Hey Neelang,

Would love to join in on the Slack if you folks are still active. I'm thinking of taking up related courses as well.

Cheers.

Hi 

I'd be interested too, but as a very green newb would I be able to follow or would another group/course be more appropriate to establish some background first. 
cheers 

Great initiative. Very detailed and many features. Wondering how nothing like this exists yet.  One thing I'm thinking of is privacy. For many folks on the front line that I know (many of which indigenous persons) posting anyting that would be traceable to them in any way would be a real risk. I probably didn't read carefully enough sorry.

Theun Amsterdam

I definitely think it's a great idea! I think some of the reasons there are country-by-country versions of initiatives like this are because of country-specific laws, regulations, privacy restrictions, level of enforcement, etc. There is also the issue of multi-national organizations such as WWF, WCS, FFI, etc. who may be working in some areas alongside local, community-led initiatives. You'd just want to be careful that there was equitable distribution of reports. On that note, internet access and smartphones may not be available in many places globally. I work in Madagascar and this would definitely be a problem. Perhaps allowing some sort of retroactive reporting, so someone who saw something but didn't have internet could at least report it the following week when they are back at a research station or town, for example. 

I would worry too about the users reporting illegal activity and what specific security protections are in place to ensure any personally-identifiable information cannot be leaked. It might be worth thinking about how those engaging in the illegal activities themselves may try to weaponize an app like this, e.g., a large-scale mining operation reporting individuals from the community for cutting down trees (the scale of one versus the other is very different, but company-backed illegal activity will have more resources than an indigenous tribe, for example). Given how corrupt officials in different goverment agencies help perpetuate shady business dealings, there could be targeted or inequitable enforcement based on reports like this. 

I would recommend reaching out to folks specifically embedded in this space, such as the people at TRAFFIC, TRACE (wildlife forensics), etc. The folks at SMART will likely have good ideas, and already have some of the functionality you're describing (albeit focused on rangers and park officials rather than the general public at large).

Hi writer (I didn't get your name ;-),

if you like we can talk for 30min or so to review your solution. There are a number of them out there, including our Cluey Data Collector & Tracking app.

The main things that we wanted to solve was:

• ease to start a project (without requiring the user to understand things like data-models etc.)
• seamless integration with other data sources and (realtime) analytical functions to help rangers optimize patrols etc.
• ease to share observations
• ease to combine/aggregate project 

Would be great to share some ideas and see if we can help each other,

Best,

Jan Kees 

You could use Movebank for this, stream the data into a study, manage sharing settings to make some public and keep others private if needed.  Lots of non-bird data in there!

Cheers

Roland

You might also check out the Ocean Data Platform team at https://www.oceandata.earth/  They're trying to be a one-stop shop for ocean data and have recently ingested all the IOC data. EMODNet has an ingestion portal and data ambassadors who can negotiate data sharing agreements and anonymization/aggregation. Also @ThomasGray_Argos  data sharing agreements and data governance is something I work on and would be interested in talking more about the privacy/user data issues you mention. I;ve been thinking about the need for a data intermediary that can hold data safely, scrub PII, and then share it with open platforms so each sensor owner or small entitty doesn't have to negotiate their own data sharing licenses.

@skatewing Shoot me an email, and we can discuss ([email protected]). 

I think programming and machine learning are what I wish I did in uni the most. Particularly Python coding. Most biologists use R/Rstudio but Python is more popular in the tech world. And machine learning is taking over everything, conservation included, so it's definitely a high-demand skill. 

You should join the Key Conservation app, which connects people and NGO's for specific needs, whether funding, time, or skills (programming included). Organizations can list particular things they need and you can get day-to-day updates on progress. 

In terms of how ML is used in conservation, it's mostly to process the large datasets yielded by conservation tech (camera traps, passive acoustics, biologging, remote sensing/GIS). Annotating detections (which pictures have animals, which species a call belongs to, where deforestation is happening through satellite imagery, etc.). 

And lots of freelancing opportunities come up in Wildlabs - the community threads and the biweekly digest. Twitter is also great for finding those kinds of opportunities, search by relevant keywords or hashtags (e.g., #tech4wildlife). I would also start following conservation tech organizations on LinkedIn and Twitter or subscribing to their newsletters or listservs so you don't miss opportunities as they come up.