WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.000 Foreign. 2 00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:41.000 Welcome to the GeoMob podcast where we discuss geo innovation in any and all forms, whether for fun or profit. Hi everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the GeoMob podcast. Very pleased to be joined today by Abba Osunsade, who is the ecosystem lead at geovation. She was also a speaker at our most recent London event back in May 20th. So ABBA is going to give us an update about what's going on at geovation, specifically their Ecosystem Explorer membership. So abba, welcome to the show. Great to have you here. 3 00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:43.000 Thanks, thanks for having me. 4 00:00:43.000 --> 00:01:01.000 Thanks for speaking at the most recent GeoMob and of course a huge thank you to GeoVation in general for hosting us for many, many years. We've been very fortunate to have her events there. Why don't we start, abba by you introducing yourself and what your background is in geospatial. 5 00:01:01.000 --> 00:03:39.000 Okay, cool. Awesome. Yeah, happy to be here. It was very cool to be at the event and see all the different kind of folks in the room. So I enjoyed that and the talks were excellent as always. So yeah, my name is Abba and I've been working in the tech industry since 2011. I'm very new to the geospatial world, so I started in consumer tech. I was an intern at London's Groupon Office back in 2011, a year before the record breaking IPO and that was my first foray into startup life. After watching the movie the Social Network, I thought that's so cool. I studied economics at university and I found myself working in the city and I was very bored and I thought surely there's a better life to be had and I thought, oh, startups look cool. So that's how I ended up at Groupon and I was there for three years, pretty much just hanging around until my equity vested, which wasn't worth very much by that point to be honest. But anyway, we learned some lessons hard way and then I went to Amazon where I worked on the payments team. So now working with APIs and starting to learn a bit more about the technical side of things. And yeah, I then onto companies like HotelTonight, now part of Airbnb and Product Hunt. But my time in geospatial is like relatively new to be honest. I've been aware of the world and I've seen people building cool things with it and when I saw this role come up to be the ecosystem lead at geovation, I know a lot of things about ecosystem. I was on the community team at Product Hunt, which is part of AngelList I built a community myself, Hustle crew. But I was very honest with Gareth where I said, I definitely know more about ecosystem than I do about geospatial. We had a really interesting conversation and he said, we're at this point in geovation's journey where we want location data to be utilized by all kinds of innovators and all kinds of startups, not just the most obvious use cases for what geospatial can do. We want people who are building consumer apps, who are building social apps, who are building everything, to see the value that location data can bring for end users, but also for their business intelligence. And it's part of a wider conversation within Ordnance Survey UK's oldest tech company. Over two centuries old, but we sell so much more than maps. Most of our revenue comes from the data that we sell. And we see this opportunity to elevate the brand of ordnance Survey and GeoVation as a real player when it comes to location data across so many use cases. And that's really what the spirit of geovation is about. Because we support startups, because we support innovators, we can help them ordinance Survey anyway, unlock new ways that location data is being used. 6 00:03:39.000 --> 00:03:48.000 Well, first off, very impressive background in tech in general. I didn't realize you were a Groupon veteran. 7 00:03:48.000 --> 00:03:49.000 Daily deals. 8 00:03:49.000 --> 00:04:22.000 That's a name from a different time, but very cool. Yeah. So As I mentioned, GeoMob in London has benefited so much from GeoVation being always hosting us again and again. Honestly, the event would not be what it is today without the support of geovation. But just for the benefit of our listeners who are not in the UK or maybe haven't made it to London, maybe first, very briefly, kind of introduce what exactly is GeoVation? I should mention, obviously it's more than just the physical space. 9 00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:23.000 Absolutely. 10 00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:27.000 There's a lot more. So maybe take us very quickly through what exactly geovation is. 11 00:04:27.000 --> 00:07:15.000 Yeah, so geovation, I guess, is like a portmanteau, Right. Geospatial innovation combined. We're in our 16th year of existence and we really started when Ordnance Survey and HM Land Registry came together and said we need to unlock the power of location data. And I think variants inspired by the open source movement just had this idea of like, well, how can we do that? How can we get more people accessing our data sets, using our data sets, playing with our data sets, generating insights from our data sets. How can we reduce all of the barriers to that? Let's provide some data for free, let's get people sitting down with our developers in clinics. And