My career levering space technologies for environmental and social impact stems from my life, educational experiences and my personal goals. Having grown up in South Africa, I fell in love with the power and influence of nature on the quality of life. It was then embedded in me that this was a force worth fighting for and with. But to ensure this symbiosis, the challenge of translating the power of isolated technologies, complex system dynamics and confrontational messaging needs to be digested, made relatable and postured to invoke actions to uptake.

What better way to do this than gain an absolute perspective of impact on the earth than using EO, GIS and AI? As such, as a formally trained environmental planner and communications professional, I came across Space4Good in my search of meeting the nexus of storytelling and environmental science. Working at Space4Good was the opportunity to formally do what I have trained and set out to do - communicate the power of impact on the earth by impact projects and inform valuable change. My love for this technology and sector has just skyrocketed from there – excuse the pun.

My non-technological expertise adds value to the company I work for on multiple fronts, despite the largely technical foundation on which we function. The nexus of my background in communications (PR, storytelling, research and connection) with that of more scientific expertise in environmental and infrastructure planning (spatial sciences) have enabled me to reach my goal of bridging the gap between science and impact arenas. All too often we overlook ‘soft skills’ (I don’t like that term, but you know what I mean), as being secondary to hard skills. But we must not forget that it is the role that our skills play that makes our tech translatable to non-tech experts, our partner/client issues understandable, solutions relatable, and effective deployment for impact qualifiable. In the end, I believe our technology can just be technology and not a tool until we connect it with impact arenas. And connection is what I and other professionals like us do.

Working along with the data scientists in my work is a massive highlight. Very often, these magicians of earth observation and AI transport me to places formerly unreachable and help me understand with their outputs the impact industries, climate and people have on the land via the systems I have dedicated my career to studying. This is the gap I want to translate – and we see this as a common goal. Very often it is important that interaction with my colleagues is pointed and direct to our specific project/development goals. Although we do enjoy innovating and ideating together, I have noticed it is best that I have a concept of our partner’s challenge/goal outlined to a common company framework for our tech team to riff off. For example, a first meeting is not the ideal time to bring in our tech muscle. Their time is PRECIOUS and highly impactful to our outcomes. As such, being organised, and understanding the client asks, the tech needs and sales objective before engaging is best. However, each organization is different, but learning the workflow of our engineers and figuring out how best to engage without negative knock-on effects to their work, is greatly appreciated.