Julian: Hey everyone. Thank you so much for joining the Behind Company Lines podcast. Today we have Jacek CEO of SATIM Inc, which provides a world class and unique AI based software solution for the detection and classification of military and civil vessels using synthetic aperture radar of satellite imagery.

Jacek, thank you so much for joining the show. I'm really excited to chat with you. And really, you know, it's, funnily enough, we've had quite a few satellite forward kind of technology focused. On the show already. So I'm learning more and more about the, the uses for different satellite and, and the, the way the industry is kind of meld together when they're kind of fighting for access or looking for access of these technologies and, and, and hardware.

So, but before we get into all that good stuff, what were you doing before you started SATIM.  

Jacek: Yeah, so hi everyone. Hi Julian. Thanks for, for having me. Yeah. So the question, what I was doing before joining SATIM, so I was doing my PhD studies on the satellite based remote sensing, actually using, sorry, imagery, so radar, imagery of earth.

And I was focusing on back then on the geo disease. So, so, you know, measurements of. Vertical movements of infrastructure and land using sar. And then I met my wife, Stasha my wife, co-founder and City of Satin. So it's a, it's a family company and yeah, and we decided to, to, to launch the company back in 2012, I guess. So quite a long time ago already .  

Julian: That's incredible. What, what kind of, what was the inspiration behind focusing on, you know using this technology, using this imagery to help classify and identify military and civil vessels? Was there a lot of I guess, I guess, you know, I don't know if it was an unfortunate episodes or where there was miscommunications or what in particular is necessary for classifying and detecting the differences these vessels.  

Jacek: Okay, so let me maybe take one step back and explain our audience what the, the radar imagery is actually, right? Because it's not the typical optical images that can be taken by, by any camera, right? Those are specific kind of imagery acquired by radars on, on board of satellites, right?

And those are, those come as, come as a, as a. image However, those are very complex signals behind it, and those images are very not nice to look at, let's put it that way. They're very granular, black and white very, with very, very small elements on those. A lot of noise, a lot of different effects. Yeah.

So it takes a specialist, highly skilled specialist to really understand what's on the, on that. image However, at the same time, those images can be acquired from satellites anytime regardless of the weather, condition, clouds, fog, rain, and regardless of day or nighttime. So that gives us a hundred percent visibility on any place on earth.

Anytime. And that's the, the biggest advantage of, of those radars. But as I said, those are complex, complex images and, and not many people probably have seen them already. And you know, we started to work with those images while we were doing our, let's say, studies on the ground informations because it happens, which is very, very interesting that from the satellite, like six, 600 kilometers up.

We can measure even very small, like tric, different sense differences in heights, like ground affirmations, for example. Millimeter size of ground formation can be measured from, from the satellite. And that's where we started actually. And we've been doing some, some research, some r and d projects financed by the European Space Agency over the.

And then once we came up with the idea of a, a, a slightly different application. So we, we came up with an idea of building a software that can simulate those images from the satellite of any given object, right? So we could put like 3D model of a car or of a vessel or of the whole city, and we would see how would that object look?

From satellite on the radar image, which is very complex, very difficult, like physics behind it. A lot of you know, that difficult stuff and that, and that's help us to start thinking of different potential applications for that kind of you know, capabilities. And then we have like, you know, think that that can help us to automatize the process.

Yeah. Of detection and classification of objects on those SAR images, and that's how it, you know, basically started.  

Julian: Yeah. Who, who uses the, the images and, and what are the different use cases you've seen for this type of information?  

Jacek: Oh, yeah, that's a good question. So, As a lot of things it originated with defense, right?

And military applications. So those were the first first users were actually military. And I think there still are majority of, of consumers of the, of the satellite radar image images because you can look, you know, anytime, anywhere basically. So, so that helps defense operate actually. And the problem, let's say with the satellite SAR images up until like maybe a couple of years ago, was that any single image can cost couple thousand dollars or, or euros.

Or even more in some cases. Yeah. Wow. So it's extremely difficult, right? Not, not everyone can afford mainly defense can afford, right. But, but actually with the, the new constellations like eyesight, Capella, Umbra, and some others, commercial constellations those images become more and more affordable and can be used in many, many different applications.

Also, with including civil applications, security applications, commercial applications, as well.  

Julian: Yeah. And it's so fascinating the, the use cases of now different technology and the accessibility to them. What were people, how, how were people using the information before? Were they having to hire a specialist and then that specialist would then interpret that information or those images and, and then the data?

