NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Friday, September 21, 2018

Radiant Earth Foundation announced that it will release a new, open Earth imagery platform to assist the global development community to tackle a range of challenges including disasters.

The platform’s overall goal is to change the way humanitarian aid workers, policymakers, researchers, journalists, and others use satellite images to understand and serve their communities. From understanding the scale of natural disasters to supporting Ebola outbreak responses, the satellite data can measure global changes in near real time, leading to better-informed interventions and investments from both the public and private sectors.

Radiant Earth Foundation says that that the current growing market for Earth observation data is highly fragmented and often cost-prohibitive for NGOs, multilateral organizations, government agencies, and others focused on social entrepreneurship. The non-profit organization says that its platform is the first of its kind to offer instant, secure, and free access to Earth observation data on the cloud and help the global development community apply the data to real-world problems.