Robert Cheetham
Founder And Principal Consultant at F Minus
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolRobert Cheetham is a geospatial entrepreneur and advisor with over two decades of leadership experience, best known as the founder and long-time CEO of Azavea, a Philadelphia-based B Corporation he led until 2023. He now runs Abaca Labs as Founder and Principal Consultant, publishes the Japan Earth Observer newsletter on Earth observation and geospatial industry trends in Japan, and advises climate and sustainability startups. His work sits at the intersection of open data, open-source geospatial tools, and civic-tech applications that address climate, biodiversity, and community resilience. Trained in landscape architecture and Japanese studies, he brings a rare combination of design-led planning, local cultural insight, and technical GIS expertise. He remains active on boards and as a strategist, translating spatial data into practical decision-making tools for governments and nonprofits. An unexpected throughline in his career is a sustained focus on building knowledge systems that make place-based problems more solvable by communities.
13 years of coding experience
25 years of employment as a software developer
BA Japanese Studies, BA Japanese Studies at University of MichiganCertificate Japanese language politics religion law, Certificate Japanese language politics religion law at Kyoto Center for Japanese StudiesMLA Landscape Architecture Regional Planning, MLA Landscape Architecture Regional Planning at University of Pennsylvania School of Design
Japanese
Stackoverflow
1reputation
0reached
0answers
0questions
Github Skills (108)
translator10
raster10
vector10
geotiff10
searchable10
region10
geographic9
rasterio9
gdal9
imagery9
satellite9
data-formats9
geospatial9
gis9
classification9
Programming languages (10)
Github contributions (5)
opendataphilly/opendataphilly-jkan
Apr 2023 - Apr 2025
OpenDataPhilly powered by JKAN
Contributions:84 reviews, 178 PRs, 394 pushes in 2 years
opendataphilly/open-geo-data
Mar 2017 - Nov 2024
Contributions:2 PRs, 66 pushes, 3 branches in 7 years 9 months
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