Rafal, what’s the most important issue or topic you are working on at the moment at ICEYE?

I work as the CEO of ICEYE and I'm also one of the Co-founders of the company, alongside Pekka Laurila who is our Chief Strategy Officer. At the moment, we are working on expanding our constellation of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites and we are especially focused on further developing our solutions for flood monitoring. By combining data from our spaceborne sensors with multiple auxiliary information sources, we generate accurate hazard data which can then be delivered to insurance companies and government bodies in near real-time. We also intend to expand our offering to additional perils such as wildfires, wind and hail in the future as well.

Finnish Flow theme in Davos 2022 is Future of Cities. How are you working towards a better future in our cities?

Earth observation and remote sensing companies such as ICEYE can layer near real-time geophysical insights, for example on natural disasters with behavioral, situational, and contextual patterns to enable autonomous visual intelligence and better decision making. The advance of such capabilities will also progress global efforts to ensure a sustainable world for future generations. Governments and international agencies can also use the insights to monitor economic and planetary sustainability. As an example, insurance companies can leverage our expertise and data to monitor floods in near real time, even going to such a level of detail as to provide flood extent and depth.There's also growing recognition of remote-sensing-enabled Earth Observation as a complementary data source to progress the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). One of our insurance customers, Swiss Re, estimates that at least 17% of the UN's 231 SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) indicators can immediately benefit either directly or indirectly from the use of EO data, and we can expect this to increase over time.

What’s the biggest change you’d like to see in the world?

Remote sensing and persistent monitoring can play a key role in providing better data to measure sustainability indicators. Applications of geospatial and earth observation sensor data from satellites and other integrated multi-sensory, multi-sources are expanding rapidly. New business models are emerging as a broad range of solutions enabled by such data are unlocked across industries. ICEYE builds on these technologies, making such solutions even more accessible. This will democratize granular geophysical insights beyond military and government to benefit also commercial enterprises, such as insurers and reinsurers.

Tell us about your commitment to make this change happen: as a leader, what steps do you intend to take to make this change happen? What are you committed to?

One thing I’ve learned throughout our ICEYE journey is that at the end of the day it is all about people, and what we can achieve together. People need to come together to create amazing things. Without people, we would not have been able to grow ICEYE so quickly into the company it is today. There’s a popular proverb that states if you want to go fast go alone, but if you want to go far go together. If an individual has ambitions to go far, he will quickly recognize that he needs to involve and trust others. That’s been one of the biggest and most important lessons I’ve learned in our ICEYE journey and making sure our ICEYE team is constantly working together as a team is something I am committed to do everyday.

How is going to Davos in May going to help you in reaching your goals?

The World Economic Forum in Davos is one of the most impactful business conferences and networking platforms in the world. In previous years, Finland hasn't been really represented in the event week. We are honored to be part of the Finnish Flow initiative, building a new next-generation approach to represent the Finnish business community, with global impact. Finnish Flow's themes of Leadership, Technology, Sustainability and Happiness are closely in line with our company's values where we believe in making the impossible possible everyday.