FOA 228: Solving the Rural Connectivity Problem with Dr. Sara Spangelo of Swarm

Future of Agriculture

Rural locations often have limited connectivity to cellular data. Dr. Sara Spangelo is the CEO and co-founder of Swarm Technologies. Their company launches constellations of small, sandwich-sized, low cost, two-way satellites into lower orbit space to provide affordable global connectivity. Different space programs offer them access to launching their devices including Space-X and Vega among others.

“That will provide us with a network of 150 satellites for global continuous coverage - covering every point on earth at all times and essentially providing a lower cost version of existing networks.” - Dr. Sara Spangelo

Swarm technologies is finding a home in agriculture technology as a solution to poor cellular connection. Sensor type devices will be able to send data continuously to producers at a reasonable cost. The business itself involves the acquisition of a modem that would then get embedded into a third party device. Users are then charged based on their data volume. The target customer is agriculture technology companies to have their technology incorporated into their devices with the end consumer being the producers.

“90% of our world has no connectivity except for these very prohibitively expensive solutions. And that’s really what Swarm is trying to solve for, that 90%, at an affordable point.” - Dr. Sara Spangelo

Dr. Spangelo recommends any interested companies contact them soon. Their connectivity capacity is limited so getting in line early may prove significant. Swarm Technologies is already working on the next iteration of their technology to provide more to their customers. The satellites function for 4 years before experiencing complete destruction upon entering earth's atmosphere giving them the opportunity to continually replace their equipment without any additional pollution in space.

Stay tuned to the end of the episode for a startup spotlight featuring Bloomfield Robotics CEO Mark DeSantis. Bloomfield uses artificial intelligence to help producers learn more about their crop conditions.

“We’re creating a massive digital database of plant phenotypes.” - Mark DeSantis

This Week on The Future of Agriculture Podcast:

• Meet Dr. Sara Spangelo, CEO and co-founder of Swarm Technologies
• Explore the connectivity their technology in space satellites can offer remote areas
• Learn about the process of launching satellites and find out what makes Swarm Technology unique in the connectivity space
• “Startup Spotlight” featuring Mark DeSantis of Bloomfield Robotics

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