2017 ICT4D Conference

Maps provide an understanding of the past and are magical bridges to the future, connecting ideas to global stewardship and positive human impact. Indeed, over the last decade, the value of using geospatial data to support global development and improve decision-making among practitioners, have progressively been acknowledged as essential. It is also the reason why the call for ‘open geospatial data’ has gained momentum amongst various sectors, including global development. However, despite the positive global impact of earth observation to assist sustainable development work, the imagery market remains highly fragmented, lacks transparency, and the data are difficult to discover and use.

Working with partners that share its vision, Radiant.Earth emerged to provide a technology platform and support knowledge transfer to positively impact the developing world’s greatest social, economic and environmental challenges using geospatial technology. The platform permits users to illuminate earth, literally, to allow everywhere to be ‘seen’; to turn the telescopes back on human activity as we enter the Anthropocene period; and to give decision-makers a scientific window into understanding global activity better. Providing the world with these tools and data can create and accelerate powerful insights – and greater catalytic, evidence-based support for change.

Radiant.Earth provides solutions to earth observation usability obstacles for positive global impact: It simplifies the overall process across the value chain of using geospatial data; it exposes imagery across the globe, date and spectrum; it provides technology and tools to do analyze geospatial data, thereby improving the usage of data for greater impact; it works with the community to create new, open standards; and it focuses thought leadership, market analytics and capacity development programs.