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Enough data and satellite imagery is generated every day to fill the Library of Congress. Every. Single. Day. In this unimaginably vast digital information bank are answers to questions we can't even think to ask.

This data has also often been proprietary, belonging to corporations, governments, or institutions. What could we discover if we had open access to a searchable platform with all of the known Earth intelligence? How would that impact the decisions we make about the planet's health?

We are on the cusp of this dynamic understanding of the Earth. Compounding innovations like AI, machine learning, and cheaper computing, are making it possible to engage with this knowledge in real time. Dan Hammer has spent 15 years working on platforms that make complex nature data accessible and digestible to inform action and impact. Now he's working on an interface to help us explore and protect our world in a completely new way.




Dan Hammer is an environmental economist and winner of both the inaugural Pritzker Award and the Mark Bingham Award for Excellence in Achievement by Young Alumni at UC Berkeley. He is a National Geographic Fellow, and served as the Senior Policy Advisor to the U.S. Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith in the Obama Administration. Hammer was the Presidential Innovation Fellow that released the first API listing for NASA, amounting to the data infrastructure design for the space agency's public data. In addition, prior to NASA, Hammer was the Chief Data Scientist at the World Resources Institute, where he helped re-launch Global Forest Watch, an open-source project to monitor deforestation. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx