geospatial

Episode 15 with Masoud Kalantari and Luke Buckberrough
Episode 15 with Masoud Kalantari and Luke Buckberrough 900 450 Nowhere Podcast

On this episode of Nowhere Podcast we’re joined by Masoud Kalantari, CEO of The Rubic, and Luke Buckberrough, Chief Growth Officer at The Rubic. The Rubic is a development company that specializes in creating autonomous robotics and industrial automation solutions.

Supply chain is not something most people have great knowledge about, yet it represents one of the largest industrial ecosystems in the world. When you break it down, there are several points to consider: product storage, inventory management, order fulfillment, packaging and labeling, and receiving. It’s an expansive process.

This can also be a very intensive process, especially when it comes to the demands on human time and energy, as well as operational budget. However, humans are flexible and adaptable, which is something automation has lacked previously. The Rubic aims to offer this flexibility using robotic design.

The robots created at The Rubic are designed to map a warehouse using a combination of lidar technology and a camera vision system. They use AI learning technologies to remember what can be found where, gaining the ability to efficiently fulfill their duties over time—no barcodes required.

Anything that can be automated likely will be automated in the future, and that includes the supply chain industry, but spans across industries too. Using AI technology and robotics inside a warehouse setting allows a business to maximize their spaces in ways they couldn’t before. It helps reinforce the workforce, and it can save a business money too.

Episode 13 with John Norman
Episode 13 with John Norman 900 450 Nowhere Podcast

Our guest in this episode is John Norman, Director of Strategic Research and Development at Teren, in Lakewood, Colorado. Today, we’ll be talking about wildfire reclamation and the role of geospatial technology in this work.

The 2022 Hermits Peak fire in New Mexico was the biggest in the state’s history, and 60% of its coverage was on private land. Private land owners in this area vary greatly, from those who live off the land by cutting firewood, to those who have a secondary home there. These socioeconomic conditions make this fire one of the most unusual that John has worked on.

Because of the history and private ownership of the affected areas in Hermits Peak, there were thousands of individuals that needed to be contacted so the federal government could start the reclamation process. This was especially difficult because many people in the area do not use technology or are very skeptical of the government.

While also using publicly available terrain and satellite imagery, John and his team were rapidly flying LiDAR and 4-band imagery over the burned area. This process impressively only took about a week, despite covering around 600,000 acres. They were even able to analyze individual trees with the data they acquired.

These fires are occurring more often, so John believes that task forces will be established to immediately come in with technology to quantify exactly what areas are the most at risk. He also hopes to see geospatial technology used to mitigate risks in areas that are prone to fires before they even happen.

Episode 12 with Emily Craven
Episode 12 with Emily Craven 900 450 Nowhere Podcast

Emily Craven, Founder and CEO of Story City, joins us for this episode. Today’s discussion revolves around locative content and the power of location to connect people to places via stories, as well as how Story City ties it all together.

Locative content is content in the form of stories, media, film, and audio which can only be experienced in a specific physical location. This kind of content is important because it’s the roots that make people feel as though they belong.

Story City was inspired by the idea of wanting to create stories, but also allowing others to be a part of those stories. People can interact with the characters in particular adventures by allowing them to be in the same exact setting.

Users are then prompted to choose how their story goes. They are given maps to allow them to dictate where they go and how their story continues, giving each user a different experience based on where exactly they are.

This also serves as an educational tool by giving information on things such as the history of the location. It allows for a unique social and recreational experience that brings people together.

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Episode 11 – Fossil Hunting
Episode 11 – Fossil Hunting 900 450 Nowhere Podcast

We’ve got three guests in today’s episode: Dr. Caleb Brown, Curator of Dinosaur Systematics & Evolution at the Royal Tyrrell Museum; Dr. Derek Peddle, Professor of Geography at The University of Lethbridge; and Sean Herridge-Berry, a master’s student at the University of Lethbridge, join us to discuss how modern technology is being used to explore ancient fossil beds.

Alberta is known for being a hotbed for fossils, but why? Alberta’s rocks are the right age to preserve fossils, but these rocks have eroded at a quick rate in the badlands of Alberta. These abundant fossils are being uncovered at a high rate, which means this landscape provides a lot of information about fossils.

