Interview: Noemi Zabari & AstroTeq.ai

The entrepreneurial journey of Noemi Zabari and the Polish startup ⁠AstroTeq.ai⁠ that focuses on observation and prediction of earthquakes.

You can listen to this interview on the EmpoWomen Podcast:

Or read the interview with Noemi Zabari.

Pitching AstroTeq.ai

AstroTeq.ai was founded in Poland in 2019. It focuses on providing communities and professionals with cutting-edge analytical methods to observe and predict earthquakes.

Noemi Zabari is an astrophysicist, winner of the award Kazimiera Bujwidowa, member of the National Space Technology Cluster, co-leader of the space-seismic research group of the CREDO project, entrepreneur, and founder of the AstroTeq.ai company.

Poland has nothing to do with earthquakes, but earthquakes are a global problem.

If you have ever been in a destructive earthquake, you know how terrifying it is. For example, in Turkey, 57, 000 deaths, 109 billion euros in damages, or China, 87, 000 deaths and 137 billion euros. And the list goes and goes. And you must know that nearly 3 billion people live in seismically active regions.

And beyond saving lives, because it’s all about saving lives, how can we reduce the overall damages? In Turkey, there was a gas pipeline explosion and it caused 42 million in damages and it could have been avoided by just closing the pipeline and ventilating it.

And that’s what we want to do in AstroTeq.ai:

We want to forecast, we want to give people a foretaste of earthquakes so that they can take action.

So our market, for example, is governments that save lives, but also insurance markets that insure gas infrastructures, energy infrastructure, and all other heavy industry or mining industries.

We are a team of three co-founders and we have 10 people today. We are in the development stage. 

Back to the roots

I’m an astrophysicist. And when I was doing my PhD, I was also involved in the program that I’m co-leading today. It’s called the Credo Project. They are doing a lot of research on cosmic radiation. This is also my area of specialization – cosmic and gamma radiation. This is the main channel that we use today.

We call it a precursory channel, which means that something is happening in that data before earthquakes. We are identifying those anomalies in this data. So everything started in my PhD when we were doing that research and we’d noticed the correlation between abnormal cosmic radiation and seismic activity.

To be honest, I tried to do that at the Institute, but it was a bit too difficult with all the paperwork and getting all the allowances. So we have decided today with my co-founder, who is also a researcher, to open the company specifically after talking to the third co-founder. He is more on the business side and he said that this is an amazing idea. This is something that you can commercialize. Let’s do it. And that’s how it started. 

Collaboration with space agencies

We have a collaboration with the European space agency ISA. We started by winning one of the competitions about the pattern of the European space agency in non-space related topics. So we identified ourselves as non-space before, but once we won that competition, the story, all the path with space technology started. We also added all other channels that are satellite channels. Today we are using air observation and satellite images to predict earthquakes.

How are we doing this? We are connecting all that data in one system and we are using AI. That’s why AstroTeq.ai is a deep machine-learning model that cross-correlates and identifies those anomalies with the highest probability of upcoming earthquakes. So yes, the European Space Agency helps us a lot. Of course, the Polish Space Agency also helps us, especially with good networking, like finding us relevant partners. And recently we did a great job with the Italian Space Agency.

Interconnection of phenomena in the space

There is this interplanetary correlation. This is very important. It’s very well known and I see that more and more interest in that topic is put specifically by researchers. I know that some research groups are also doing that for the earthquakes

This is specifically what the Italian Space Agency is doing. And one of the professors that we are talking to can say something more about different celestial objects like stars. Stars, because I’m also specializing in intense nuclear matter. So this is the matter from which, for example, the neutron stars are made. This was my PhD. It’s really exciting to understand.

Secret sauce of AstroTeq.ai

Of course, there is a secret sauce. However, we should never give away a secret sauce so that nobody will take it. But we are sharing that information.

Anyway, this is something that makes us innovative. One is that we are using a new observational channel – cosmic radiation. It’s space, whether it’s radiation with natural radiation, meaning that it doesn’t have any impact on humans. Because when in space, of course, it has an impact.

That’s why, for example, astronauts or people who are traveling to space need to protect themselves because it can destroy their DNA structure. But when it’s coming here on Earth that has an atmosphere, we are safe here, on the surface. Those particles coming from space, have very high energy, and then they come to Earth, they collide with our atmosphere, and then cascade or shower in space.

Smaller particles are created and they are coming to us every second. So every second we are bombarded by those low-energy particles. As I said, they are not dangerous. We live with them every day. So this is something that we are using for earthquake forecasting. So if we have the space weather coming to us, why not use it for something that we can have an impact on?

The second thing that makes us innovative is that we are going with a multi-channel approach. What does it mean? You can think of an Italian institute that specializes only in one thing, like Radon gas concentration, which is also known as a precursor of earthquakes. They are researching only one thing.

In this area, these earthquakes in Italy, you can think about the Japan Institute. They are specializing in satellite data for earthquakes, and they are looking only at earthquakes in Japan because that’s where they are. What we are doing is that we are combining all of that. We are looking at many different physical phenomena that are happening before earthquakes. 

