After Hurricane Michael wrecked the Florida Panhandle, Wide Open West, a telecom, turned to Devaki Raj to get a map of affected buildings in the area. Her CrowdAI had one ready in 20 minutes. CrowdAI uses artificial intelligence to produce quick and accurate cartography by studying satellite imagery; it can outline everything from industrial construction projects to natural disasters. CrowdAI, which has raised $2.6 million from Y Combinator and others, has been used to map wildfire damage in California and Hurricane Harvey's destruction in southern Texas. Raj was born into a highly educated family (father and sister are geneticists) and earned a master's in statistics at Oxford before throwing up her hands at the slow pace of academia. "I wanted to see things move a little bit faster, she says. So I took the nonacademic path. Off to Google she went, where she handled projects like analyzing satellite imagery to determine ideal areas for solar energy in Africa."

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