Adrien Pajot
- @Adrien_Pajot
- | He/His
WILDLABS
Fauna & Flora
We are proud to announce the launch of the WILDLABS Awards: Supporting accessible, affordable, and effective innovation for nature.
Brought to you with support from Arm, the leading semiconductor design company, the WILDLABS Awards are supporting the advancement of conservation technology with $340,000 distributed across 14 outstanding projects.
We are supporting projects up to one year in length that are bridging the gap between technology and conservation. These awards are open to both technology developers building or scaling new technologies for conservation applications, and conservation practitioners and researchers leveraging existing technologies in their work.
Whether you're developing new technologies, putting your expertise to use in the field, building collaborative tools and content for the global conservation tech community, or exploring cutting-edge innovations, as a WILDLABS Award winner, you will find the support you need.
Apply here!
Award Details
- Grants will be awarded across three levels:
- $60,000 grant (2 awards)
- $30,000 grants (5 awards)
- $10,000 grants (7 awards)
- We will award up to 14 projects with 1 year of funding to advance their conservation technology work.
- In addition to funding, awardees will have access to a public platform to share and publish progress and results, with project coverage through Arm and WILDLABS’ communication channels. This will include virtual events, case studies, and interviews.
- The WILDLABS team will provide additional support to ensure that project updates and results are shared widely throughout our community and beyond.
- Awardees will have access to the WILDLABS community’s network of conservation tech experts and Arm's community of technology experts.
Key Dates
Launch: 1st December 2023
Applications Close: 14th January 2024
Selection: End of January 2024
Award Given: March 2024
What are we looking for?
There are three main types of projects that we are looking to support:
- Fostering Innovation (for primarily technology projects): We aim to support innovation grounded in answering real conservation needs. We expect these projects to be testing and piloting technology solutions, with conservation end-user needs already identified.
- Technology Adoption and Application (for primarily conservation projects): We aim to support conservation programmes to integrate technology to broaden the reach and impact of their conservation initiatives. We expect these projects to be led by conservation practitioners and researchers and may also involve collaborations with tech providers to improve/adapt existing tools to conservation situations. We hope the findings will support technology adoption for other conservation projects.
- Usability & Scaling (for conservation and technology projects): We aim to make technology more accessible and widely available. This means improving usability and bridging the gap between R&D and technologies being available at scale for conservationists to use in their work. We will also support work to transform project ideas into products, helping to scale manufacturing and deploy technologies that have already been piloted.
Across all project types and award categories, cross-sector collaboration and interdisciplinary work is highly encouraged.
What is Arm looking for?
Who is Arm?
Arm is building the future of computing. Their energy-efficient processor designs and software platforms have enabled advanced computing in more than 270 billion chips and their technologies securely power products from the sensor to the smartphone and the supercomputer. Together with 1,000+ technology partners, they are enabling artificial intelligence to work everywhere, and in cybersecurity, they are delivering the foundation for trust in the digital world – from chip to cloud. The future is being built on Arm.
Why are they a partner in these Awards?
Our goal through these Awards is to find and support people and projects in our community tackling urgent, meaningful conservation challenges that could use additional funding, tech mentoring, training or just technology. We’re aware that partnerships with the tech industry take time and access to establish and manage–through these Awards our aim is to help facilitate relationships between our community and tech companies that have made meaningful commitments, as Arm has, that underpin their interest in being involved in conservation. Arm’s impact approach focuses on minimising environmental impact and maximising societal impact.
As our partner in the WILDLABS Awards 2024, Arm is looking to discover new projects and partners in the conservation tech ecosystem that could benefit from their funding, technology, or pro-bono support. Through this programme, Arm is looking to support projects with their ecosystem of technology partners. From Audiomoth, Raspberry Pi and Arduino, from wearables to smartphones, sensors to supercomputers, Arm powers the conservation tech sector.
As part of your application, we will ask for details about the technology your proposal involves. Sharing the details of your technologies will help us understand how Arm can help your work, and, if additional support is required, potentially matchmake you with other technology companies in their broader network.
To help you answer this question, you can find examples of Arm-based technologies here. Free educational resources including online courses can also be found here.
You can also ask us questions to help clarify this by email at [email protected].
Selection Criteria, Judging and Further Information
- Please find a complete description of the Awards and all relevant information on our Further Information page.
- Watch again our informative webinar from the 11th of December to find answers your questions: watch here.
- Join our open discussion to ask your questions.
How do I apply?
Follow these steps:
- Review the WILDLABS Awards 2024: Terms and Conditions
- Complete the WILDLABS Awards Application Form.
The deadline for submissions is Sunday, January 14th 2024 at 11:55 PM GMT.
Contact us
If you have any questions about the awards, please contact [email protected].
Header images: We acknowledge Meredith Palmer, Shawn F McCracken, Ollie Wearn, Equilibrio Azul (Felipe) and SnapperGPS for their wonderful #Tech4Wildlife photo entries, featured in the WILDLABS AWARDS poster.