The standard method of prospecting to find new fossils is pretty low tech: put your boots on, get outside, and keep your eyes on the ground. Generally, fossils look like any other bone. The hardest part is figuring out which fossils are most important.

An interesting fact about fossils is that they are a breeding ground for lichen, a composite organism. There is a bright orange lichen which grows on the fossils, and this orange glow can be used to identify fossils. Furthermore, fossilized material and lichen reflect the sunlight in a certain way, and Sean is currently studying how to use that to identify them in a remotely sensed image.

This technology opens the door to discovering new, yet to be discovered bone beds (layers of rock with concentrated fossils). Watching million-year-old fossils collide with new technology is really interesting and will lead to even more exciting dinosaur bone finds down the road.

Episode 10 with Travis Riedlhuber
Episode 10 with Travis Riedlhuber 900 450 Nowhere Podcast

Travis Riedlhuber is joining us for this episode. He is the managing director of RainBarrel, an Edmonton-based company that uses geospatial data to help advertisers deliver their message to the right people.

Digital advertising is going through a lot of changes. Focus is shifting to privacy, and new technology is setting in to emphasize regulatory action. New businesses are forming to find solutions to work within this new era of digital advertising.

Advertisers who have been reliant on using cookies need to pivot, as this kind of tracking is slowly being phased out. New identifiers like loyalty programs and apps are emerging in its place. What makes RainBarrel unique is that they utilize location data to group people with similar attributes, and they only use data given with explicit consent.

The cohorts they put together are a minimum of one thousand unique devices, but the typical audience is within tens of thousands or even millions of devices. This not only goes a long way for protecting privacy, but it also helps advertisers reach a larger group of people to generate the return they expect.

In the past, there haven’t been a lot of regulations in this area of the digital advertising space, and a lot of work was being done in the shadows. Now, this is headed in a more transparent direction, which RainBarrel fully embraces and supports.

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Episode 08 with Sean Gorman
Episode 08 with Sean Gorman 900 450 Nowhere Podcast

On today’s episode of Nowhere Podcast we’re joined by ​​Sean Gorman. Sean was the CEO of Pixel8.earth until the business was acquired in 2021. Pixel8.earth took a crowd sourced approach to location mapping, and today Sean is still focusing on taking further strides forward in location technology.

Current commodity GPS isn’t incredibly accurate. It relies on triangulating satellites and estimating times between signals, but if it bounces, it can create errors. If you’ve ever found yourself looking at where you are on the map and found you were on the wrong road or the wrong side of the street, this is the common culprit.

Sean sees the future of location technology going towards growth in augmented reality, drone navigation, and autonomy. Right now, the focus is on solving the long-tail problems that are blocking exciting possibilities.

Some of the fun areas that new tech could have an interesting impact on are interactive gaming and athletics. Right now, if you go hiking with a partner or friend, the location technology in your phone is susceptible to errors. These errors build up and can lead to great discrepancies between devices.

Solving current problems in location technology could unlock benefits that will benefit individuals and society as a whole. When you have enough people pushing for solutions from enough different angles, there are going to be even more opportunities to explore in the geo-spatial world.

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Episode 07 with Andrew Arreak and Lynn Moorman
Episode 07 with Andrew Arreak and Lynn Moorman 900 450 Nowhere Podcast

On this episode we’re joined by Dr. Lynn Moormon, Professor of Physical Geography at Mount Royal University, as well as Andrew Arreak, SmartICE Nunavut Operations Lead. The Inuit people across Northern Canada rely on sea ice for hunting and access, and it also plays a large role in their culture.

Knowing how to read the land and the ice has been passed down through Andrew’s family from one generation to the next. The people in his community have learned about it largely through first-hand experience. You really have to be there to understand how therapeutic it can be.

SmartICE is a co-development approach that aims to merge the traditional knowledge of sea ice with advanced data acquisition and remote monitoring technology. The goal is to create maps to help navigate ice conditions in real time using terminology that the community uses. This is becoming even more important as the climate warms.

