Recently, NGIS joined Planet in Bali, Indonesia, for Planet on the Road, the Annual Partner Conference, to learn about their vision for tackling the World’s most complex environmental sustainability governance challenges using the latest advances in digital technology and the rapid innovations in satellite and aerospace capabilities.

Charlie Candy, Chief Revenue Officer, and Robbie Schingler, Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer, Planet, opened the event by demonstrating the vast efforts Planet are making to ensure governments and organisations worldwide have access to the right data, technology, and insights to protect environments and the security of our communities. This message resonated even more strongly as flash flooding struck Denpasar during the event, leaving a wake of damage in its path that tragically resulted in the loss of life. A stark reminder of why fast, actionable information is critical in the face of natural disasters.

A key focus of the event was the adoption of Planet’s ecosystem as a common operating picture for defence, intelligence, and emergency services, showcased in presentations from Jon Powers, Vice President, Federal, and Darius Pirzadeh, Senior Director, Product Management. Planet’s Global Monitoring System capabilities demonstrated how it can allow agencies to proactively wrench the needle of the emergency management lifecycle forward, strategically applying preventative measures that enable improved preparedness to mitigate the scale, severity and magnitude of events of this type and nature. 

These capabilities were reinforced by the efforts of Planet’s in-region partners throughout the Asia-Pacific, and further afield including The Tony Blair Institution for Climate Change, represented by Astrid Dita, who expressed that “When technology meets political will, and insight leads to action – that’s when real change happens”.

NGIS CEO Paul Farrell contributed to a panel on the future of Earth observation, sharing how NGIS and Planet are delivering real-world impact through partnerships across government and industry. This includes Whole-of-Government monitoring programs with the New South Wales and Queensland Governments to drive state sustainability and resilience, as well as our work with Google, CSIRO, The Nature Conservancy and IMAS on the detection and monitoring of giant kelp forests in southeast Australia, utilising Planet and other satellite imagery data sources. With an estimated 95% of kelp forests lost over the past 50 years, these projects are vital to protecting biodiversity and building climate resilience.

Paul also introduced TraceMark™ NGIS’ next-generation supply chain traceability and sustainable sourcing monitoring platform designed for enterprises with complex supply chains. TraceMark™ leverages Google’s AI and machine learning capabilities to provide comprehensive transparency across supply chain mapping, risk assessment and mitigation and regulations such as EUDR.

Katie Penn, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Mike Merit, Chief Customer Officer reinforced the impact of these stories by further demonstrating Planet’s unwavering commitment to it partners with aligning technology, data and services, with support and capability development opportunities that are ensuring partners like NGIS can continue to utilise Planet’s leading capabilities to deliver impactful outcomes to solve our clients challenges now, and in future.  

To explore more stories of how NGIS and Planet are driving outcomes for communities and the environment, check out our 2024 Impact Report.

Written by: Ken Gillan, General Manager, NGIS