Kaileen and Jonathan reflect on that past 10+ months of this Path and Focus journey in the last episode of season one! Join us as we explore some of the struggles and successes that have come out of this venture into wildfire technology.
12 Oct 2021
014. Guest interview with Bruce Morrow, Registered Professional Forester
Jonathan sits down for a candid conversation with Bruce Morrow, a professional forester with 40 years of experience in wildfire suppression and fuel management. They talk about everything from the 15 year pine beetle epidemic in BC, to how fire suppression can actually make for even worse fire seasons. Bruce also gives real time feedback on the Beacon app.
9 Sept 2021
013. Guest interview with Avvai Ketheeswaran, fellow Beacon developer!
Another very special guest is joining Jonathan on the podcast today, and this time it's Avvai, one of the wonderful developers who's helped bring Beacon to life! Avvai shares how much she's learned about wildfire, software development and product design, and what features she hopes to see implemented in Beacon in the future.
3 Sept 2021
012. The perils of wildfire risk on home insurance
Kaileen bought a tiny home! And is now experiencing herself what so many other home buyers in BC have this summer... being unable to purchase house insurance because of (perceived) risk of wildfire. We revisit how this was one of the initial motivations for starting our wildfire technology startup company, and then continue brainstorming ideas on how to get more Beacon users and more feedback from those users.
30 Aug 2021
011. Air quality conversions & Beacon premium features
Jonathan shares a project he worked on over the weekend that involved converting the Canadian Air Quality Health Index & the Air Quality Index that Purple Air sensors use in order to find a more accurate reading that adequately accounts for woodsmoke. Then, he and Kaileen explore different ways to start gauging interest in Beacon's premium features!
20 Aug 2021
010. Minor app bugs & biogeoclimatic zones
Kaileen and Jonathan explore some fire danger rating edge case bugs that were accidentally stumbled upon, and how using something called biogeoclimatic zones could change the game for getting more accurate work restrictions!
13 Aug 2021
009. Machine Learning with Chris Foster, our CTO!
We've got Chris Foster, Two Story Robot's own Chief Technology Officer and resident machine learning expert in the studio to set some things straight. Why can't we just slap a little machine learning on everything? What is the potential for it in the wildfire management space?? And the question we're all curious to know... is ML coming for our jobs??? (spoiler alert: it's not!)
6 Aug 2021
008. Initial feedback & product validation
Jonathan shares some early feedback we've received on Beacon, then he and Kaileen dive into the last few question marks they have yet to figure out before officially launching, and how they even validated this app months back.
30 Jul 2021
007. Navigating wildfire lingo & ableist language
Kaileen and Jonathan do their best to explain why machine learning is evidently far more difficult than they'd hoped, and what this means for our pursuit of up-to-date fire weather data. Then we explore the vast world of language- specifically ableist language and wildfire jargon.
23 Jul 2021
006. Getting weather data is tricky
Today, we start off by clarifying what the relationship is between the two companies, Path and Focus & Two Story Robot, then we get right into the heart of today's episode: our struggles with getting consistent, up to date weather data. Where should we pull the data from? How do we account for days where the data is not available?? Is machine learning the answer???
15 Jul 2021
005. Guest interview with Leum Elvins, BC wildland firefighter
This week, we're joined by Leum Elvins, wildland firefighter for rapattack. We get to peak behind the curtain of a day in the life of a deployed firefighter who rappels out of helicopters!
9 Jul 2021
004. The what, why, and how of fire indices
Today we're diving right into the crux of our Beacon app- the fire weather index! Kaileen and Jonathan give an update on the status of the app, explain how the fire indices are used, and explore the different ways those indices might be integrated into Beacon in order to help industry folx navigate whether it's safe to work our in the field or not.
30 Jun 2021
003. Why can danger ratings be so complicated?
We ponder danger ratings, wildfire liability, and why it can be so complicated for industry workers to decipher whether they can safely work out in the field (...oh, and how we're going to try and fix that)
17 Jun 2021
002. Branding
Kaileen and Jonathan share their experience with the branding process so far, where the name Path and Focus comes from, and what the next steps are for connecting P&F with customers.
17 Jun 2021
001. What is Path and Focus?
What the heck is Path and Focus and why do we think it's worthy of its own podcast? Jonathan and Kaileen explore the motivation behind starting the company Path and Focus, as well as this podcast... also named Path and Focus.
17 Jun 2021
Path and Focus: Teaser
We'll be exploring the fascinating, sometimes terrifying, and often misunderstood world of wildfires as we embark on our mission to develop technology to improve our relationship with wildfire.
Hosted by Jonathan Bowers, software developer and entrepreneur, and Kaileen McCulloch, a former wildland firefighter turned software developer.
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