Was that how it was typically done? And how long was that process compared to now that you've automated it, how much more quickly can you access that?  

Jacek: Yeah, we have done, we have done such a comparisons, let's say. So first of all in our opinion to train a human to be able to you know, analyze SAR images Yeah.

Can take like a year or more Right. To have a, a good training on how to understand all, all that. Yeah. And be able to detect some objects. So it takes a long time, first of all. And then when a human gets an image like that, it can take. You know, quite a long time, including hours, sometimes even days, to really extract all the information and try to understand what's on it.

While the solution we have, we have developed, which is AI-based automatic software for vessel detection and classification, it takes less than a minute to process a single, a single object. And. where and which vessels are present on that specific image.  

Julian: That's incredible. And, and I'm always curious in terms of like the restrictions around the access to which satellites and information just structurally in the world.

If you can share with our audience, are there certain countries that are allowed to access certain satellites, only their own satellite. Well, how do people kind of navigate the abundance of satellites, but also the access to them? Are, are some people not allowed to? What does that kind of channel look like?

Or can everyone access the satellites?  

Jacek: That's actually quite complex situation still. It's, it's under, let's say under construction to, to build something more easy. But still it's, it's quite complex. So, so, you know, we can start with the, with the satellites are governmental. That only governments has access to, we don't even know if they exist.

Right? So that's the first layer I would say. Then there are as well governmental defense constellations that we are aware of and we can reach out to and, and get some data, for example. But there are strong limitations in terms of the geographical areas. So some countries. You know, excluded.

Yeah. Let's take, you know, all the, the, the war where war is going on, they probably don't want to share too much with with you know, with everyone. So there are some sanctions, of course. And also if you want to get like high resolution data to be able to see a lot of details, then it can also be more complex, right?

You need to be screened, you need to. There has to be a due diligence done on you, so, so that the, the provider know, knows who you are actually. Yeah. As well. There are, you know, more and more s that are commercially available so anyone can, can order a scene and, and get it. However, there are again those limitations on the geography and, and the resolution.

And there are also, you know, like a European Copernicus constellation mm-hmm. that provides free of. images to anyone actually over the whole globe almost. But it comes with the you know, with the price, with the price quotes. Price is the low resolution, right? So you cannot see the details. You can only see the general trends, right? Yeah. So, so, yeah. So that's complex still.  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. In, in regards to, you know, satellites, we, we see a bunch of companies now private. Launching noon satellites and, and and from what I understand, most satellites or maybe all of them have their own specific language. So even the, the gathering, the information from those satellites are, are difficult.

Do you see the satellite industry changing, developing make, is it becoming more accessible or is it becoming more restrictive? Where, where's the technology going? What, what's the change in satellites? I think all of us think of them maybe in one shape or form. If, if we're not keen to the. But with new private companies jumping into there, where is it headed to?

Jacek: Yeah, it, it's heading to a very, very interesting let's say place. Mm-hmm. . So first of all, you know, there there's emerging number of companies in the space sector growing very, very fast. starting with those who, who build the satellites, you know, build the payloads build the hardware that is going to be put, put upstream.

The next ones are building the rockets, right, to transfer that into space. Then another ones are building actually like a small buses or taxis that are put on top of the rocket that take like a number of different satellites, you know, go out of the rocket and then split those satellites on orbit.

Right? That's a separate, let's say, type of companies. . Mm-hmm. . There are also companies doing debris cleaning or gathering on on orbit refueling, refueling stations for satellites deorbiting, you know, services to clean that. The, you know, the, the, the remainings. So there is the whole economy around that growing.

You know, right now that. You know mimicking what's happening on earth to some extent. Right. But it's happening in space, so, so it's getting more and more easily accessible actually, the space. Yeah. And as well access to, you know, to data like the images for example, but also communication navigation, you know, all that.

And one, one interesting example is that I actually very recently had a chance to see. A platform like online platform that will be soon, I hope, accessible to, to anyone. Yeah. And directly from that platform, the customer can task the satellite to take an image in a specific area, in any area, basically with a, with any parameters they want.

And then get that, that, that image you know, automatically downloaded. , it's directly going to satellite, right? There's no middle man, you know, between, so it's like actually we are starting to, you know, to maneuver to some extent. Yeah. Those satellites up there.  

