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Making a Better World: Conversations with the 2020 Better Satellite World Award Recipients

In this podcast series, SSPI Director of Development and Innovation Lou Zacharilla interviews the recipients of the 2020 Better Satellite World Awards about their projects, goals and making a better world for all.

Episode 1: Helping Refugees Recover and Reconnect - A Conversation with Avanti's Debbie Mavis

Debbie Mavis is Group HR Director at Avanti Communications Group. She has many years of experience in Talent Management and Human Resources positions throughout the satellite industry and others, including as Head of Talent & Resourcing for TSB Bank and as Head of Resourcing and HR Services at Vodaphone. Debbie accepted a Better Satellite World Award on behalf of Avanti’s Bidi Bidi Project at the 2020 Better Satellite World Awards Celebration.

In 2019, Avanti Communications began to use its satellite technology, which provides coverage across Sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and the Middle East, to improve the welfare of refugees, host communities and humanitarian organisations in one of the largest refugee settlements in East Africa, the Bidi Bidi refugee camp. The camp, based in Northern Uganda, hosts over 270,000 displaced people from the neighboring conflict in Southern Sudan, and is located in a remote, off-grid area, making it difficult to provide support for the refugees and the overtaxed host communities and local resources. Avanti partnered with the Social Innovation Academy (SINA) to provide satellite broadband powered by solar energy to the Bidi Bidi site, as electricity is rarely available in the region. This installation is the first of three that Avanti plans to set up in the refugee settlement. Read more about Avanti Communications’ Bidi Bidi Project.

With Thanks to Our Corporate Partners

Episode 2: Providing Healthcare No Matter the Distance - A Conversation with SES's Alan Kuresevic

Alan Kuresevic is Manager Director (CEO) at SES Techcom. He has 27 years of experience at the company, where he began as a Senior Manager and later became Vice President of Engineering before his current position. Alan is a board member of Tolar HashNET and Redu Space Services, as well as President of SES Techcom Afrique. He accepted a Better Satellite World Award on behalf of SES's SATMED Satellite-based Telemedicine Platform at the 2020 Better Satellite World Awards Celebration.

SATMED is an award-winning Luxembourg Government’s e-health satellite-based platform that combines medical care, education and health management in one platform that can be accessed from anywhere. It provides doctors with the ability to keep accurate medical records, consult with colleagues and allows better education for health professionals even in the remotest areas, where there is lack of terrestrial infrastructure. SATMED integrates health applications, connectivity andcloud services for securely storing and sharing data, enabling healthcare professionals and institutions around the world to communicate and collaborate easily and effectively. The web-based platform is accessed with a single sign-on and offers teleconsultation, teleradiology, health information systems, e-learning, electronic medical record systems and much more. Users in remote and under-served areas can access high-quality satellite broadband connectivity provided via SES’s satellites and connect to the SATMED platform. Thanks to SATMED, quality healthcare is possible regardless of the location or circumstances. For its accomplishments, the platform was recognised with a VSAT “Changing Lives” Stellar Award in 2016. Read more about SATMED.

Episode 3: Helping Farmers Survive and Thrive - A Conversation with SatSure's Prateep Basu

Prateep Basu is the Co-Founder and CEO of SatSure AG. He co-founded SatSure in 2017 and has served first as Global Head of Strategy and Partnerships and then as CEO for the past 1.5 years. Prateep is also a Board Member for Nodd App. Before co-founding SatSure, he served as an analyst at Northern Sky Research and as a scientist at ISRO. Prateep is a graduate of the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, the International Space University and Stanford University. He accepted a Better Satellite World Award on behalf of SatSure at the 2020 Better Satellite World Awards Celebration.

SatSure AG is a DeepTech space applications startup that provides spatial decision intelligence to banking and insurance clients around the world. Their proprietary platform SatSure SPARTA uses satellite imagery, IoT and weather data among others, analysed using various Artificial Intelligence algorithms, to generate usable data insights for banking customers to help them better manage their agriculture portfolios and reduce the non-performing assets through efficient loan recoveries, increase their lending and financial inclusion mandate by adding new customers, planning their market expansion as well as bundling insurance products to protect their portfolio from climate change effects. SatSure’s alternate data-based insights help financial institutions create efficient risk policy and underwriting, enabling access to finance for even smallholder farmers, who have traditionally not been part of any institutional lending. And its product suite SatSure SAGE is helping these lenders provide better customer experience for such farmers even in the remotest regions of India, by accelerating the onboarding process, enabling higher range of products and different interest rates to choose from, bundling farm management advisories, and helping build an empathetic approach to customer relationship in the event of defaults caused due to natural or market volatility events. Read more about SatSure.