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Maxime Lenormand

Maps Are Everywhere.
These are conversations with those building them.

Minds Behind Maps

Krishna Karra is a data scientist & report for Bloomberg, having used machine learning & satellite images for reporting. Recent stories from him & his team include mapping refugee camps in Rafah & exposing illegal ship oil transfers in the middle of the Ocean.
Sponsor: Beemaps by Hivemapper
Get access to high quality, fresh map data at https://beemaps.com/minds
Use promo code MINDS to get 50% off your API credits through Dec. 31 2024
About KrishnaTwitterLinkedInShownotes
Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.

Bloomberg: The Clandestine Oil Shipping Hub Funneling Iranian Crude to ChinaBloomberg: A Detailed Map Shows How Airstrikes and Refugees Reshaped RafahHow Radar Satellites See through Clouds (Synthetic Aperture Radar Explained)National Land Cover Database (NLCD)What Ukraine Has LostGraves in Suda by Joe MorrisonJean Martin Bauer on Minds Behind Maps • Books & Podcast:
 • Overstory by Richard Powers (
Affiliate Link • )
Ezra Klein ShowTimestamps
(00:00) - Intro

(00:34) - Sponsor: Beemaps

(01:51) - Krishna describes himself

(03:27) - Example stories: Illegal Oil transfers

(05:29) - Stories are the goal

(07:07) - Why publish the data set?

(12:24) - How Journalism has and hasn't changed

(14:04) - How data changes a story

(18:23) - Putting the datasets together

(20:37) - Conveying trust

(24:07) - Showing the limitations of the data

(26:11) - Why is journalism important for satellite data?

(30:14) - News room process

(32:57) - Building custom tools

(38:19) - Timeline of a news story

(39:47) - What Krishna has learned as a data scientist in a news room

(40:49) - Stories that have stuck out

(42:57) - Different ways of showing the data

(44:19) - Krishna's wishlist

(51:12) - Book & podcast recommendation

(53:16) - Paid podcasts & media

(55:19) - Support the podcast on Patreon

Support the podcast on PatreonMy TwitterPodcast TwitterRead Previous Issues of the Newsletter • Edited by 
Peter Xiong • Find 
more of his work

How Bloomberg's Data Scientists use Satellite Images for Reporting: Krishna Karra - MBM78

On every Minds Behind Maps episode I ask guests for books they've read they think are worth sharing. This time I'm sharing with you the books I read & recommend from my 2024 reading.
Shownotes
Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.

 • Utopia For Realists (
Amazon Affiliate • )
 • The Capitalist Manifesto (
Amazon Affiliate • )
 • The New Breadline (
Amazon Affiliate • )
Jean Martin Bauer on MBM • Three Body Problem Trilogy (
Amazon Affiliate • )
 • When the Heavens Went on Sale (
Amazon Affiliate • )
Ashlee Vance on MBM • Into the Wild (
Amazon Affiliate • )
 • The Little Prince (
Amazon Affiliate • )
 • Night Flight (
Amazon Affiliate • )
My conversation with Jed Sundwall on Techs on TextsTimestamps
(00:00) - Trying something new today 
(00:37) - Utopia For Realists 
(02:23) - The Capitalist Manifesto 
(11:44) - The New Breadline 
(15:59) - Three Body Problem Trilogy 
(21:42) - When the Heavens Went on Sale 
(25:36) - Into the Wild 
(32:16) - The Little Prince & Night Flight 
(37:46) - Conclusion

Support the podcast on PatreonMy TwitterRead Previous Issues of the Newsletter

My Favourite Books of 2024 - MBM79

Welcome to this experiment!

If you want to follow this journey, I'm @MaxLenormand on Twitter!

Ep 0 - Initializing Experiment...

Welcome to the First Episode of Minds behind Maps!
I hope you enjoy this conversation with Ian Schuler. I'm going to try to keep track of most of the things we talked about in this episode if you want to go check them out yourself. 

Keep track of what Ian & Development Seed are doing:

 • https://twitter.com/ianschuler
 • https://twitter.com/developmentseed

Links to materials discussed in the episode:

 • Development Seed school mapping: https://developmentseed.org/blog/2021-03-18-ai-enabling-school-mapping
 • Joe Morrison's blog: https://joemorrison.substack.com/welcome
 • Early days of Development Seed: https://www.linkedin.com/in/egundersen/, https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianshward/, 
 • Signal's founder, Moxie Marlinspike: https://twitter.com/moxie

 

I'm going to try to provide a basic version of time-stamps if you want to skip by some sections:

00:00 : Intro

1:25 : Beginning of episode; Ian presenting himself

7:55 : Why open source?

