Javier de la Torre: From Biologist to Entrepreneur, How Maps Help Preserve Biodiversity & Hosting Conferences - MBM#55

Minds Behind Maps

Javier de la Torre started a Biologist Researcher, went on to start Vizzuality and later Carto where he is now. Javier works at the intersection mapping, software based companies & geospatial. He is also one of the founding members of the Tierra Pura Foundation focused on mitigation and adaptions tactics to climate change.

Sponsor: Felt

Check out their QGIS Plugin to easily share your QGIS projects

About Javier

• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Carto

Shownotes

Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.

• Vizzuality
• Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth documentary
• Tierra Pura Foundation
• Andrej Karpathy’s tweet
• Geospatial + AI Javier talk at Spatial Data Science Conference
• Book & Podcast recommendation
  • Freakonomics Podcast
  • The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf (Affiliate Link)

Timestamps

(00:00) - Introduction

(00:53) - Sponsor: Felt

(02:19) - Javier Describes Himself

(03:49) - Curiosity as a driving factor

(07:16) - From Researcher to Starting a Company

(14:42) - Policy is 10 years behind Science

(18:04) - Solving the Worlds Biggest Problems

(21:01) - Focusing on a single problem

(27:38) - Carto

(31:29) - Commercial viability as a key to success

(39:00) - Buiding a company vs Doing the work

(43:01) - So, why host a conference?

(47:52) - Online vs in person community

(51:13) - Geo and AI

(55:46) - English is the ultimate programming language

(01:05:03) - Will SQL survive?

(01:13:00) - The valuable skills in a post-AI world

(01:17:29) - Book/podcast

- Support the podcast on Patreon
- My video on an introduction to satellite images
- Website
- My Twitter
- Podcast Twitter
- Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work