one to ones playing around with ideas. Let's run events, let's work with public sector, private sector. So just taking inspiration from exciting things that were already happening in open source, but using it specifically, specifically in the context of the location data that Ordnance Survey has as an organization that's been around for a really long time, but also HM land registry as well, with all the data that it has from property, et cetera. And that's really sort of how geovation was born. If we look at how geovation exists now, there's different elements to it. One big piece is our program. So we have twice a year, these amazing incubator programs, cohorts of six or seven startups, either in the spring or the autumn being selected, coming into an intensive 12 months of expert led workshops, working with developers to build proof of concepts and MVPs. Unlike other workshops or accelerators, you're basically getting your own CTO for however many months and building your own proprietary technology, which is really, really cool. You're also getting access to HMLR data, you're getting access to OS data, you're getting access to the networks and the partnerships that we can build. So the programs are a really, really big part of GeoVation, but it's also about community. We've got over 2,000 members spread all across the world like GeoMob. These are people who are obsessed with location data. It's fun, it's interesting, it's cool. It helps us make sense of the world around us, the physical space we inhabit. But it also adds this layer of intelligence to help us understand the world better, help us build better products. So yeah, we've got the community. And that community come to events like Breakfast Club, which we've just had in the hub today. They come to workshops like one that we're doing later today on AI workflows run by one of our members who's shipping things with Claude Code and wants to show people how he's doing it. And yeah, of course we have our physical space here in London and partnerships with other innovation hubs across the uk, like Engine Shed in Bristol. We have geovation Scotland as well, which works with registries of Scotland. So we're making our footprint sort of spread out across the uk, but we very much have a global reach too. That's our ambition. 12 00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:41.000 Well, we've been fortunate to have talks by many different geovation startups going through the accelerator program over the years, both at the events and on the podcast occasionally. So it's really an impressive program that anyone in London or In the uk, working in the geospatial space, I would highly advise to check it out and to apply and get involved. 13 00:07:41.000 --> 00:09:02.000 Thank you. I was also add to that when I first started my business Hustle crew, I didn't really know what I wanted it to be. It started as a meetup and then capitalism came along and said, you should monetize this some way. I thought, oh, okay. I started speaking to investors, joining accelerators, joining incubators, they're not all created equal, they're not all alike. I think one of the things that makes Geovation's accelerator amazing is that first of all you get 20k and it's equity free. So no one's taking a stake in your business, no one's demanding you give them some shares, you get access to developers, tech clinics where you can literally sit down. And we've had people join who are not technical at all or who've never seen a line of Python in their lives and suddenly they are building these MVPs, building these proof of concepts that are all theirs to own forever. We're not taking anything. And then of course they get the data and they get the insight and they get the partnerships working with local councils, whether that's working with government departments like defra, whether that's connecting with private sector. And I think, you know, to be in the part of tech that is very focused on the impact that we make and improving things for the public good, not just profit, not just growth for me is incredibly satisfying and I think that's really cool that geovation are so focused on that. 14 00:09:02.000 --> 00:09:07.000 And there have been some quite big successes actually this year. Recently we had the news of Flock. 15 00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:11.000 Flock? Yeah, they exited to Admiral for 80 million. 16 00:09:11.000 --> 00:10:08.000 They presented at GEOMAP, I think in 2016 or so. Cool. So, yeah, so congrats to all involved on building GeoVation over the years. Today, specifically though, you wanted to talk with us about the Ecosystem Explorer membership. So maybe I'm fortunate. I know what this is, but I wanted to make sure everyone in the geomob community was aware of it and all the benefits of it, particularly, I have to say. I mean, of course it's very valuable for anyone in London, but I think particularly valuable for people like myself who no longer live in London or have never lived in London, who are only occasionally in London and can still take advantage of geovasion's excellent facilities. So why don't you take us through exactly what is Ecosystem Explorer and what are the costs, what is involved and what are the benefits? 