A.I. For Environmental Challenges
Space Startup Spotlight: Tesselo
“Spatial insights-as-a-service.” It sounds like a brand new cloud technology out of Silicon Valley, but it’s actually the product of a startup that wants to protect the Earth.
Tesselo — a new space company founded in Lisbon in 2017 — is leveraging satellite imagery and intelligent A.I. algorithms to provide industries with environmental insights. The hope is that by allowing organizations to measure global ecological phenomena at scale, Tesselo will encourage them to use resources more sustainably.
At a fundamental level, the daily job of the Earth observation company is simple: to collect data from satellites and turn it into “actionable intelligence.” The Portugal-based team of software engineers and number crunchers uses a set of smart algorithms to generate insights automatically from thousands of data points.
What is so remarkable about Tesselo is the sheer number of sources it combines. So far, the startup leverages satellite images, drone footage, multi-spectral SAR, and LiDAR for its analytical services and plans to extend this in the future. Often, the photos that clients receive are mosaics or composites, collected using multiple technologies, filters, and cameras. Customers can request raw footage, “clean” data with things like clouds removed, and “intelligent” data where A.I. models selectively pinpoint and enhance critical features. Ultimately, the tool makes it easier to implement sustainable business practices and quantify the effect on the environment.
Tesselo’s approach is very much in keeping with a trend we’ve seen in the space industry over the last few years. It is not so much about colonizing the solar system but, instead, using technology to improve life here on Earth. The company’s CEO, Rémi Charpentier and his team are extremely concerned with the environmental and climate challenges that the Earth faces in the coming century. They see their role to improve the world’s monitoring capacities, providing an early warning system that could potentially thwart environmental disasters and prevent them from developing into major catastrophes. Acting at scale, they believe, is the best way to deal with the challenges that humanity faces.
The firm currently targets three main areas: forestry and agriculture, infrastructure and cities, and insurance and certification.
In the realm of agriculture, Tesselo provides real-time, country-scale mapping that allows authorities, landowners, farmers, and logging firms to monitor a wide variety of environmentally-relevant factors. These include things like estimating the impact and risk of forest fires, predicting forest growth, monitoring plantations, and even detecting pests, providing a valuable prediction tool.
The firm also caters to those concerned with infrastructure and city planning too. Its advanced technology lets planners assess pollution levels, identify potential vegetation incursions, and measure the risk of forest fires to residents, assisting with urban development decisions.
Insurance companies can also benefit from the startup’s services. Having better access to real-time maps and satellite images makes it easier to price risk and estimate clean up costs after a disaster.
For Tesselo, “planet B is too far away.” Investments in space are about protecting planet A — the only one we have right now.
You can learn more about Tesselo from their website, and their social media accounts: LinkedIn & Instagram
“Space Startup Spotlight” is a new, regularly-scheduled, profile of an up-and-coming space startup from around the world by NewSpace Hub.
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