Introducing the Ground Truth Podcast by Flying Labs

Every meaningful impact starts with understanding what's happening on the ground.

In drone mapping, "ground truthing" means using high-resolution drone imagery to help validate geospatial data from satellites or planes, which is often not granular enough to see the reality on the ground. As drone pilots are immersed in the areas they map, they also get to walk the site, talk to people, and collect information that can support analysis.  It's the step that turns an aerial image into something you can trust and act on. Drones also let local experts generate their own data rather than relying on external sources, which is why they are often used for ground truthing. 

This is the spirit behind the Ground Truth Podcast, a new podcast from the Flying Labs Network.

Flying Labs work with local government, civil society, academia and communities to responsibly and sustainably localize and integrate drone, data and AI technologies into social impact areas in their own countries through training, projects, policy input, and programs that get young people into STEM. The Ground Truth podcast presents a platform on which the people who build local drone ecosystems can share their insights and compare notes on what actually works.

The first episode is a good example of what to expect: Tanzania Flying Labs' Leka sits down with Ibrahim of Sierra Leone Flying Labs. Ibrahim traces his path from self-taught drone enthusiast to leading damage assessments after Sierra Leone's devastating 2017 landslide by flying a 7km stretch of affected land and pairing it with on the ground socioeconomic surveys to help authorities understand who and what had been affected. From there, the conversation moves through building a national drone policy, training the next generation and what real, sustainable localization looks like in practice.

Watch the first episode below for unscripted conversation and local-to-local exchange from the experts creating impact on the ground.