Dexter Jagula - Father. Husband. COO and Co-Founder.
Who are you?
I’m Dexter. I’m the COO and Co-Founder at Skywatch. I’m also a husband and a new father as of October. I love being active and doing fun things in and around town - like checking out local festivals like Ribfest or really anything with food and drink.
Since my daughter was born, I work from home 3 to 4 days a week. That flexibility has been really helpful and we try to afford that to all our employees. Lots take advantage of that and it’s great!
What's your major internal motivation for doing what you do?
We were motivated by solving a real problem and being a co-founder, you’re heavily invested in what you’re doing - putting in that sweat equity for sure! We wanted to help people get access to data about our planet and enable new entrants into a market that was dominated mostly by governments.
The mission really is to make the data far more accessible and ubiquitous. Think about the GPS industry only a couple of decades ago compared to where it is now.
How do you foresee this data and increased access being used?
We see it almost as a digital camera - if you hand a digital camera to two people, they’re going to use it in two different ways. We’ve seen the use of our technology to help drive decisions in agriculture, finance, oil and gas industries, consumer behaviour … the list goes on.
What was the most interesting use case you’ve seen?
I’ve seen some really interesting uses in the agriculture and food industries tackling that big question of “how do we efficiently feed the planet?”. Our technology has enabled farmers to monitor their crops at scale, monitor the soil, provide insight into how certain crops are performing, and insight into the overall health of ecosystems in various regions. Our tech has enabled farmers to produce measurements that can influence decisions that lead to higher quality crops and really benefit the rest of the supply chain.
How do you maintain energy/recharge outside of work?
Recently, it’s been spending as much time with my daughter as possible. Watching her grow and change has been amazing. She has new party tricks all the time and keeping on top of that is always fun. Also, spending time with my wife - we always have a great time, no matter what we do. We have family close by as well and getting to see them regularly helps.
I also love listening to music and playing music, or getting out and playing squash or soccer.
Skywatch will be hiring in the next little while! They have some lofty goals and big things they want to achieve in the next little bit. They’re aiming to be the most important space company in Canada. They’re one to watch.