Dr Beth Tellman is the Chief Science Officer at Cloud2Street, a company focused on flood monitoring using mostly satellite imagery. They recently published their “Global Flood Database” - featured in Nature - containing 15 years of data on 913 floods with human settlement maps across 169 countries.
In this episode we talk about Beth’s journey to starting Cloud2Street, what being a scientists means to her, as well as what the impact of the Global Flood Database has been. We talk on what one needs to do to actually have an impact; the role data science modelling but also insurance both have and how they work hand in hand. We touch on the open-science approach Cloud2Street is taking, all the while being a privately held for-profit company.
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About Beth:
Time stamps
- 3:27 - Conversation begins, Beth presents herself
- 7:55 - Why be a scientist?
- 10:57 - Cloud2Street
- 12:19 - Building a company as a scientist
- 16:37 - Global Flood Database
- 20:41 - Impact doesn’t only come from better algorithms
- 24:12 - Impact of publishing the Global Flood Database
- 28:37 - Creating the Database
- 33:30 - Why insurance is important
- 39:58 - Making sure Data & Maps are actually useful
- 45:21 - How accurate does it need to be to solve the problem?
- 50:07 - Finding the right metric
- 54:42 - Cloud2Street’s Business Model
- 1:03:48 - Open Science in a private company
- 1:13:33 - Using / Finding the best data for the job
- 1:20:39 - Communicating limitations
- 1:24:02 - Book recommendations
Shownotes:
Please feel free to reach out!