I would jump within this topic also to the third innovation that we are using deep machine learning models. This is not like a buzzword of AI. This is the heart of our project. This is the engine of it. To be able to identify those anomalies, AI is needed. It’s essential.

AstroTeq.ai’s Team

We have three co-founders. One of them is a co-founder from the research side. He’s specializing in cosmic and gamma radiation. He’s involved in the biggest cosmic radiation observatory in the world, Piroge Observatory in Argentina. It’s like a 3,000 km observatory. The other co-founder, Itamar is an executive leader with over 10 years of experience. experience in software development, R&D operations, management, and business development. And myself, I’m the co-founder. I’m also an astrophysicist and entrepreneur.

And I have a cross-industry mindset. I was working in three different industries in my life in a leadership position. So it also gave me some leadership skills. Other than co-founders, we have a team of 10 people. So we are building a hardware and software company. So we are building our space weather detectors.

And for that, we have a hardware team for people on the team. They build those detectors in the laboratory. We also have a software team. They are programmers who develop the analysis for the visualization of that data. We have, of course, a specialist in machine learning. He’s one of the 10 experts in machine learning in Poland. So, we were lucky to get him on board. We have a designer, but she’s more than just a designer, but also a market analyst, UX/UI related topics.

And we have satellite data analysts. Even though we had a startup, some might say that the team is big, it’s still small for the project as such, and I think we have on the R&D side, we have everything that we need to get to our goals in the next year, we would like to expand our team for the commercial part of the company.

Main challenges for AstroTeq.ai 

We have struggled with many challenges.  There are short-term challenges, but there are also long-term challenges. And I think the biggest challenge is to do what we do. We’ve had limited budgets because of the project’s complex as such. But you need to build hardware. You need to build detectors and yet to put them in a technically active place. So it’s a whole transport maintenance calibration. Then you have an AI system developing the software as well. So, all of that’s a huge thing for startups as small as us. So this is the biggest challenge. And I think we do quite well because of the traction, how people look at us, of course, traction is very important because it’s potential clients, potential partners, and all, but the interest that we are bringing, shows that we are doing good.

Challenges & opportunities for female leaders in Poland 

There are many opportunities programs focused on women in leadership positions and management positions, but I have to say that it started only recently. So it’s waking up.

There are also some motivational aspects, like, for example, what happened to me. I have received the award Kazimiera Bujwidowa about women who help other women, because I’m very active in those areas, and encourage other women in STEM topics in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

So this is something that motivates you. And I think those awards are very needed. There are also other award taxes written with the lipstick. It is also very nice to see other women climb this very difficult journey with the challenges. I think there are still challenges.

I can say only about my experience, for example, I can see that I have to prove myself, with my knowledge, in almost every conversation. I see how easier it is for men who don’t have to prove anything. They do have to prove, but not at the same levels.

It’s just time-consuming that you need to jump on the call and prove yourself that you are an astrophysicist, or you are the leader of the company.

You know your business. But there is also a part of that aspect that is positive because there is this feeling of success. Yes, I succeeded. This is a very important person. This is a person very well known. He was very skeptical in the beginning. And then at the end of the call, I see that he’s very interested.

Other than that, I had these examples. I lead the conversation. I get asked, for example, about a new partner. And then the whole conversation is with me because I also have a knowledge, technical knowledge that I can deliver. 

And then we have a first meeting online, but also offline meetings. And I’m inviting our co-founders because I want them to meet our co-founders. And then suddenly those people are speaking to male co-founders only. Even if my co-founders don’t have a technical answer, they need to turn to me for that answer. It’s still throughout like it goes through them. I think in general, Poland is in a good direction, but also the whole world. But I think it is a bit too slow because statistics show that we’ll get to equality in 2050.

Being within EmpoWomen Programme

This program is already helping us. It’s only the start. I know, it’s like a month and something of being in that program, but the workshops, the lectures by those leaders who were invited, they are already helping. We already implemented some of the feedback and some of the parts.

We are redefining our business model and we are also learning that there was, for example, this one woman lecturer who is the CEO of the other company and she was telling us what she’s struggling with as a woman in the leadership position. It gives you a picture of what if it happens to you, you know how to react.

This is much easier. It’s really helpful to share the information. It’s a huge thing. I hope it will be. More of those programs and more women, you know, there are so many startups run by women. Not all of them are getting a chance to be part of that program and I hope they will hear those stories. It will help them as much as it helped me.

One is that, that they can really polish their business model, polish their pricing strategy and pitch deck and everything around the business also to help redefine a couple of things and maybe to see the picture outside of the box, because we are sitting in our startups and we see what we see. And this is something different from the point of view of other people. This is like in any other program. This is the main thing that I would encourage anybody to do for this program.

Also, which is essential is that you can hear the stories from other female-led companies, startups, and big companies already, how their path looked like, what they had to struggle with, and how did they succeed? What would you change when you listen to those stories? And also you have this opportunity to meet them, those other co-founders. You can share the stories. We already did. We had the opportunity to meet in the first kickoff of the program. It was just wonderful to finally meet the people that you see only online. So, this is something that this program gives you, this opportunity.