They have been utilizing Facebook to transfer the knowledge throughout Northern communities and beyond. Digitizing the sea ice knowledge is another way of helping to pass the knowledge from one generation to the next. It also helps increase confidence around ice conditions.

In Andrew’s community, snow begins to fall in October, and the ice begins to form around mid-November. This is when they will begin creating sea ice maps again. Andrew loves it when he meets people out on the ice while he’s gathering data and enjoys taking the opportunity to educate them about the technology he’s using.

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Episode 06 with Joshua Johnston
Episode 06 with Joshua Johnston 900 450 Nowhere Podcast

Joining us in this episode is Dr. Josh Johnston. He is the Principal Investigator for the WildFireSat mission, and a career wildland firefighter. Why is managing fire important? The truth is that fire isn’t always a bad thing. The fire is a natural means of keeping the forest healthy and actually plays a large role in stimulating new growth.

That said, getting too close to the fire or having too much of it can be dangerous. Sometimes fire management is about suppression, sometimes fires need to be started, and sometimes they simply need to be left alone. In instances where people are around, the objective is to put them out as fast as possible.

The WildFireSat is the world’s first purpose-built fire monitoring mission via satellite. Prior to this, the science revolved around general purpose missions. This one is specifically for fire management, and it’s a uniquely Canadian endeavor. This allows for effective tracking of fires, which will play an even more important role as the world experiences climate change.

While imagery is nice to have, analysis and a breakdown of what a fire is doing—and what it is likely to do next—is more important than the visual asset. These analytics will be embedded in forthcoming products. This technology collects information regarding the landscape and classifies the threat of the fire. Decision makers who have to make a choice based upon this data will benefit the most from interpreting this data.

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Episode 05 with Matt Lowe
Episode 05 with Matt Lowe 900 450 Nowhere Podcast

In this episode we’re joined by Matthew Lowe, the CEO of ZeroKey. Matthew has been interested in software since he was a child. His passion developed throughout the early nineties and blossomed into his entrepreneurial career in technology.

ZeroKey uses the digitization of location to bring presence to objects in a new way, and this indoor positioning technology has a lot of potential. For instance, if put to use in a factory setting, it could help you monitor processes, track material flow, and do analytics of physical processes. ZeroKey is accomplishing this on a never-before-seen precise scale.

What humans could improve on in factories specifically is the handoff point from human to technology. Hybrid assembly lines across the world face this problem, and a queued process can create huge backups across the assembly line, wasting both time and money. Indoor positioning technology could be used to make this process more effective.

One significant difference between ZeroKey and their competitors is the use of ultrasound as the fundamental mechanism for location. Sound provides a higher level of accuracy than radio signals or light because it travels more slowly. This reduces errors in measuring.

ZeroKey is seeing interest from autonomous vehicle manufacturers, which indicates one way this technology may be used in the future. It can also help detect safety hazards. This fundamental understanding of what’s going on to the environment opens up a world of opportunity.

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Episode 04 with Danika Kelly
Episode 04 with Danika Kelly 900 450 Nowhere Podcast

Danika Kelly is with us in today’s episode. She is the Co-Founder and CEO of My Normative, a female-focused health tracking app that can help the user gather data so they can understand more about how their unique hormone cycles impact their sleep, activity, and overall wellness.

Danika is a high-performance athlete who always used apps to track her health and wellness. However, she found they simply weren’t usable because these apps didn’t take into account that she is a female. Female bodies are different, and their needs should be met accordingly, which is why she decided to start My Normative.

Female-body inclusion is important in health tracking. Researchers are working on this, but they are generally very specialized. My Normative is helping to break these barriers by acting as a salient tool for researchers.

Before tracking her own patterns of behavior, Danika would say she has a tendency to “hunker down” when she’s beginning her menstrual cycle. What she’s learned through tracking is that this isn’t true. She actually spends a lot of time doing low-intensity ambient movement, which is common for women to do to mitigate pain and inflammation as their cycle begins.

It can take a few cycles for the My Normative app to gather the right amount of data and hone in on one’s personal experience. Over time, the insights become even more specific to the individual. In addition to this, they’ve put in barriers to ensure privacy protection for every user.

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