Securing tomorrow together: Transforming systems for climate resilience

SPEAKER_2 (0:05)

Welcome to the AiDASH Evolve 2024 podcast. AiDASH makes critical infrastructure industries climate resilient and sustainable with satellites and AI. Evolve 2024 in New Orleans, Louisiana was our inaugural event. We gathered industry leaders, innovators and visionaries to explore how cutting edge technology and satellites and AI is safeguarding critical infrastructure and fostering biodiversity to ensure a sustainable future amidst climate change challenges. In this podcast series, we are recapping the entire event, every speaker and session. You can find it all on our content hub at ai-dot-com-slash-evolve2024 or check the show notes for all pertinent links. In this episode, we'll hear from four industry leaders, from Kpmg, Schneider Electric, Accenture, and TRC companies, who share their insights and strategies for creating a more sustainable and adaptable future. This session explored innovative approaches to building climate resilience through systemic transformation in partnership with AiDASH. Representatives from each of the four companies presented on the Evolve stage in turn, Arun Mani, Principal, Deal Advisory and Strategy for Kpmg Llc, Angus McPherson, Global Solutions Architect, Power and Grid, for Schneider Electric, John Alford, Management Consulting Senior Manager, Accenture, and Sachin Gupta, VP Digital Solutions for TRC Companies. They covered a lot of ground, including how utilities must balance technology interventions with strategic long-term planning to ensure effective vegetation management, how climate resilience needs a strategic approach, which involves educating stakeholders and leveraging technology, including satellites, AI, and data-driven predictive modeling. They also explained how transformative change requires a balanced global approach that includes bringing AI analytics into operations control centers, as well as recognizing the importance of real-time data management, integration, and governance.

SPEAKER_3 (2:20)

Please join me in welcoming to the stage head of partnerships of AiDASH, Michael Nieman.

John Alford (2:26)

Welcome, Michael.

Michael Nieman (2:30)

Thank you. It's my pleasure to welcome you to today's Partner Spotlight. Partners are a huge part of our success at AiDASH, and it's awesome to see so many of you here today. Thank you for coming to New Orleans.

Together, we are, with our partners, not only planning the future, but we are securing tomorrow. Today's session will have two portions. The first is Transforming Systems for Climate Resilience. It will feature leaders from Kpmg, TRC, Schneider Electric and Accenture. We will then move on to Satellite and Cloud Foundations, featuring UP42, Maxar and AWS. I'm excited for the great presentations you're about to hear. I'm even more excited for the follow-up dialogue, ideas and partnership opportunities that we will generate together. And with that, I would like to kick things off with our first speaker. Please welcome from Kpmg, Arun Mani.

Arun Mani (3:34)

Good morning. I will just say this. The drink that sounded really good at 11 p.m. last night didn't seem that great at 8 o'clock in the morning, but it was a, what a celebration, what a party. AiDASH, thank you very much for having me. I'd say, look, when it comes to these events, there's really three things that we all come here for, right? One is the content and what a day was yesterday in terms of just, you know, packed with great speakers, wonderful content. Second is certainly the celebration, and I think you all knocked it out of the park last evening. Certainly the parade was the highlight. And third one is the connections. And I'm just so delighted to see pretty much the entire industry, the combination of industry and technology really coming together onto a great platform. So with that, I'm just gonna take a few minutes and talk about just how we've been partnering with AiDASH, which has been relatively a short journey so far, the last couple of three months, brought together really by a common client in this beautiful city of New Orleans and working on solving the climate risk issue. But to start with a bit of a commercial slide, Kpmg were one of the big four accounting advisory tax firms. I'm a partner based in Houston. I've been in the sector for the last 30 years. I run the US firms, Energy Transition Business. There's really two types of work that we do. One is around growth strategy, which is really working with companies in terms of helping them with their top line. And then the second one is really, I would say, operation strategies focused on efficiency and effectiveness, which is really what we're doing with one of our clients as well as with AiDASH. And specifically in the topic of wildfire risk and how we can use technology outside of California to really look at getting their hands around the concept of wildfire risk.

Let me go to the next slide. I'm not going to drain this slide. I think we've heard enough from yesterday's speakers about climate change. I mean, to me, look, it's no longer just climate change. It is a changed climate. There is no debate about it. If you just look at the data, be it East Coast, West Coast, the Midwest, and in fact globally, things are different today than they were 10 years ago. We heard yesterday from several speakers about the increasing frequency as well as the consequence of these weather events. So it is a changed climate and we got to do something about it. Here's some data that just talks about the different kinds of climate events, be it extreme heat, be it wildfire, be it flooding, be it coastal inundation. Again, this is real data. These are some of the companies, the world. It's not just these companies, but again, they're just representative. But again, this will give you a sense of just what the exposure is. It doesn't matter where you're looking. There's going to be some kind of natural disaster that's waiting to happen. I think this is really where technologies like AiDASH really come in. Specifically, the CRISS module, the Climate Risk Intelligence System. Personally, I think in the last couple of three months, as we, I would say, diligence the module as well as had a chance to work very closely. Just the level of depth, the rigor, and of course, the richness of data that the platform is able to bring together is pretty powerful, and we're very excited to be able to do some great things with that.