17 00:10:08.000 --> 00:13:18.000 Yeah, absolutely. Thank You. So I think we recognize to your point that people are increasingly nomadic, but we also understand that there will always be value in being able to tap into a community in a very physical space and feel like there is a place where you can sit comfortably and discuss and ideate and whiteboard and chat and problem solve, tinker with things. And that's really what we're trying to create, certainly in the hub here in London. Yes, of course, if you're not in London, you can access the slack, you can access some of our webinars, but I also feel to some extent you can get those things anywhere. So I'm going to focus on the things that I feel like make us really unique and make our membership really unique. And that is the hub space. What we're trying to do with the Ecosystem Explorer membership and signing up is literally just like signing up to a newsletter is give people a space in Shoreditch to meet other people working on interesting things, to chat to, talk to, spend, speak to members of our team os, Team gvation, team developers, and be a part of that journey from 0 to 1 or 1 to 100 or 100 to 1000. Because that journey is a lonely one, it's a difficult one, it's a hard one, but it's fueled by curiosity. And I also think it's fueled by connection. And if we can be a facilitator of connection and if we can be a fount of curiosity, then I think we've done our job. So when you sign up to Ecosystem Explorer, you will get access to our shortage space. So it's a short walk from Barbican, Farrington, Old Street. We have lots of other cool, interesting companies in our building, like Go Cardless. But yeah, it's a startup space where we are running events regularly. Some events are more sociable, games, night, breakfast club. Some events are more educational, OS data workshops, tech clinics. We have one today, as I mentioned, on building AI agents, but really it's an opportunity for people to have that space away from their usual coffee shop or away from their dining table or their desk, their hotel room table, wherever they might usually be working and feel a bit like they're part of a team again, meeting all the other founders, the alumni, the rest of the teammates. And it's a very frictionless process to join. As I said, it is very much like signing up to an email newsletter. Like once you've joined the membership, once you're on the system, we'll get you into an induction. They happen online or they happen in person. And then that's it. You're on the slack. You've got access to booking onto our events, you've got access to booking a meeting room if you need to pitch to investors or have a big day of coming up with ideas on a whiteboard. Whatever you need, really. We want this space to feel like someone's office, even if they're a team of one or a team of two or a team of three. We want it to feel like a place where everyone belongs and everyone can connect. We don't want to put barriers up or make people feel, you know, any kind of way and where they don't belong. Like, we really just want to create a vibe where people are happy, even if they just have six hours to kill between a train and a flight or whatever to come open up their laptop and just start tinkering. 18 00:13:18.000 --> 00:13:21.000 And we should emphasize this is entirely free. 19 00:13:21.000 --> 00:13:22.000 Absolutely. 20 00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:36.000 Yeah. It's really a phenomenal offering that I benefit from and I recommend all of our listeners benefit from as well. And the other point we should make is this is in no way limited to people in the uk. 21 00:13:36.000 --> 00:13:37.000 No, absolutely not. 22 00:13:37.000 --> 00:13:43.000 Our listeners in other countries, who maybe are only occasionally in London, can still take advantage of it. 23 00:13:43.000 --> 00:14:51.000 Yeah, exactly. Our only qualifier is that you are curious about location data. You are curious about places, objects, things, the very points of intelligence that we are obsessed with. And we are fascinated about whether it's something like you are working in climate and you're curious about biodiversity net gain, and you're wondering about different landscapes, different green spaces, different forest area. And you want to know whether we have information that can help you do that. Maybe you're just building a consumer app and you want to know about, I don't know, transport infrastructure so you can find places where people are most likely to convene or be or pass, whatever it is. Maybe you haven't even got that far yet. Maybe you're just like, well, what is location data? I've got a few things I want to build or a few problems I want to solve. I'm not 100% sure geospatial location data can get me there. That in itself could be a valuable starting point. So, yeah, we welcome innovators of all stages to come through. Like you said, it's free. So all you have to do is register. And once you register, we'd love to see you here. 24 00:14:51.000 --> 00:15:44.000 Well, you make a good point there, Abe. And this is one of the things we always try to emphasize at GeoMarbor. One of the things that, for me, keeps it Continually interesting is that geospatial, you know, every business has some element of geospatial because everything is happening somewhere. So you know, that's what makes it, there's. So it touches every system in some way or another. So, you know, there's a continual stream of interesting new projects and interesting new ways to take advantage of that. Particularly now of course, as everyone is walking around with a supercomputer in their pocket that knows exactly where they are. Yeah. So the limit to the ways we can take advantage of that, it's really just our creativity. 25 00:15:44.000 --> 00:17:04.000 Yeah, I agree. I really like that. And I think one of the things that we really would love to be able to do more effectively at geovation is break down some of the barriers around using location data or even understanding what it is. Because I certainly have met lots of founders even in the five months that I've been here who think, I don't know if geospatial will be relevant for me. Let me just start talking about what I'm building and they'll get one or two minutes in and I'm like, well actually, yeah, you probably want to know a bit more about your supply chain or you want to know a bit more about your customers or you want to know a bit more about where they're coming from or what they're doing or where they'll be when they're opening up your app and how that could help you. Suddenly we've thought about 50 different interesting geospatial data points that they could use. I really hope that one of the things I can do through the ecosystem, through the events that we run through the members that we bring in, how we tell the members stories and how we get the members sharing about what they're building is remind people that exactly as you said, it's about being creative and open minded and almost challenging our own assumptions about what we think geospatial is. For many of us, we hear geospatial and then I don't know what comes to mind, a satellite, I don't know, a highway, infrastructure, something. But it's so much more and it's things we have yet to imagine. 26 00:17:04.000 --> 00:17:35.000 Yes, very true. But likewise there are also, I do think the other piece that's so important here is this does have profound implications also about things like privacy and things like that. So places like geovation are so important that we have the forum where we can discuss these kinds of things and decide how, what should be the roles in this, the rules in this new world that we're now encountering that the technology makes possible. 27 00:17:35.000 --> 00:19:00.000 Yeah, absolutely. And this is a big focus for geovation and the role that we play within Ordnance Survey. So one of the biggest values that we can generate to our parent company that foots our bill and pays for all the lovely coffee that you will drink when you come to the hub, et cetera, is generating insights. And you know, there are four sectors where ordinance survey sees the opportunity for location data to add a layer of intelligence but also to your point, like be a key stakeholder in how location data is used across different use cases. So we've got transport, we've got property, we've got financial services, but we've also got national security and resilience. And I think, you know, the use of location data in a space like that. Thinking of conversations like what was happening with, you know, anthropic CEO and the Pentagon earlier this year, you know, we want to be involved in these conversations and we want to recognize the fact that location data is very valuable, but it comes with great responsibility. It's like that line from Spiderman, with great power comes great responsibility. We also hope that we can play that role in creating space for these important conversations. How do we use location data responsibly? How do we handle consumer data, end user data responsibly? How do we build products that are a net positive and sometimes it feels increasingly harder to do that. 28 00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:42.000 Yes, I mean it is a challenge. I mean the, the, you know, it's such a, it's such a double sided, double edged sword, right? On the one hand it's amazing that we can track everything, you know, with ultra precision. On the other hand, it's not always clear that we should be able, you know, should, you know, should you 100% of the time know where your spouse is? Should your spouse 100% of the time know where you are? Not clear what the balance there is. Right. And I guess probably for different people it would be different. But the point is we do need to have conversations around this. What is possible, what should be allowed, how can we still respect people's privacy and things like that. 29 00:19:42.000 --> 00:20:43.000 Yeah, it's interesting and I think there's probably like generational discourse around that. I mean I was in the park the other day because London was enjoying a heat, heat wave and I could overhear a group of friends, I guess 10 years younger than me, you know, commenting on each other's locations like so and so, said she was here. But I opened find my friends and I saw that she wasn't there and I Don't know why she didn't say where she was. And I found that very interesting how it's normalized in certain friendship groups and I know certainly in younger generations that all of your friends are on Find My Friends. And of course there's a security aspect to that. You know, one of you leaves the pub early, you want to make sure she got home okay, but if that's on 24 7, you know, suddenly it's abused and it's like, oh, I just didn't want to tell you where I was going because I didn't want you to come with me or I didn't want anyone to know. And, you know, you're being monitored and surveyed. So, yeah, it is really interesting and I'm also very curious because