Bird.i aims to deliver Earth Observation (EO) data to the mass market; making Earth observation ‘social’.

Maps and Earth Observation imagery have increasing importance to our daily lives and global economy. There is an incredible growth in the quantity of Earth imagery which enables highly accurate observation of large-scale events. This has useful applications in all walks of life: from those attending festivals to those who are looking for high resolution images for humanitarian reasons. However, often mapping and Earth Observation imagery are prohibitively expensive and beyond the reach of the everyday person. Although there are mapping services that provide information, often, these satellite images are outdated and not ‘live’. Imagine taking a real time selfie from space. Bird.i enables this.

Traditional data provision models have relied on disseminating low – volume, high cost images to high value customers. In this model, only a fraction of the wider audience of individuals and businesses can derive value from this information. Bird.i aims to make fresh and quality observations available to a wide range of consumers. This will exploit captive markets, such as online travel or estate agencies, and the wider wealth of online, real time georeferenced data.

Earth Observation is also a powerful tool to provide high-revisit coverage of specific regions. Data about our planet gathered from space finds wide ranges of applications, such as air pollution measurements, natural disaster predictions and consequences as well as the pace of deforestation. It can measure the entirety of human impact on Earth. The business model relies on determining locations of high demand, acquiring relevant imagery from multiple data sources and delivering the results directly to customers. The aim is to acquire and sell only the pixels that matter, maximising their value by selling them multiple times.