, for example, or Planet that has before and after imagery that you see in the news.

Those are our partners that we have to aggravate.

It leaves out all the headaches going directly to some of those direct sources.

Thanks, Joe.

Honestly, it's a pleasure to have you and especially, you know, the organization Planet that you've been with for a while.

We've been following your work extensively and, you know, it's really one of the leaders within the industry and everyone that listens to this podcast is, you know, honored to have you on.

Oh, thank you.

Very kind.

So, you know, For anyone tuning in right now who may not be familiar with what it is that you do or, you know, what your current role is, could you please provide a quick introduction?

Yeah, so, I mean, for those that aren't as familiar with Planet Labs, we are a new space company based in San Francisco, California.

We design, build, and operate a large fleet of remote sensing satellites, and we make that data visible, accessible, and actionable through as many users and customers as possible around the world.

Yeah.

And I know co-founder of Planet, Simona Turrin, she was on a couple of the panels throughout WIT, and it was that piece of, it's kind of like the canopy.

People fall down from the canopy, and then they create something new.

You know, she's ex Xero and ex Air New Zealand, and there she is sitting there with this amazing piece of travel tech that's born out of Queenstown, obviously with, you know, deep connections with Mountain Club, with Pete, my brother-in-law, being one of the first checks in and heavily involved, is here we are going, "Let's create something that's born from here," co-founder with Simona Turrin and Nick Bolton, out of this necessity, but also out of the power and the potential that we have, and sitting across this panel that has been created because of the attraction we have.

Also for people to see, well, there's actually something real coming out of here that isn't just hotels and helicopters.

Yeah.

And look, frankly, we had the opportunity to build that agenda in a way to showcase things that we wanted to showcase, and we wanted to showcase Planet and how smart Simona is, and she's, I think, doing a fantastic job.

So, it's a platform, and we think we can build a platform here that gives startups a real exposure to the global investment community and the travel tech community.