Minds Behind Maps Javier de la Torre: From Biologist to Entrepreneur, How Maps Help Preserve Biodiversity & Hosting Conferences - MBM#55
Javier de la Torre started a Biologist Researcher, went on to start Vizzuality and later Carto where he is now. Javier works at the intersection mapping, software based companies & geospatial. He is also one of the founding members of the Tierra Pura Foundation focused on mitigation and adaptions tactics to climate change.
Sponsor: Felt
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About Javier
Shownotes
Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.
- Vizzuality
- Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth documentary
- Tierra Pura Foundation
- Andrej Karpathy’s tweet
- Geospatial + AI Javier talk at Spatial Data Science Conference
- Book & Podcast recommendation
- Freakonomics Podcast
- The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf (Affiliate Link)
Timestamps
(00:00) - Introduction
(00:53) - Sponsor: Felt
(02:19) - Javier Describes Himself
(03:49) - Curiosity as a driving factor
(07:16) - From Researcher to Starting a Company
(14:42) - Policy is 10 years behind Science
(18:04) - Solving the Worlds Biggest Problems
(21:01) - Focusing on a single problem
(27:38) - Carto
(31:29) - Commercial viability as a key to success
(39:00) - Buiding a company vs Doing the work
(43:01) - So, why host a conference?
(47:52) - Online vs in person community
(51:13) - Geo and AI
(55:46) - English is the ultimate programming language
(01:05:03) - Will SQL survive?
(01:13:00) - The valuable skills in a post-AI world
(01:17:29) - Book/podcast
- Support the podcast on Patreon
- My video on an introduction to satellite images
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work