Truly understanding what is happening on the planet in real-time has always been the core mission behind geospatial intelligence.

There are an astounding amount of examples where the right spatial data can impact just about every aspect of business and government. For example, knowing when a parking lot is full, or which roads are open for faster delivery, or which movie theaters attract the most customers week-to-week.

The new “Skybox for Good” program from SkyBox Imaging aims to help any organization achieve this kind of real-time intelligence. The program wants to provide “a constantly updated model of change of the entire planet” with the potential to “save lives, protect the environment, promote education, and positively impact humanity.”

The recent acquisition of Skybox by Google is a key driver for making all of this possible.

As Thermopylae’s AJ Clark recently highlighted in a NextGov Op-Ed, the acquisition allows both the commercial and government sectors to have access to enhanced imagery at lower costs. This means that industries that previously were blocked from accessing these types of resource will have a world of data intelligence opportunities in front of them.

SkyBox Imaging recently launched two of the world’s smallest high-resolution imaging satellites, which collect high-res images and video every day. The company plans to launch as many as 24 of these satellites, which will allow Google to quickly access this data.

As this VentureBeat article points out, satellite imagery has only been available to the U.S. intelligence community for the past 50 years or so. DigitalGlobe was one of the first companies to make satellite imagery commercially available. SkyBox Imaging is joining this effort, and is taking it one step further by driving down the data acquisition costs.

The result will be a smarter world where video data and imagery will help any organization achieve the highest level of effectiveness.