Walter Scott

Founder, DigitalGlobe

Walter Scott

Satellite imagery began in the late 1950s and picked up pace the following decade. Despite the level of transparency that satellite photography brought to human race, this technology was only available to handful individuals and governments.

This Cold War-era reality is a far cry from what people from all over the world enjoy today. Satellite imagery and GPS are part of the 21st-century lifestyle. The level of satellite imaging technology we have can only be surpassed by in our imagination.

Walter Scott, founder of DigitalGlobe, presents to the audience of Where 2.0 2010 the unique features of satellite technology which provide unprecedented levels of agility, accuracy and output quality. DigitalGlobe has over a billion square kilometers of imagery in their archive--close to collecting the land surface of the planet seven times over.

Walter unveils the company's next generation geospatial cloud which opens their technology to the public--in effect bringing a global user base "seconds to anywhere." Walter brings to this talk over 24 years of experience in business and technical management of sophisticated space, defense, computing and remote sensing programs.


Walter Scott founded DigitalGlobe (as WorldView Imaging Corporation) in 1992 and managed the team that led to the launch of QuickBird in October 2001. He currently leads the team that is executing the company’s WorldView program, building DigitalGlobe’s next generation satellite and ground processing system. Walter previously worked at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), where he served as assistant associate director of the Physics Department, managed the “Brilliant Pebbles” Strategic Defense Initiative program, and led the development of computer automated design and manufacturing tools for wafer-scale integration. Prior to joining LLNL, Walter was president of Scott Consulting, a Unix systems and applications consulting firm. Walter received his doctorate and Master of Science degrees in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley; and a Bachelor of Arts in Applied Mathematics, magna cum laude, from Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Resources:

This free podcast is from our Where Conference series.

For The Conversations Network:

Photo: James Duncan Davidson