1. KappaMask article has been published
The article introducing our KappaMask to the scientific world is published now: https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/13/20/4100. We developed Level-1C (L1C) and Level-2A (L2A) models that output 10 m resolution mask that includes clouds, cloud shadows, semi-transparent clouds and clear classes. The comparison with rule-based methods: Sen2Cor, Fmask, MAJA and machine learning methods: S2cloudless and DL_L8S2_UV (uses deep learning model) was performed and KappaMask outperformed all these algorithms on ~20% dice coefficient. The comparison was done on an isolated test dataset which was spatially and temporally distributed over Northern European region and was labeled with use of active learning methodology.
The dataset for training and test is freely available on this link: https://zenodo.org/record/5095024#.YXVuzJtRXpQ. For both L1C and L2A model we performed the feature importance analysis. Currently KappaMask L2A outperforms L1C model utilizing the use of AOT and WVP features in addition to bands. To our knowledge this is the first model built considering these features that output 10 m resolution mask.
The article was also presented during the ESA EO Phi-Week 2021 on AI4DQ – AI for Data Quality section. Let us know if you are willing to share Sentinel-2 dataset or model to enrich our comparison. You can always try our cloud mask models on Github: https://github.com/kappazeta/cm_predict.
At Phi-Week, a photo by Marharyta Domnich
We plan to extend the scope of the project, so it will cover global area. Additionally, we are looking into more reference datasets and deep learning cloud mask method for bigger and more systematic comparison.
Marharyta Domnich, machine learning engineer
2. Participation in the 7th Superangel Base Camp Hackathon
In the beginning of October KappaZeta team participated in the 7th Base Camp Hackathon in Tallinn (https://www.superangel.io/basecamp). Thank you very much for the opportunity, Kalev Kaarna and the whole Superangel team. There were a lot of wise people around us and a lot of clever ideas. If during next months we can implement 10% of them – then we have already made a big step forward in our development! 🙂 Special thanks for Elar Killumets, who spent with us a very fruitful hour discussing about company culture and goal clarity. We really needed the hackathon and the effect on us was like from fresh air. Thank you!
KappaZeta team members at Base Camp Hackathon, a photo by Tiit Tamme, from Superangel Facebook
As KappaZeta has never been a classical start-up, whose only goal is to make a lot of money – then here are some ideas how to make such events even better in the future. Do we need to measure the success only in money? What if the investors besides the question “how do you make money?” would also always ask “how do you make the world better?” And the latter question would be equally important, not only somewhere in the background. We understand that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with making money. The greater is the revenue and profit of your company, the more the clients value your work and are willing to pay for it. It is very OK and KappaZeta has also set themselves very ambitious financial goals. To reach those we must make excellent products and services and gather feedback from the users regularly – are our products and services useful for you?
Still, to have only financial goals is not enough for us and it seems that we are not alone. There seems to be a larger shift in values reflecting actual human development. Being “green” is not only a fashion thing. Especially the younger generation of investors are avoiding oil company stocks, because they don’t like their past and current actions. The number of ”green” investors is growing.
We believe that KappaZeta’s mission to “help the world to understand our home planet better via accurate satellite data and derived information” is a big thing what the world needs. But how we turn it into revenue?
A more general open question – how to tie and connect the goals of making the world better with making money? So that it would be not quite possible to make money without making the world better. Let us know if you have good ideas about it.
Kaupo Voormansik, SAR expert, CEO
3. KappaZeta at Design Thinking Conference
It is not always easy to have a balance between developing technical capacities and providing a well-suited service to your clients. But this equilibrium is vital and you need to find it or at least make a compromise between user needs and technology. Many of us probably know the caricature-like situation where passionate inventor presents his technologically brilliant solution to public but gets a cold reception from potential users as there is no need for that specific solution. Solution might be ingenious from the perspective of science or software architecture, but if there is no job to be done for somebody by this solution, then it is useless. Indeed, this piece of intellectual property might prove itself to be valuable in the future as a component of some other system. But still, to keep the process efficient and not to burden too much the warehouse of “currently not used” intellectual property, one should start the development process by identifying the existing problems of potential clients. Yes, leaving the office for some scouting or at least having some video calls with people is needed.
About a year ago our team entered the Design Master Class funded by Enterprise Estonia and led by BDA Consulting OÜ. This encouraged us to adopt the philosophy of you are never too close to your customer. In other words, this great design program equipped us with will and tools to really find out what are the problems of our clients that should be addressed with solutions built on our base technology – radar satellite remote sensing. By the way, the Design Master Class is only one example of many that tell the story of how supportive are Estonian public sector and start-up environment towards enterprises that really want to learn and evolve.
In this October we had a great chance to participate in the Design Thinking Conference by Designminds OÜ – https://dmkonverents.ee/en. One of KappaZeta founders, Tanel Tamm also delivered there a presentation about our journey in the Design Master Class. For Tanel it was a good way to look back from a new angle and to recall our main lessons from the Master Class:
- Mentoring can speed up the customer validation.
- Bringing together different user groups in the form of co-creation workshop gives additional insights.
- Keeping close relationship with users must be a continuous effort.
Our founder, Tanel Tamm making a presentation at Design Thinking Conference, a photo by Patrik Tamm, Design Minds
Jürgen Lina, business development manager
