Solving for Tomorrow: Tales from the Tech Frontier

AI vs. Nature: Engineering Predictability into an Unstable Earth

Episode Summary

In this episode, Brian chats with Tobias Kraft, Co-Founder and CEO at Teren.

Episode Notes

In this episode, Brian talks with Tobias Kraft, Co-Founder and CEO at Teren, about how AI-powered environmental twins are reshaping our ability to predict and mitigate natural disaster risk. With firsthand experience surviving wildfires and a deep background in geospatial data systems, Tobias now leads efforts to digitize Earth's terrain and make climate intelligence actionable.

The conversation explores:

How Teren builds real-time, high-resolution environmental twins to model land-based threats
Why traditional risk models are breaking down in a world of five-year, hundred-year storms
How hyperlocal terrain and soil data enhance decision-making for infrastructure and insurance
What it takes to make climate risk data operational for landowners, utilities, and policymakers
The unexpected impacts of clean energy projects on land resilience and runoff patterns

Tobias shares how his team combines satellite imagery, LiDAR, and soil physics to train AI systems that can forecast events like landslides and wildfires, and why this shift from reactive to predictive infrastructure could reshape everything from insurance underwriting to where we choose to live.

In the Post Fix, Brian and Harriet unpack the “environmental twin” concept:

What a digital twin is and how it's evolving beyond buildings to the planet itself
Why data accuracy, computational modeling, and boots-on-the-ground validation still matter
How these technologies might help individuals, not just institutions, make smarter decisions

This episode is a must-listen for climate-conscious engineers, infrastructure planners, insurance leaders, and anyone working at the intersection of AI, earth systems, and natural disaster resilience.

Time Stamps:

*(05:08) Rapid Fire
*(15:27) Environmental Twin: Revolutionizing Natural Disaster Management
*(23:53) The Role of Data in Predicting Environmental Threats
*(33:51) Human Impact on the Environment
*(49:24) Global Expansion and Data Challenges
*(53:18) Measuring Predictive Technologies and AI
*(1:06:39) The Post-Fix

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Solving for Tomorrow is sponsored by Geisel Software. We help you create products that seamlessly automate the physical and virtual worlds using robotics, machine learning, and so much more. Find out more at Geisel Software.