Arjen Vrielink - Getting to Zero Deforestation with Satellite Images - MBM #22
Arjen Vrielink is the Director & co-founder of Satelligence, dedicated to stopping deforestation by leveraging satellite imagery. They work directly with commodity companies who sell things like cacao or coffee to understand the causes of deforestation and how alternatives can be found.
Episode Sponsors: Radiant Earth Foundation & Element84
Apply for the 2022 Radiant MLHub Impact Award for agriculture-related applications for Africa - with a $5,000 cash prize.
About Arjen
Shownotes
Book recommendations:
Timestamps
00:00 - Introduction
02:55 - Conversation Begins
07:56 - Arjen quoting me to describe work environment
13:02 - The origin story of Satelligence
17:45 - What Satelligence does
19:05 - Remote Sensing to solve deforestation: Solution looking for a Problem?
26:48 - Data comes in to convince bosses
34:38 - Financial incentives & shareholders
40:27 - How Satelligence makes money & long term vision
45:02 - Why Satelligence decided to raise a first round after a few years
51:25 - Downsides to raising
55:14 - What happens to the mission after an exit?
59:30 - Creating a work culture
1:03:43 - Lunch is more important for your culture than your Strategy day
1:13:17 - Hiring
1:17:47 - Why Arjen hired me as an intern
1:29:48 - Open Source in Geospatial
1:42:28 - Importance of technical knowledge in leadership roles
1:44:36 - Layers of Abstraction
1:51:16 - Committing to one specific thing
1:57:18 - Why maps aren’t (always) the best way to communicate insights
2:06:43 - Geospatial is incredibly niche
2:12:57 - Book recommendations
2:21:15 - Asking for advice
Feel free to reach out!