19:00 : Trust in a world of AI models

26:25 : How to communicate the limitations of machine learning solutions

36:45 : Which data to use for which problem?

42:25 : What is important in satellite imagery?

55:00 : Data fusion

1:00:25 : Deciding who to work with

1:07:10 : Origins of Development Seed

1:11:00 : Ian's previous work

1:15:40 : So do you build & lead a company around impact?

1:30:05 : Working in the days of covid

1:40:35 : A last note on the future of geospatial data

 

 

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

 • @MaxLenormand
 • minds.behind.maps@gmail.com

Thanks for listening

Ep 1 - Ian Schuler - Building an impact driven geospatial company

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
 • minds.behind.maps@gmail.com

Thanks for listening!

Ep 2 - Will Cadell - Geospatial Consulting

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 ;)

minds.behind.maps@gmail.comhttps://twitter.com/MaxLenormand
 

Most importantly though, thanks for listening :)

Ep 3 - Denise McKenzie - Location data ethics

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:

 • minds.behind.maps@gmail.com
 • or through Twitter: @MaxLenormand

Thanks for taking the time to listen :)

Ep 4 - Aravind Ravichandran - Earth Observation markets & value propositions

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/

Ep 5 - Daniel O'Donohue - Being a voice online

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: 
minds.behind.maps@gmail.com • New Twitter account for the podcast: 
https://twitter.com/MindsBehindMaps

Ep 6 - Nadine Alameh - Standards, Dance & Geo Data Accessibility

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.orgFast.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: 
minds.behind.maps@gmail.com • For news about the podcast: 
https://twitter.com/MindsBehindMaps

Ep 7 - Bruno Sánchez - Microsoft's Planetary Computer, Education & Impact Science

Brian McClendon was one of the earliest investors & later VP of Engineering at Keyhole, which got acquired by Google in 2004. Brian become VP of Engineering and led Google Geo, overlooking the development of Google Earth & Google Maps. He also worked at Uber & is now at Niantic, which you might know for thri most popular app: Pokemon Go

Sponsor: OpenCage

 Use OpenCage for your geocoding needs with their API
 Geomob
About BrianLinkedInNianticShownotes • Never Lost Again by Bill Kilday (
Affiliate Link • )
Brian’s University of Kansas course: “Startups Rasing Money”@Home Network • (Wikipedia Page)
Keyhole Inc • (History of Google Earth Wikipedia)
Google Earth • I think you can find a link to Google Maps on your own :)
Nicaragua border story • Books & Podcast
 • 3 Body Problem by Cixin Liu (
Affiliate Link • )
Marketplace • podcast

Timestamps
(00:00) - Introduction

(01:16) - Sponsor: OpenCage

(02:42) - Brian describes himself

(03:33) - Getting into computer graphics

(05:15) - From engineer to building companies

(08:06) - The Beginnings of Keyhole

(12:42) - EarthViewer demo

(14:33) - Going through rough times

(21:00) - What made Keyhole so unique

(25:56) - How much of Keyhole's work is still in Google Earth?

(32:08) - Borders are hard

(37:20) - Changing borders

(43:15) - Google's rationale for spending so much on mapping

(45:37) - Use for Google Maps vs Earth

(47:22) - Google Earth Engine

(51:16) - Earliest Google Earth Image

(52:20) - Working at Uber

(57:03) - Self-driving

(58:30) - Project Ground Truth

(01:04:01) - Where is self-driving today?

(01:10:29) - Trains vs Cars

(01:14:15) - Niantic

(01:17:07) - Future predictions

(01:19:28) - Glasses over phones

(01:21:05) - The next iPhone moment

(01:23:33) - Using Tech to get people outside

(01:25:57) - Teaching

(01:28:11) - The need for tech companies outside the Bay Area

(01:30:21) - Remote work

(01:34:59) - Recommendations to students

(01:36:10) - Book/Podcast Recommendations

Support the podcast on PatreonMy video on an introduction to satellite imagesWebsiteMy TwitterPodcast TwitterRead Previous Issues of the Newsletter • Edited by 
Peter Xiong • Find 
more of his work

Brian McClendon: The Story of Google Maps, Pokemon Go & Keyhole - MBM#59

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