Ep 14 - Beth Tellman - Cloud2Street, Open Science within a For-Profit Company & The Role of Insurance in Actionable Flood Analytics

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:

Global Flood Database
ARC: African Risk Capacity
IEEE Podcast episode with Beth: Down to Earth S2:EP2
Media recommendations:
- Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty
- Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed by James C. Scott
- Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas
- This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate by Naomi Klein

Please feel free to reach out!