Minds Behind Maps Barbara Ryan - How Landsat Became Free & Open - MBM #21
Barbara Ryan was instrumental in the policy change in 2008 that opened up the Landsat data to being freely & openly available for anyone to access. This resulted in more than 100x uptake in the number of imagery downloaded and fundamentally changed the Earth Observation industry.
She is currently the Executive Director of the World Geospatial Industry Council
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Episode Sponsors:
- Radiant Earth Foundation: Apply for the 2022 Radiant MLHub Impact Award for agriculture-related applications for Africa - with a $5,000 cash prize.
- Element84
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About Barbara:
Shownotes:
- We recorded this interview while Barbara was in Amsterdam for the Geospatial World Forum
- Landsat policy change document
- Gilberto Camara at the time Chief of INPE: Brazilian National Institute for Space Research
- Mark Mayers, former Director of USGS
- World Geospatial Industry Council
- GEO: Group on Earth Observations: the organization, not the field ;-)
- Books recommendations:
Timestamps:
00:00 - Introduction
02:56 - Importance of in-person conversation
05:52 - Connecting people
08:00 - Reaching people beyond languages
10:43 - Landsat pre-2008: before it was free & open
19:09 - Impact of the giving the data away for free
21:51 - Details on the policy change: push-backs & financial incentives
28:43 - The direct impact on the USGS
30:39 - International collaboration
32:32 - Domino Effect: The impact of Landsat on offer Open Data Policies
36:02 - Potential unexpected negative effects
37:41 - The scale of the impact opening up Landsat had
41:13 - Don’t use data as your transactional currency
44:14 - Making satellite imagery accessible beyond the data
52:00 - Distributing data as easily as possible
57:07 - Spicy politics story involving the Secretary of Interior
1:04:21 - Open Data should not be taken for granted
1:11:31 - Thoughts on Commercial Earth Observation
1:14:16 - Open Data Policies for Commercial EO: Parallels with the Gaming Industry
1:23:18 - Improving Communications in Science
1:28:41 - Earth Observation could learn to tell stories from the Gaming Industry
1:34:21: Barbara’s current role
1:39:04 - Being better ambassadors of Geospatial
1:42:32 - WGIC’s funding model
1:45:36: - Barbara retiring only to come back multiple times
1:51:12 - Book recommendations
1:53:21 - Advice for younger people
Feel free to reach out!