rePhotoSA at Google’s Geo for Good Summit in San Jose

Article and images supplied by Samantha and Zander Venter

The Geo for Good Summit was held in Sunnyvale California from 16 – 19 September 2019. This year, the summit combined the Earth Engine User Summit and Earth Outreach’s Geo for Good User Summit to "bring together the Earth Engine and Earth Outreach communities to one larger event where scientists, non-profits and change-makers can learn from each other and potentially collaborate on projects for positive impact for our planet and its inhabitants."

UCT PhD graduate Zander Venter (image below) and former Plant Conservation Unit (PCU) research assistant, Samantha Venter, attended the conference this year. Zander presented a lightning talk (2 minutes) to the Geo for Good community on three of several Apps he has developed using satellite imagery in Google Earth Engine. One of the Apps, called the ‘Woody Plant Inspector’ was developed to more effectively communicate the story of bush encroachment over South Africa. The App includes historical and repeat photographs from the PCU database and from the rePhotoSA project.

Amazing keynote addresses were given from Google users including Google Street View contributors, Google Earth Voyager contributors, Google Plus Codes colleagues, and Google Earth storytellers. Lightning round presentations were given mainly by students and companies using Google products in research while the breakout sessions and ‘buildathons’ were designed to inform and assist current and future Google users with Google products.

The conference was so much fun and we learnt a lot! Looking forward to next year!