Speakers Bio & Abstract

BiographyJohn Ahlrichs leads business development activities for Planet, a satellite imaging and solutions company. Previously, he has held numerous technology, marketing and sales leadership positions, primarily for start-up companies. John has a Master of Science in Crop Remote Sensing from Purdue University in the United States, a Ph.D. from Texas A&M University and a MBA from University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. Abstract Massive, online supplies of EO data require innovations in information extraction and analysisThe earth observation industry is rapidly changing from a supply constrained business where orders are placed for individual datasets to subscription models where all data collected by multiple imaging systems are available for one fixed fee. Daily, high resolution, multi-sensor, coverage of the world is now on our doorstep. To get there has required very rapid development and commercialization of new nano-satellite, camera and drone technologies. In parallel, customer requirements are changing from project based, thematic analysis to daily monitoring and change detection services that provide near real-time, actionable information updates. Change detection, information extraction and information quantification from big data is an overwhelming task without automated information extraction and machine learning capabilities.
This discussion will focus on how customer demand for actionable information from big data is driving demands for new ideas, technologies and information extraction algorithms. It will also explore industry initiatives that could support universities and institutes as they develop students and research programs that result in innovations which can be scaled into operational solutions.