The State of the Industry

09:15 - 10:00

Ignite Presentations from

Carissa Christensen - Kevin Bullock - Chris Biddy - Marc Prioleau

This series will give an overview of the current state of the Earth Observation sector:

Carrissa Christensen will discuss the size and growth of the satellite industry, key players, trends and expected advancements in observation capabilities. She’ll also touch on things that limit the expansion of earth observation, such as financing, launch capacity and engineering challenges.

Chris Biddy will present on the state of the art in building small satellites and how recent advancements have changed the cost and time of the production cycle. He will also discuss his efforts to open source the hardware design and the regulatory challenges in doing so.

Kevin Bullock will talk about what goes into producing high quality, high resolution imagery and why it’s difficult, but necessary, to get georeferencing and atmospheric correction right. He will also highlight what infrastructure is needed to process, and manage large volumes of heavy data.

Marc Prioleau will cap off the series with a brief overview of what the state of the industry means for development organizations.