WATCH: CEO David Potere on what makes TellusLabs unique

On April 28, the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation hosted the GEOINT summit in Tampa, Florida. Our CEO, David Potere, participated in the “Future of Commercial Remote Sensing” panel alongside John Murtagh, head of strategy at Airbus Defence and Space; Dr. Walter Scott, founder of DigitalGlobe and chief technology officer at Maxar Technologies; Robbie Schingler, co-founder and chief strategy officer at Planet; Jane Poynter, CEO of WorldView; and Julie Baker, co-founder and Vice President of operations at Ursa.

At the start of the panel, each participant was asked to explain why they believed their company could be a “winner” in the competitive field of remote sensing.

David made the case that the key to remote sensing is asking the right questions. For TellusLabs, that question is: How can we create a map of the world’s food supply that is more transparent and reliable than current models? “We are the most worried about food security. Somehow, we are going to have to make 50–70% more food before my son is out of college — and it’s not all that clear how that’s going to happen. So, we feel that figuring out how to put eyes on the global food supply has got to be an important question to wrestle with.” It’s not an easy question to answer, we think our Kernel product represents real progress!

We also distinguish ourselves through customer empathy. David explains that his goal is to actively problem-solve through customers in order to deliver the most accurate, effective, and personalized data as possible. “We want to understand their problems, so that when we give them an answer, there is some kind of ‘so what?’ that matters to them.”

When asked what he was the most proud of since the company’s founding, David answered: “We discovered our purpose around the world’s food supply, and I’m really pleased with how the team has aligned around that as the thing that keeps us up at night.”

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