Sparkgeo - Applied Geospatial

Most organizations are racing to build AI workflows. But what if they're starting in the wrong place? Workflows change. Tools evolve. AI capabilities are changing fast. But a well-organized data library with strong metadata creates lasting value and enables whatever comes next. Before investing heavily in automation, ask yourself: can your team (or your AI) easily find, understand, and trust the data it needs? The library comes before the workflow. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/gt2sc74W #GeoAI #Prescient #Data

Congratulations to MERMAID and Wildlife Conservation Society for being featured on CBC/Radio-Canada this week talking about how they are creating a global community for coral reef monitoring data. Their work is more important than ever, and it’s inspiring to see the impact of this community reflected in stories like this. Read it here: https://lnkd.in/gCMeFJji #GeospatialIsChangingEverything

Last night marked something of a milestone for Sparkgeo UK. Our financial performance in 2024-5 put us in the top 200 fastest growing tech suppliers in the UK public sector market, according to experts at Tussell, who hosted a celebration / networking event in London to mark the awards. After listening to an engaging panel session chaired by UK Small Business Commissioner, Emma Jones CBE, it was an opportunity to share stories over drinks and canapes (kindly sponsored AutogenAI) with other winnners. Despite none of these being in our geospatial / EO market, some common themes emerged from both the panel session and other conversations which particularly chimed with me: * Trust is the most essential component in the relationship between buyers and suppliers * Trust is built by achieving excellence in delivery and doing what you said you would do * Transparency and honesty matter most when things are difficult * The best outcomes come from listening carefully to what customers actually need Based on who else was in the room, it seems it is the SMEs, similar to Sparkgeo - Applied Geospatial, who are getting this right. Sparkgeo UK have been incredibly fortunate particularly in our first few years to have had the financial, operational and business development support from our parent company in Canada, led by the inspirational Will Cadell. This event and top 200 recognition felt significant for me, marking a stage of maturity in the UK business that puts us firmly on the map as a significant supplier in the UK market. Many thanks to Tussell for the recongition and for hosting the event. A shout out in particular to Hollie Rose Hodgson, who kindly agreed to my shameless request for the photo opp in the post - and to Carl Draper, https://lnkd.in/e4F-mSUm and Emma Christie, whose company amongst others, I enjoyed at some post event socialising. Hopefully see you again next year!

Over the last month, Will has been speaking about AI, data, and geospatial technology across defence, geospatial, and energy events in Canada and the UK. Different audiences, similar questions. -> How do we manage exploding volumes of sensor data? -> How do we build AI systems people can trust? -> How do we move from prototypes to operational value? One of our favourite examples came from yesterday's fireside at Global Energy Show Canada with AIQ's CEO, Dennis Jol, highlighting what it takes to scale industrial AI: deep domain expertise, strong partnerships, and a deliberate focus on solving real problems. The technology is evolving quickly. The organizations that win won’t be the ones using the most AI. They’ll be the ones applying it with the clearest purpose.

"What does Sparkgeo do exactly?" I've been getting this a lot, and it makes sense given I just spent 8 years in an industry where geospatial more often than not was reduced to pins on a Google or OSM basemap. The geospatial world loves complex jargon, but Sparkgeo's role is pretty simple: we make your data easier to access and use. I wanted to share one of our blog posts on the Earth Observation Data Hub, as it is a perfect (and public) example of our team's fantastic work. Earth observation data is notoriously trapped in messy, fragmented catalogs, which are often out-dated, painfully slow, and a nightmare to navigate. To fix this, our team used open-source, cloud-native tech and STAC architecture to break down those silos. We essentially built a search engine that makes massive planetary datasets accessible, to anyone. If you want to read more about it: the blog is linked, and EODH itself is linked in the blog as well. https://lnkd.in/gnKtr5NJ

It was great to be at the European Space Agency - ESA ESRIN site in Frascati last week, showcasing our latest work on the Geospatial Explorer to the APEx team and wider stakeholder community for the full term project review and kick off of phase 2 contract. The Geospatial Explorer (or "GE" as it has become known) is one of a suite of tools provided by APEx that can be adopted by EO projects to help them engage with stakeholders via a configurable web map interface tailored to their own project outputs - data and algorithms. Over 20 projects have already adopting the GE in phase one including the The ESA Stakeholder Engagement Facility who put it to good use demonstrating and communicating the potential for Earth Observation at (non-EO) conferences focusing on different thematic areas - biodiversity, agriculture, energy, sustainable development, urban etc. We will be excited to see more projects adopt the GE and other APEx tools in phase two of the project. Keep an eye out for news about the GE version 4 release, featuring the integration of APEx registered on demand algorithms directly from the GE. In the meantime find out more about APEx and the GE at https://apex.esa.int/ It was also a pleasure to welcome both thriveGEO and Development Seed into the APEx consortium - two companies that Sparkgeo - Applied Geospatial have collaborated with on other projects and whose creative inputs we very much welcome. Along with the expertise from the current consortium members - VITO Remote Sensing, terradue, Brockmann Consult GmbH and Inuits - we can all expect exciting things to emerge from APEx over the next few years. cc: Patrick Griffiths | Will Cadell | Adam Tweedie | Bram Janssen | Jeroen Dries | Pedro Pereira Gonçalves | Fabrice Brito | Hannes Neuschmidt | Olaf Veerman | Emmanuel Mathot | Sabrina Szeto

Some conversations stick. Today, I was lucky enough to talk with Dennis Jol about AIQ's development and delivery of energy-oriented #AI tools. Understanding the power of collaboration between ADNOC Group and G42 to create the deep data domain expertise that AIQ embodies helped me understand how industrial #AI projects can win at scale. Then, hearing about the careful curation of 200 employee-suggested use cases down to 14 active products, which now deliver a series of futuristic operational solutions, points to a thorough and considered industrial #AI model that others can and should learn from. Thanks so much to Dusan Krnjaja and Sarah Pryor for organizing, and to the Global Energy Show Canada for hosting our conversation.

A rebuild is only as good as the partnership behind it. In this post, Kaela explores what that looked like in practice: working with Black Bear Energy Inc. to rebuild Prospector through honest communication, a phased approach, and a platform migration that left Black Bear better equipped than when they started. Read the blog: https://buff.ly/PMZQpRr #Geospatial #SoftwareDevelopment #ProductDevelopment #CleanEnergy

Member Spotlight: Sparkgeo Sparkgeo - Applied Geospatial is a geospatial advisory and software services company with 15 years of experience helping technology companies and global enterprises turn Earth data into actionable insight. Their team of developers and data scientists build global-scale monitoring platforms, advanced data transformation pipelines, and precision tools for measuring and tracking environmental and economic change. Using open-source frameworks and modern cloud infrastructure, they deliver scalable, reliable solutions tailored to client needs. For more information, visit: https://sparkgeo.com/ Welcome to the community, Sparkgeo! Will Cadell Sarah Pryor #SpaceCanada #member #spotlight #geospatial