Julian: Yeah. It's incredible to see how much more involved people are getting into space and, and using it. Really the, the information to interpret infor, you know, information or activities on the. But shifting to your, your entrepreneurial journey, I know you said you're in research and then, and then you, you and your wife kind of decided to build this product. What's been challenging about not only, you know, the entrepreneurial journey and getting into it and, and learning from, from a very not practical point of view, but you know, I guess one that is, is more high velocity.

And then also, Managing a co-founder relationship with your partner? What, what, what has that process been like? ?  

Jacek: Yeah, I like that question. It's, it very often comes up and just, just recently, we have been in some meetings and, and the introduction that was done to us was that, that, you know, there are two co-founders, husband and wife, and they're still talking to each other.

Right. Which is fantastic. , but no, actually, actually, we, we compliment each other very, very. So Stasha is our cto. She's actually the brain behind the operations. She is the author of, you know, all the technical developments together with, with her team, actually. And we like to call those, like, we have two groups, let's say in a company.

One is the disco. So the disco is a tech team. They're like just, you know, developing boom, boom, boom. They know what to do. They're just playing the rhythm while the business side of things is jazz, right? So we're like, Playing different notes, searching seal for the right note, searching for customers, you know, jazz around.

So, and I'm more on the jazz side, right? I, I, I, I represent the company outside. I speak with the customers, I speak with the, with the partners, stakeholders and, you know, whereas when there is a touch point between us, it's, it's actually great because we always understand each other and compliment each other in those, you know, discussions.

Yeah. So it's actually, you know, it's my, my, my blessing that that I have her yeah. On my side and we can work together.  

Julian: Yeah, that, that's, I love the disco and the jazz. It makes so much sense. When, when you describe it what's been challenging, I guess, or, or what, what's, what's been a big learning curve for you?

You know, going from academics then, you know, transitioning into a role where you're now building partnerships versus, I'm sure like, you know, analyzing data and, and getting deep into the weeds of information. Now it's, you know, it's completely shifted. Sounds like on building relat. Partnerships and, and identifying ways that you're mar that you can you know, attract interest from different stakeholders.

What, what's been a, what have you learned the most about and what are you continuing to learn now in this type of role?  

Jacek: Yeah, that's actually a fantastic journey, I have to say. Starting from research academia, then, you know, serving a small company. Just, it was at the beginning it was more like a lifestyle company, right.

Doing some, some, some projects, developing the technology together. Mm-hmm. and then starting to, to grow, right. Hiring new people interfacing with different stakeholders you know, growing. But I have the feeling that it was always, At least on my side, that was, that was my path actually, right? Yeah.

And my background is IT, right? So I was doing some programming, you know, all that stuff. And I think I, I liked it. I liked it differently, but it wasn't, you know, written to me to do it all my life. Right. I think I, I, I needed more, more challenges, right? Yeah. More challenges in the way, so actually the, all those challenges that have been in front of us and Seear are so exciting that, you know, that's actually what I, I think I've ever wanted to do. Yeah. However, I'm not one of those, you know, founders who are as a child, you know, looking up and thinking, oh, I'm, I'm gonna have my, my company and it's gonna grow. You know, it's not, it wasn't the, the dream of my life.

It just, you know, came up naturally. Right. Yeah. With my, with my skills and abilities and my wife's at the same time, just, you know, just flew like that.  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. It's incredible to see how people kind of evolve into and adapt and, and into what their, I guess, role responsibilities are through the whole, you know, founding of, of a company and that whole process, the entrepreneurial journey because I'm, I'm sure you know this as much as anyone, it's like you know, you have to be able to be comfortable doing anything at any given point in time. And that whole mentality is something that I think is really unique to founders. In particular, yeah. Uh, Especially people on the forefront, you know, like CEOs because you, you have to be so adaptable, but you also have to do a lot of the things that people don't wanna do.

Or the, exactly. Yeah. My co-founder says what does he say? He says, building a company is doing all the shit that nobody else wants to do when building anything. It, it's literally doing the tasks that are necessary brick by brick over time. . Yeah. Tell us a little bit about the traction. So who are you partnering with?

Where's the technology now? Who, who's adopted your program? Or your, your software and what is exciting about, not only now, but the future of where maybe it's next year or the continued growth of, of what you're working on and maybe the new partnerships that you look to have.  

Jacek: Mm-hmm. . Sure. So I think that the, you know, the traction actually started back in 20.

When we were invited to Techstars Starburst Space Accelerator back then, unfortunately virtual because of Covid but it was three months of you know, a hell of a ride . Especially that it was in the Pacific time, so yeah. Minus nine hour, right? So we were like sitting until up 3:00 AM with my wife, you know, doing all those activit.

