Bhoo-Mandal Talk on December 09, 2022
Bhoo-Mandal Talk Title: Empowering Decision-making with Satellite-powered Climate and Environmental Intelligence
Speaker: Ishaan Kochhar, Blue Sky Analytics
Time: 4:00 pm IST on December 9, 2022 (Friday)
Venue: [online on zoom meeting]
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88239443661?pwd=Z2FWWFN3S2tlRUN4NTF5ZTBCViswUT09
Shortened link: http://bit.ly/3F4KNIU
Abstract
This talk focuses on “Empowering decision-making with satellite-powered climate and environmental intelligence.”
Globally, we are observing a significant amplification in the effects of climate change, with climate-related disasters intensifying significantly. These disasters have direct and indirect impacts on businesses and other stakeholders. According to a 2018 Center for Disaster Philanthropy report, 215 of the world’s 500 largest companies risk losing an estimated one trillion dollars within five years from the impacts of climate events unless action is taken. Moreover, the increased impetus towards sustainability has propagated the demand for near real-time and reliable climate data, as 93% of institutional investors claim that markets still need to price climate-related financial risks accurately.
Satellite data can play a pivotal role in bridging this gap as, according to the Global Climate Observing System, 50% of Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) can only be tracked using satellites. However, obtaining valuable insights from geospatial data in its raw form is impossible. To this effect, BSA uses geospatial and IoT data with machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to build the ‘Bloomberg for Environmental Intelligence.’ Transitioning from the traditional approach of developing each dataset as an individual product, we have built an entirely automated, scalable, and reusable infrastructure, our “Geospatial Data Refinery,” that can ingest data from various sources, including satellites, run them through different processing algorithms, and deliver the resulting datasets via APIs.
The final part of the presentation will provide examples highlighting BSA’s work in air quality, wildfire monitoring, water monitoring, greenhouse gas emissions from biomass fires, and more.
Speaker Biography
Ishaan Kochhar is a Research Lead at Blue Sky Analytics, a Climate-Tech start-up using satellite data and AI to build environmental monitoring and climate-risk assessment products.
He is a post-graduate in Geoinformation Science and Earth Observation from the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing (Indian Space Research Organization) and The University of Twente, The Netherlands. His research specialized in Natural Hazards and Disaster Risk Management. His career began at the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) as a Junior Research Fellow, followed by Remote Sensing and Geoinformation Analyst at the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in Nepal, working in the themes of geospatial analysis and modeling. Since 2020, he’s working with Blue Sky Analytics. In his professional life, he is interested in developing and applying data science methodologies and workflows to earth observation datasets. Thus, his professional and academic background is characterised by cross-disciplinarity, combining data science and remote sensing competencies.