15 Minute Maps
Hugo Powell
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About This Podcast
This podcast is dedicated to those people making positive change in the world using GIS, mapping and cartography. Each guest is given 15 minutes to describe their dream map, and how it could impact the work they do.
Hello and welcome to 15 Minute maps, where I ask my guests to let their minds roam free and come up with a new idea for their dream map. The first known map of the world was created three thousand years ago, (of a flat disc-like world surrounded by water,) and today we are making maps of the furthest reaches of the known universe. In between lie a myriad of mapping possibilities. What if we could do away with resource limitations… think beyond the conventions of time, space and political boundaries? What new kinds of map could we dream up?
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Recent Episodes
S2E5 Episode 25 - Momin Ashraf: The Foggara System
Forget Silicon Valley. The most innovative "smart technology" for water management might have been invented 1,500 years ago in the Algerian desert.Host Hugo Powell welcomes Momin Ashraf—Oxford…
S2E4 Episode 24 - Éloïse Neff: All Terrain GIS
What if the best map isn't a map at all—but the system that makes mapping effortless?Eloise Neff spent seven years at Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) building geographic information systems from the…
S2E3 Episode 23: Willa Sumer - Wildlife and water... Tackling a Californian Crisis
Why do biologists wake up at 4 AM to look for birds? And what does that have to do with California’s housing crisis?In this episode, California based GIS analyst and conservation expert Willa Sumer…
S2E3 Episode 22: Mathew Roberts - Where the Money Flows
What if you could see exactly where the world’s money goes—in real time? From Swiss bank accounts to mobile money in Sierra Leone, and from colonial resource extraction to modern "resource…
S2E1 Episod 21: Max Malynowsky - Offline is the New Online
What if humanitarians had an offline-first mapping tool as reliable as a Garmin GPS? In this episode, Max Malynowsky — software engineer at the OCHA Centre for Humanitarian Data — dreams out loud…
S1E20 Episode 20 - Saïd Abou Kharroub: The One-Stop-Shop Map
What if all the data needed to respond to a humanitarian crisis already existed — but was scattered, siloed, and hard to use?In this episode of 15-Minute Maps, I’m joined by Saïd Abou Kharroub, a GIS…
S1E19 Episode 19 - Yann Rebois: Mapping the Invisible in Cities
Urban crises are some of the hardest environments to map — and yet that’s where millions of the world’s most vulnerable people live.In this episode of 15-Minute Maps, Hugo Powell is joined by Yann…
S1E18 Episode 18: Cornelia Scholz - The Dragon's Map
What if our most trusted maps are quietly lying to us?This week on 15 Minute Maps, GIS technical advisor Cornelia Schultz (Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre) joins Hugo to reveal a hidden truth…
S1E17 Episode 17 - David de Ridder: Rerouting… to Better Health
In this episode of 15 Minute Maps, I speak with David de Ridder, Senior Research Fellow at the University Hospital of Geneva (HUG), who specializes in spatial epidemiology and digital public…
S1E16 Episode 16 – John Huth: The Map Hidden in the Waves
Ever Wondered How You’d Navigate the Ocean With No Compass, No GPS, and No Land in Sight? Well this episode once again proves the importance of maintaining indigenous knowledge.That question led…
S1E14 Episode 15 - Guilherme Iablonovski: The Map of Matter
We often talk about rebuilding after a disaster, but we leave so little thought for rthe materials needed. Have you ever thought about where all the rubble goes after a war or a flood?That’s the…
S1E13 Episode 14 - Brianna Pagan Corremonte: The Story of a Forest Fire
She Lost Her Home to Wildfires… and Turned It Into a Powerful Mapping Idea That Could Not Only Save Lives but Local History as Well!Professor Brianna Pagan Corremonte - remote sensing expert,…
S1E13 Episode 13- Esperanza Ortega-Tapia: Climate Change Driven Loss of Cultural Farming Heritage
In this very moving episode, Esperanza Ortega-Tapia describes her dream of being able to map the loss of farming land within BIPOC communities in the United States. A topic incredibly close to her…
S1E12 Episode 12 - Guido Pizzini: Communities at the Heart of Humanitarian GIS Preparedness
In this episode, Guido Pizzini - Director, Business Development, Impact and Partnerships at Immap Inc. - takes us through his dream of mapping community response to climate change. This idea is…
S1E11 Episode 11 - Sven Schmitz-Leuffen: The Gap Map
Sven Schmitz-Leuffen, GIS and Technical Solutions Lead at the International Committee of the Red Cross has a problem, how to know where and to whom should the ICRC be delivering support to? Well here…
S1E10 Episode 10 - Song Huang: Dark Skies
From time to time, one feels the need to break with tradition, and while this podcast has normally only dealt with planetary GIS and mapping, in this episode we go beyond our atmosphere and look up…
S1E9 Episode 9 - Maaz Sheikh: GIS for All
In this episode I am joined by Maaz Sheikh, young GIS entrepeneur and start up king. Ageospatial, the platform he created, uses AI agents and large language models (LLMs) to assist the less GIS savvy…
S1E8 Episode 8 - Rhiannan Price: STEAM not just STEM
Rhiannan Price, program lead at Nasa Lifelines, blends art and science to create her dream map. An advocate of community mapping, Rhiannan believes that modern mapping does not go far enough to evoke…
S1E7 Episode 7 - Varsha Sivaram: Empowering Research with a Geospatial Platform
Varsha Sivaram, senior economic geographer at FRAYM, takes us into her world where she blends academic research with practical data solutions. In a world where data is king, how do you harness that…
S1E6 Episode 6 - Andrew Schroeder: Users as Creators
GIS IS DEAD! This weeks guest is Andrew Schroeder, Co-founder of WeRobotics, Co-director of CrisisReady, and Vice President of research and analysis at Direct Relief. It may come as a surprise to…
Frequently Asked Questions
15 Minute Maps has published 25 episodes since August 2025, covering topics in Earth Sciences, Natural Sciences.
15 Minute Maps is currently highly active with new episodes weekly. Average episode length is 20m.
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