But actually we were partnered then by, by fantastic you know, companies, institutions including Maxar, yeah. Nasa, jpl US Air Force Israel Aerospace Industries and, and some others, Lockheed Martin. And it gave us such a boost and, you know, such an understanding of the whole process and of the stakeholder picture.

That, you know, it actually, it was an accelerator as the name says. Right. It, it accelerated us a lot. Yeah. And and since then we have been, you know, we, we have then found our problem solution fit, right? So we had that technology and then we figure out that it's gonna be best applicable for maritime applications.

Right. Maritime object kind of detection and classification from the technology. , but as well we have discovered that in maritime market in general is is huge, right? Yeah. As you know, 71% of earth is, is water, so oceans and, and seas. So there's a lot of things going on there. and there is a lot of market to, you know, to, to go and and see what's, what's happening.

But actually, you know, we have started serving our, let's say, software providing our software to defense industry right at the beginning. So we've proven our value by providing the, you know, the core, the core technology to one, to one of the defense prime. That was really I think happy with, with what we have delivered.

And he actually helped us to, to build a product from the very, very, you know, alpha version up to mm-hmm. , something that is, you know, usable and, and, and sellable actually. So that was a great help. And then you know, we had couple of other pilots including some other big defense contractors. and then the unfortunate events happened in, in Eastern Europe, in Ukraine.

And yeah, we were, you know, we were also involved in some of those, let's say, helping activities, providing sub daily, you know, monitoring service. Mm-hmm. Over some of those regions for object detection classification. And that was a great, let's. a great experience for us. You know, it was unfortunate, but we, we thought we had the feeling we, we are helping the good, the good side and the good.

Right? The good thing, right? So, so be, be, you know beside just making some money on top of that, I think we were doing the right, the right thing and we were so happy to, to help. So it also accelerated us a. Yeah, so you see, I'm speaking about defense and I'm quite vague, right? I'm not giving names Cetera.

Sorry for that. No, most of that is under NDA, so I'm just giving you the, the, the whole picture. Yeah. but just recently, we, we have raised, the seed round in, in March. We are successful to get, , $1 million, in that round from two, US based vc. . And with that we have accelerated again, even more.

We, we started to, to do some key hires that, you know, allowed us to, to enter that market much more, you know, deep. Yeah. And right now we are piloting, or even, you know, negotiating the, the commercial, sorry, I mean, fully commercial contracts with those big defense primes. that we are, you know, really, really happy because we.

That what we provide is actually right now, very, very needed. Yeah. There are solutions for vessel, you know, detection on satellites are so saying, Hey, there's a vessel, but no one knows what's the vessel, you know? Yeah. What kind of vessel is it and who's it, who's is it? And we are adding to that, the piece of classification.

So we're saying, Hey, that's actually a commercial vessel, you know, bringing, let's say fuel or containers or something else. Or we are saying, Hey, this is. , you know unfriendly military vessel of a type xyz. Right? So, so that's much more information and we see that's you know, that's really, really needed now on the market.

Julian: Yeah. How do you balance out like, You know, where, where information can be you know, used for say positive and, and, you know, overall just beneficial versus, you know, maybe information is used in a way that you might internally feel isn't, is affecting another party negatively. Do you have to, do you have to balance it out?

And how do you balance out that challenge?  

Jacek: Yeah, so, so that we do during the due diligence process that we always do when we start interfacing with another party, right? So we have to check who the party is actually who owns it, what's the structure, you know, all that stuff around that informs us if that's the right thing to do, to work with them or not really, right?

And we should maybe stay, stay away, and and there are as well. Some directions from different let's say countries like our country and you know, America, where we have also the, the company established. So we have some guidelines of what to do, how to do, who to reach to. Yeah. To check right, that if that's a right cause or a bad cause. So we are very cautious with that.  

Julian: Yeah. No, it makes sense that, you know, it's all involved in that discovery process and when you're going through that due diligence. You know, I, I think a lot of companies, and I'm sure you're, you know, you're, you're just first, whether it's your mission or your values, it's kind of ingrained.

But more companies are being focused on exactly what partnerships they're making, because I think we're all kind of wanting to be more socially conscious, which is amazing to see, and I think is, is gonna be very positive moving forward. What are some of the biggest challenges that the team faces?  