here at geovation we have so many different ages and so many different backgrounds. I'm also interested in how the different perspectives come together or diverge and what insights come from that. 30 00:20:43.000 --> 00:21:23.000 Well, and then there are, I mean, there's so many challenges like the privacy one. I mean, another topic that we've again, again comes up at GeoMob is of course the, the challenge that we're all facing now with climate change and how we're going to adapt our societies. And you know, you mentioned the heat wave, you know, so it's clear geospatial has a key role to play here. And, and so that's why it's absolutely critical that we have organizations like yours providing the forum where we can have these discussions and bring in all the different voices and different types of expertise that we're going to need to work on these things. 31 00:21:23.000 --> 00:22:21.000 I always get excited when I see energy startups because there are still significant barriers to introducing renewable energy, whether it's retrofitting it or building new developments, the capital investment that's required. It's really cool when you see startups like Grid in the Hub telling you about, like the largest development that they've ever worked on. They create solar subscriptions so they effectively take on the risk of investing in all of the infrastructure that's needed for a developer or homeowner to have solar power in their home. And they make the money back through a subscription. So you only pay as a homeowner for the time in which you are in that property, but you get all the benefit and solutions like that I just think are so exciting. And you think of what the future could be like if more and more homeowners and households could benefit from solar power starting from £30amonth. So, yeah, very, very cool. 32 00:22:21.000 --> 00:22:41.000 Okay, well, thank you very much, abba, for coming on the show and chatting with us. And also again, let me thank on behalf of the entire GeoMob community, the fact that GeoVation has supported us so much over the years by letting us have the events there and I hope long may it continue. 33 00:22:41.000 --> 00:22:45.000 Thank you 34 00:22:45.000 --> 00:23:22.000 again. Personally, I cannot emphasize enough to everyone out there listening. You should definitely get involved with GeoVation, particularly if you're even only occasionally in London, but even if not also online and just tracking the steady stream of very interesting startups coming out of the accelerator program. I find it inspiring. It's very cool to see all the creative, different approaches people are taking and so I have no doubt we'll continue to have many geovation startups speaking at the events and here on the podcast. So, right, everyone should get involved. Thank you very much, abba. 35 00:23:22.000 --> 00:23:23.000 Thank you. 36 00:23:23.000 --> 00:23:32.000 If this has hopefully raised people's curiosity, what is the best way for them to learn more, to get in touch with you? What is the next step that they should take? 37 00:23:32.000 --> 00:24:52.000 Yeah, well, you know, feel free to follow me on LinkedIn. My LinkedIn is in the show notes and you know, geovation.uk membership. Like I said, it's super easy. You literally just give us your name and your email and then once you're in, myself or Tessa from my team will be following up, imminently adding you to Slack, booking you into an induction online or in the Hub. But yeah, like you're always welcome to DM me on LinkedIn as well. If you have any more questions. If you want to find out more about the accelerator program, if you're, if you're thinking, huh, this could actually be quite good. That 20k and that tech support sounds nice. I'm not sure if I'm a good fit. Always happy to chat a bit more about that and share some stories from alumni that are building in a similar space to see if you think it could be helpful. Unlike other programs as well, we don't do it where it's like, oh, we've already invested in a solar startup, so we're not investing in any anymore. No, not, not at all. We're driven by insights and that's what's most valuable to us. So we're always happy to from here to hear from folks. If you're also an industry professional, like working in private sector, public sector, whatever it is, and you just want to network, get to know people, we'd love to have you as well. You don't just have to be building a startup. So yeah, hopefully I'll see you on geovation.uk membership or see you on LinkedIn, or see you at GeoMob. Because I think you guys are back in the autumn, aren't you? 38 00:24:52.000 --> 00:25:05.000 We will be back on in September, September 16th we will be there. And I look forward to seeing you there. I look forward to seeing many members of the geovasion community. And yeah, thank you for making the time to come on the show today and talking with us. 39 00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:14.000 Sava Pleasure. Thanks for having me. 40 00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:50.000 Thanks for joining us today on the GeoMob podcast. We hope you enjoyed the discussion. You can get the show notes over on the website, which is@thegeomob.com and while you're there, you can sign up for our monthly newsletter and find links to our accounts on Mastodon and LinkedIn. So you can stay up to date on all our upcoming events. We hope to see you at an event soon.