IBM's AI-Powered Visual Inspection Tech to Track Endangered African Forest Elephant

IBM and WWF-Germany to Build New AI Solution to Support Conservation of Keystone Species

IBM and WWF-Germany have announced a collaboration to develop a new AI solution aimed at supporting the conservation of keystone species, starting with the critically endangered African forest elephant.

The African forest elephant has experienced an over 80% decrease in their populations in recent years due to habitat loss and poaching in the Congo Basin. As businesses work to address climate change, supporting nature restoration can play a critical role in reducing carbon emissions in the atmosphere.

This initiative will leverage IBM's AI-powered visual inspection technology to enhance elephant tracking and identification from camera trap photos. The goal is to improve the accuracy of identifying individual elephants, which is crucial for effective conservation efforts.

By harnessing the power of technology to track and value natural capital, organizations can unlock new opportunities to support climate change mitigation efforts, while also identifying new sustainable finance investments.

This technology not only aids in wildlife conservation but also helps in assessing the financial value of nature's contributions, such as carbon sequestration services provided by these elephants. This collaboration marks a significant step towards integrating technology with conservation to create a more sustainable future.

As part of this collaboration, IBM Consulting worked with WWF to explore opportunities for innovation, aligning WWF's conservation initiatives with IBM's sustainability and technology expertise. IBM's own software, IBM Maximo Visual Inspection (MVI), will be used in this collaboration. Leveraging MVI's AI-powered visual inspection and modeling capabilities, the solution aims to analyze images from camera traps and film to identify individual African forest elephants with greater accuracy. Currently, the use case focuses on head and tusk-related image recognition, similar to a fingerprint for humans.

The goal of this solution is to help support key conservation efforts of African forest elephants, which have been shown to increase carbon storage in their forest habitats .

To Support Innovative Cleantech startups World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) India and TiE Delhi-NCR Join Hands

WWF-India, a leading conservation organization joined hands with TiE Delhi-NCR to host the Climate Solver Demo Day in New Delhi on March 6, 2020. The initiative aimed at facilitating an enabling platform for cleantech ventures to showcase their innovative technologies and access funding opportunities.

Launched in 2012, WWF India’s Climate Solver initiative seeks to tackle the climate crisis on the back of a two-pronged strategy. On the one hand, it aims to bolster the development, promote widespread use, and stimulate market uptake of sustainable clean energy solutions developed by startups and SMEs. At the same time, it is dedicatedly creating awareness about low carbon technologies as an immediate and most practical solution to mitigate the climate crisis.

In June 2019, WWF-India in association with DLabs at Indian School of Business announced the launch of the second cohort of its Climate Solver Accelerator Programme with 14 startups working on clean energy technologies with the objective to scale up these innovative solutions and maximize impact creation. A two-pronged program, Business Accelerator (BA) and Capacity Development Program (CDP), was designed to support the ventures to address technology, policy, market penetration and capacity needs with a diverse set of ISB faculty, industry mentors, and experts engaged with the entrepreneurs.

The startups who pitched this year included Ricron Panels, Battery Pool, A2P, Rays Enserv, Zodhya Tech, Strawcture, Navgathi, Aegeous Technologies, Sagar Defence and Enelyf Ventures. Presented to an eminent audience comprising angel investors, VCs, impact investors and domain leaders representing TIFAC, TDB, DST, AGNii, UNIDO and CII, the pitch presentations also delved on how these startups are creating significant business impact for their consumers whilst solving pressing environmental challenges.

The evening also featured a special address by Mr Pramod Bhasin, Co-founder-Asha Impact, Chairman-Clix Capital, and Board Member TiE Delhi-NCR, who spoke about the impactful and inspiring ventures being undertaken by innovative cleantech startups, and Ms Ruchira Shukla, South Asia Regional Lead, Venture Capital, International Finance Corporation, World Bank Group, who provided insights into the cleantech funding landscape in the country.

Speaking of the tremendous potential of the innovations, Mr Ravi Singh, Secretary General and CEO, WWF-India said, “Technological and business model innovations offer the impetus to unlocking solutions for effectively tackling the climate crisis. The Climate Solver Demo Day aims to showcase and empower the startups and SME innovators who are committed to driving positive impact on the environment through their solutions.”

Commenting at the event, Ms Geetika Dayal – Executive Director, TiE Delhi-NCR, said. “It is our pleasure to be associated with WWF-India. The organization has been undertaking extraordinary initiatives in addressing climate and conservation-related issues across the country. With Climate Solver Demo Day, we aim to provide a platform to innovative startups that are dedicated to solving some of the pressing climate-related problems. It’s amazing how these startups are leveraging an innovative blend of technology and vision. We hope to work with WWF- India on many more initiatives in future which will have a positive impact on the society.”

The partnership with WWF-India furthers TiE Delhi-NCR’s mission of enabling innovators in India by providing them with a platform where they can access funding, networking, and mentorship opportunities. For the past 18 years, the platform has leveraged its strong mentor support base to consistently host empowering events and workshops for the betterment of the Indian startup ecosystem and continues to raise the bar even higher.

WWF's Climate Solver platform first began in Sweden in 2008 and launched in India in 2012 which further expanded to include countries like China and South Africa. WWF-India has been partnering with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (IIM Ahmedabad), Indian Angel Network and National Innovation Foundation for the Climate Solver initiative.

• Climate Solver: www.climatesolver.org


• Climate Solver India page: http://bit.ly/WWFINDIAClimateInnovations

About WWF-India: WWF-India is one of India’s leading conservation organizations with programs and projects spread across the country. The organization works towards the conservation of biodiversity, natural habitats and the reduction of humanity’s ecological footprint. The mission of WWF-India is to stop the degradation of the earth's natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature.

About TiE Delhi-NCR: TiE is a global not-for-profit organization dedicated to fostering entrepreneurship through mentoring, networking, education, incubation and funding. It is spread across a vast network of 61 Chapters in 14 countries. TiE Delhi-NCR is among the most active and vibrant chapters across the vast TiE network. In the last 18 years, it has continuously taken the lead in creating an increasingly positive ecosystem for entrepreneurs and investors. With a strong mentor support base, marquee events and focused workshops throughout the year it has emerged as one of the most valuable platforms supporting entrepreneurship, nationally. TiE has a wide range of programs including TiE Global Summit, TiEcon, Startup Expo, Special Interest Groups (SIGs) across sectors, TiE Institute & TiE Young Entrepreneurs