Google Economic Impact Report

SkyTL, Powered by Improving Aviation works with agencies in all 50 states and around the world to predict, prevent, and respond to wildfires. Founder Rocio Frej Vitalle started the Tampa, Florida company in 2020 as a way to bring her knowledge of aerospace engineering to bear on the problem. “The more you think and read about fire, the more you want to contribute to it because this is something where people are dying and losing their houses,” she says. The fit was natural: “The dynamics of fire are similar to the aerodynamics that I had in my background,” she says. Today her 11-person team uses physical tools like drones, cameras, and sensors, but the core of their work is data–mountains of it, which has to be analyzed at top speed. “We convert raw data that is out in the world into information that can be used by the people that are in the field fighting the fires,” Rocio says.