The Growing Business of Earth Observation

Rich Leshner has been working in the DC space policy community for nearly two decades, with experience in the non-profit, government, and industry sectors. Rich’s NASA experience had him working on international projects for collaboration in exploration, managing a $150 million portfolio of innovative small business research, and working in the Administrator’s office. He worked for two years at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where he supported the development of the 2010 National Space Policy as well as championed reforms to more fully integrate commercial space capabilities into national programs. Since 2014 Rich has been at Planet, the small satellite Earth observation data and analytics company based in California. Rich was previously Planet’s Vice President for Regulatory and Government Affairs, and is now the Executive Vice President of Planet Federal – Planet’s subsidiary for work with the U.S. government. Rich has a MS in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford, and a PhD in Public Policy and Public Administration from George Washington. He lives in DC with his wife and daughter.

After leading software research and development for over two decades, Jimi is the founder & CTO of Orbital Insight. Orbital Insight helps business and policy decision-makers understand economic and societal trends through geospatial analytics. His corporate focus is to develop artificial intelligence, machine learning, and computer vision, creating a new source of market data for diverse industries.

Before a successful $1B Monsanto acquisition, Jimi was the SVP of Science and Engineering at the Climate Corporation. Prior to that, he was CTO and Software Architect at Moon Express whose goal was putting the first commercial robot on the moon. As the Engineering Director for Google Book Search, he was in charge of
Google’s project to scan, index, and make searchable all the world’s books. As EVP of Engineering at Composite Software, he led product development around data visualization. At Nasa Ames Research Center, Jimi led Autonomy and Robotics projects and authored over 15 peer-reviewed publications, resulting in five patents. Jimi earned his Ph.D. and Master’s degrees in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin, and BA in Math and Computer Science from Rice University.

He has a long-term interest in photography which led him, most recently, to eastern Idaho to photograph the August total eclipse.

Gabe Dominocielo is the co-founder, President and Chief Strategy Officer of Umbra Lab, Inc. (“Umbra”). Umbra is a technology company that builds next-generation space and earth-based sensors to deliver raw intelligence – via an integrated web platform or application programming interface (API) — as a service to commercial and government customers.

Dominocielo is responsible for the company’s growth and corporate strategy on transactions valued greater than $1 billion. He serves on various private boards and the USGIF’s NRO and NGA working groups.

Dominocielo is an outspoken contrarian on the existing satellite industry business models and a critic of data partners selling competitive in-house analytics. He is an advocate of strong partnerships with GEOINT firms that are free of channel conflicts. At Umbra, he has implemented transparent, self-service scheduling and tasking; permissive licensing (creative commons); and clear universal pricing.

Prior to Umbra, Dominocielo co-founded a legal services company in 2007 that is still regarded as one of the top legal services of its type in the United States.

Dominocielo specializes in customer acquisition and has extensive experience bringing new products to market. He was credited with “money balling” the selection and marketing of class action lawsuits. This method is now pro-forma in the legal industry. The firm’s attorneys generated over $1 billion in verdicts and settlements, and was certified by the State Bar.

Dr. Shay Har-Noy is Spire’s General Manager of Aviation, responsible for leading the business that is making air travel and shipments safer, more cost effective, and more efficient.  Shay most recently served as a leader on the Uber Maps product team and as Uber Boulder site lead.  Previously, he was VP and GM of Maxar/DigitalGlobe’s Platform business — their high growth effort to get DigitalGlobe’s 15 year digital library in the cloud and available for processing. Prior to joining DigitalGlobe, Shay was founder and CEO of Tomnod combining crowdsourcing and machine learning to create new applications for satellite imagery. Tomnod was acquired by DigitalGlobe in early 2013.  Shay started his career at ViaSat where he worked on the deployment and market positioning of satellite communication systems around the globe for government, commercial aviation, and maritime customers. Dr. Har-Noy graduated summa cum laude from Rice University and received a Ph.D in Electrical Engineering with research in image processing from UC-San Diego.

Ryan Lewis is the Artificial Intelligence (AI) / Machine Learning (ML) Practice Manager for Amazon Web Services (AWS) National Security sector. He is responsible for developing and executing the Practice’s strategy, building collaborative partnerships to support product development, and leading AI/ML strategy and projects across the national security community. Prior to joining AWS, Ryan was Senior Vice President at In-Q-Tel (IQT) where he co-founded the IQT Labs applied research organization, CosmiQ Works, dedicated to AI applied research for geospatial applications as well as SpaceNet, a nonprofit LLC organization designed to accelerate open source computer vision research for remote sensing data. Ryan also served for two years on IQT’s investment team leading customer accounts.

Before joining IQT, he was an Account General Manager for Computer Science Corporation and was responsible for P&L within the U.S. Public Sector market. Ryan holds a bachelor’s degree from Truman State University, a master’s degree from the University of Maryland, where he was named a Memorial Fellow, and an executive certificate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management. He is currently a Senior Associate (Non-Resident) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Nina has more than 10 years of experience in the satellite industry, having held various positions while at KSAT. With a background from publishing and content marketing, she is currently responsible for the company´s communication across the business units.
Representing KSAT, Nina travels to countries around the world speaking on panels and seminars, engaging government and commercial stakeholders.

In her previous role as International Sales Manager, Nina’s main focus was Maritime Monitoring services based on SAR data (Synthetic Aperture Radar). KSAT provides oil spill monitoring and vessel detection services globally and has pioneered the industry with pushing the timelines for Near-Real-Time (NRT) delivery of actionable information- leveraging the global ground network, especially the unique Svalbard station.

Nina has had the opportunity to work with several of the most significant international oil companies (IOC´s), government authorities, coastguards and other stakeholders with key focus areas in Latin America, South America, and the Middle East.

Her portfolio also included the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA), an Agency providing technical assistance and support to the European Commission and Member States on maritime safety, pollution by ships, and maritime security.

Nina is former Chairman of the Norwegian Oil Spill Control Association, (NOSCA), a non- profit association dedicated to promoting products and services within global oil spill preparedness and response, representing more than 30 Norwegian companies.

She lives in the Arctic Capital of Tromsø in Norway- an ideal place for Polar Ground Stations and cross-country skiing.