Astral was first conceived in the Genesis block of Kernel, a Web3 fellowship funded by Gitcoin at the time. It was founded by John X, a geospatial data scientist and Web3 builder who co-founded Toucan, co-chaired of the WEF’s Web3 Climate Action Working Group, worked at Ordnance Survey (the UK’s national mapping agency). John is a proven builder and leader at the intersection of Web3 and regenerative finance.

Since the project’s inception, we have aimed to be a intent, value oriented, and open source product, taking only grant and other public goods funding

We found our Head of Engineering, Ron E. after he and team won ETHDenver’s hackathon for ZK Maps, a project that provides location proofs using ZK technology. Ron is a passionate builder with a penchant for privacy and using blockchain to assist with solving the climate crisis. He led engineering teams at [ZED.RUN](http://ZED.RUN) and taught at Columbia University, with an extensive background in data imaging and computer vision.

Then came Danny. John and Danny met through Kernel. He serves as a contributor helping with growth and operations. Danny leads growth efforts at Sherlock, helping ensure the security of Web3 projects. Previously, he was management and strategy consultant with stints including McKinsey, PwC. He was a DeFi founder for an analytics solution, having won a hackathon via OnDeck fellowship’s hackathon.

Along our journey, we’ve:
    - Been founding members of the Climate Collective, a organization for climate-focused Web3 startups which now includes over 30 member organizations
    - Cofounded the Decentralized Geospatial Working Group with academic researchers from the EASIER Data Initiative
    - Served as Kolektivo’s project partner, developing GeoNFTs
    - Received Filecoin’s Development Grant for storing satellite imagery on IPFS using decentralized identifiers
    - Presented to the Open Geospatial Consortium
    - Won the Arweave Prize, Future of Blockchain 2020
    - Spoke at the European Space Agency's Living Planet Symposium 2022
    - Coordinated the forming of the GeoSpatial Decentralized Collaboration Group 2023
    - Served as Regeneration and DeFi guild(s) leads at KERNEL