The Team behind Terrasense
MATTHEW GIE
Co-founder
JONATHAN O'CONNELL
Founder & CEO
Visionary
Jono is the happiest in his campervan following the sun in the African bushveld. Terrasense is a culmination of Jono’s lifelong passions—conservation, technology, and innovation.
Jono is an inventor, entrepreneur, and strategic thinker with a deep passion for solving complex challenges through innovation. Over the past decade, he has secured dozens of patents spanning wireless transmission, UAV operations, physics and conservation technologies. His expertise bridges the worlds of wildlife tracking, aerial systems, and advanced optical and radiation-based solutions designed for real-world applications.
As the founder of Timeslice, a pioneering aerial filming company in South Africa, Jono played a key role in introducing cutting-edge drone technology to the South African feature film industry. He also worked with South African National Parks (SANParks) to develop an official drone operation manual for flying and filming in restricted national park airspace, and conducted the very first legal drone operation in SANparks airspace in 2017.
Jono heads up the team, choosing the path for the team to take.
MATTHEW GIE
Co-founder
MARC CRETTEN
Co-founder
Matthew has been working behind a camera since he was 13, first meeting Jono by landing an internship at Timeslice. Matthew found himself working with drones, gimbals, batteries, cameras and wireless solutions, an exciting time with lots of learning. After the pandemic in 2020 Matthew found himself live streaming wildlife and conservation in Hoedspruit - here he would learn by living on the ground and working with not just Africa's incredible wildlife but also those who were working to protect it. After 4 years, Matthew brings in-depth knowledge and connections to the conservation space.
MARC CRETTEN
Technology
Marc’s very first project with Jono saw him deep in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, flying drones for a National Geographic crew filming elephants. It was an incredible experience—right up until he caught a severe case of malaria and nearly didn’t make it out. After that, we decided it was safer to put him behind a desk rather than in the jungle, though his passion for wildlife never faded.
With a background in RF systems, electronics, and drone technology, Marc has spent years mastering wireless communications and signal optimisation. As Flight Operations Manager at Timeslice, he developed expertise in radio frequencies, telemetry, and airborne data collection. He later launched his own successful drone company in the UK, specialising in advanced UAV systems and remote sensing applications.
At Terrasense, Marc is the Technical Director, developing cutting-edge RF solutions that enable real-time, battery-free wildlife monitoring. His work ensures that conservationists can track animals with unprecedented accuracy while eliminating the risks of invasive GPS collars. Whether he’s refining our receiver technology or optimising signal range, Marc’s expertise keeps Terrasense at the forefront of non-invasive tracking—this time, from the safety of a lab rather than the heart of the jungle.
Neil’s passion for story telling was born from the dynamic stories he witnessed growing up in Southern Africa’s wilderness. Any opportunity to spend time in the bushveld, being with the his local Boy Scout Troop, or hikes with family and friends or finding animals on the back of a Land Rover or on foot, his love for photography and filmmaking was born watching the most dramatic stories one could see, the ones you find in life in the wild. After immigrating to Canada his wildlife access had significantly changed but his desire to learn about people and nature lead him to study Anthropology and Primatology at the University of Calgary. Spending a semester participating in Dr Mary Pavelka’s field school which studied the effects of hurricanes on primate populations and forests, focusing on arboreal folivorous non-female bonded Black Howler monkeys of Monkey River, Belize. This avid fascination for wildlife and being absolutely consumed watching BBC documentaries with David Attenborough’s ignited his passion for story telling drove Neil to a career as a wildlife photographer and film maker. Instigating a move to Vancouver, British Columbia, Neil attended Vancouver Film School studying film direction and cinematography which lead to an opportunity to get into Feature Films through the VFX Department and quickly landed on Feature Film sets where he’s spent 15 years working on big budget Hollywood Films. His work has taken him around the world several times and often immerses him in diverse Cultures and breathtaking locales. Co-Founding Terrasense brings Neil back to his fist passion, wildlife and doing everything to conserve it. One of Neil's first memories of working in the bush was up in a small helicopter helping coral a herd of antelope into a boma for relocation to neighboring farms. Funny how life brings you back to childhood passions.