April 1, 2026 14:00 CEST
Live on Microsoft Teams.
On April 1 at 14:00 CEST, the ESA Φ-Lab Collaborative Innovation Network will host a new Φ-talk. Details are below.
Meet the speaker
Aravind Ravichandran is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of TerraWatch Space, a strategic advisory firm exclusively focused on Earth observation (EO), advising organizations globally on EO policy, strategy and commercialization. His expertise spans the entire EO value chain, from data acquisition to decision-ready insights, with a focus on bridging EO capabilities to operational applications.
He has worked with space agencies, EO companies, and enterprises across sectors such as climate agriculture, energy, insurance, climate and sustainability ensuring that EO data is translated into practical, impactful solutions. Aravind has been invited to speak at leading EO and space conferences worldwide and regularly advises governments and enterprises on initiatives aimed at expanding EO adoption across public and private sectors.
Talk abstract
Earth observation has solved its data volume problem. What it has not yet completely solved is its intelligence problem – turning petabytes of satellite data into outputs that decision-makers can actually use. This talk examines two technologies reshaping where and how that intelligence is created: edge computing in orbit, and GeoAI on the ground. Rather than treating them separately, the talk frames them as two points on the same architectural spectrum and asks what happens when you optimise the whole pipeline rather than each component in isolation. Drawing on market research and analysis across the commercial EO landscape, the talk covers the state of onboard processing (what's operational vs. what’s still in the demo stage), the GeoAI hype-reality gap, and what scalable Earth intelligence actually requires.