Jacek: Yeah, so it's, so the technology we are building is hard, right? It's very, very complex. Yeah. I like to say that those, you know, those, those satellite operators who successfully launched those small, starting to launch those small satellites, you know, and they're working and providing invaluable data, they're on the forefront of the, of the. They're on the first line in that market.

Yeah. Yeah. They have done tremendous job, but you know, they're getting the data down and then something needs to be done with the data. Right. There has to be some information coming from those, you know, from that data actually. So I like to say we're on the second line right behind them, following them, you know doing, you know, similarly complex things, although we are not launching anything, you know, to to space.

But building something out of it is as well very, very complex. So, so on the technology, technology side, there are still, again, you know, again and again, some, some challenges, but we are doing very good at, at it, I think. Yeah. And from the business side as I said before, we have started to see, you know, a tremendous traction, right.

And , you know, requirements towards, towards what we can provide. And now we just have to like match, you know, the, what we have, the, the demand power and the possibilities on the technical side with the requirements, right? And, and, and not just, you know, stumble on it, just go smoothly, restructure maybe, you know, grow the company, get some funding grow the team and make it more easily dev you know, to develop those, those new solutions or require towards what the customers wants.  

Julian: Yeah. If everything goes well, what's the long term vision for SATIM?  

Jacek: So the, so the long term vision is actually for SATIM to become a translator or the very complex, you know, difficult to understand SAR imagery into information, right. That anyone can use actually.

And we have started with, you know, object detection on. And within that we have started with vessel detection and classification, but then we also wanna move towards different let's say environments like land-based. Mm-hmm. , object detection and classification as well. And then, you know, potentially adding, like fusing the picture with different other data sources that tells us what's, what's in there.

And then creating a vertical services for a specific, you know, target. Fulfilling specific requirements or, you know, or needs of the customers. And, and then, and then therefore scale the business with, you know, different products and, and offering.  

Julian: Yeah. That's incredible. I know we're coming close to the time and I always like to ask this question from all my founders for, for research purposes, of course, both selfishly and for my audience.

But whether it was early in your career or now, what books or people have influenced you the most?  

Jacek: Books or people. Okay, so I was talking about my wife. We are, I think, influencing each other all the time. . So that's the first first element. And then I think, you know, very, very important person on the road was actually Matt Kosoff.

He was the managing director of Techstars LA in the, in the space program. , he was amazingly helpful and devoted to all the 10 companies within the program. And he's, you know, he was inva and still is invaluable source of you know, help for us. On the, you know, on the book side of things, there were a number of different books that I read.

Yeah. Okay. One that, that I really liked that was in. It was about, it was about corporations and, and how, how startups grow. Yeah. From the perspective on the, of the employee who was. And like outsider a bit, right? So he was ex journalist hired in a very dynamic young startup. He was totally unfit, and his perspective was totally different, right?

He was like pointing all the elements that startups are like doing, why they're doing that, right? What's the reason? Yeah. So there is not so happy, you know, and looking forward perspective, but actually very. Critic that I really liked as well. I don't remember the name right now, so at least in English, so I wouldn't tell tell that.

Julian: Yeah, no. Yeah. If you if, if you find that out, let me know. That's not so fascinating. It's always interesting hearing a different perspective because, you know, everybody talks about drinking the Kool-Aid in a startup where you're, you're really devoted to the mission and, and driven and, and all these kind of maybe superfluous.

Aren't necessary for, for building and scaling, but sometimes they're necessary for culture. But it's interesting to see where that line is and, and it sounds like, you know, it was well defined in that book. Well, yeah, yeah. Check. Thank you so much for joining the show. I'm really excited to share this with my audience also.

So fascinating learning about the different ways that technology is influencing, you know, information that we have available, but the accessibility is delayed or not as efficient as it can. But last real bit before we, before we leave the show here is let us know where we can get involved.

Where can we find you? Where can we be part of the, part of the mission of sub team? What are your LinkedIns your websites? Your Twitters, where can we be part of the mission and, and get involved?  

Jacek: Sure. So we have of course the webpage, which is satim.co. Invite everyone to, to visit. We also have the LinkedIn profile.

You can check us on LinkedIn, SATIM Inc.. So you can always, you know, check what's, what's new. There's a lot of, you know, stuff happening recently. So please check out, check us out at least on those. Pages.  

Julian: I love that. Well, I hope you enjoyed yourself and thank you again for joining the show and, and joining Behind Company Lines, and sharing your story.

Jacek: Thank you, Julian. It was a pleasure to be here.  

Julian: Thanks. Yep.