Time travel at your fingertips

Planet Explorer
United States (San Francisco)

Rivers move. Fires occur. Cities grow. Forests shrink. Icecaps melt. Ecosystems change. That’s why Robbie Schingler founded Planet, with the mission to make global change visible, accessible and actionable. Five years ago, he began building satellites in a garage. Today he runs the largest constellation of Earth-imaging satellites in the world.

With their Planet Explorer Beta anyone can navigate through space and time to see the Earth change by navigating backwards and forwards using the timeline bar with your mouse or arrow keys.

“We wanted to activate the pulse of the planet, actually allow for global change to be visible so you could see it in context,” he explains. “It’s really about what you do with that information, that’s when the impact comes. That’s when you can actually allow for people to make better decisions.”

It’s early days for the company, but Planet’s data is already being used for a diverse range of applications, from measuring agricultural yields to coordinating disaster relief and monitoring natural resources. Collecting untold amounts of data could transform the way we understand, and ultimately manage, our planet.

“The moon is in sight, Mars is in sight. It’s a very exciting time to think about how to reprogram society in order to bring the best of us forward as we actually go into the cosmos.”

► We chat to Schingler about the impact of 50 trillion pixel portraits and rocketing social responsibility.

Video produced by Atlas of the Future for Project Breakthrough (United Nations Global Compact/ Volans). Check out our other Breakthrough videos here.

Written by

Lisa Goldapple, Editor, Atlas of the Future (26 April 2017)

Project leader

Robbie Schingler, Founder, Planet

Support the Atlas

We want the Atlas of the Future media platform and our event to be available to everybody, everywhere for free – always. Fancy helping us spread stories of hope and optimism to create a better tomorrow? For those able, we'd be grateful for any donation.

Creative Commons License

Comments

 

Take me somewhere
Close
Take me somewhere
Close
Data Protection Act: LOPD.
In compliance with Organic Law 15/1999, of 13 of December, on Personal Data Protection, and the development of Rules of Procedure, approved by Royal Decree 1720/2007, of 21 of December, Atlas of the Future subscribers may be required to provide Personal Data, which will be included in a file owned by Democratising The Future Society SL. Such file is duly incorporated in the Spanish Data Protection Agency and protected in compliance with the security measures established in the applicable legislation. Subscribers may exercise, at any time, their rights of access, rectification, cancellation and/or opposition regarding their Personal Data. The subscriber shall notice their will, either under written form addressed to Democratising The Future Society SL, Ref. LOPD, Calabria, 10 6-3 08015 - Barcelona (Spain) and/or by e-mail, clicking here. Also, the subscriber shall communicate Atlas of the Future any modifications of their Personal Data stored, so that the information stored by Atlas of the Future remains at all times updated and error-free.
Close
Get World-changing projects and news in your inbox weekly.