At HPE Aruba Networking, we believe in the power of technology to be a force for good. Whether using networking technology to keep people connected to the information, people, and causes they are passionate about—or using server and computing technology to power analytics that lead to breakthroughs in medical science—I believe there is great potential for technology to create a positive impact on our world.
As an example of this, we recently partnered with the Tracker Academy of South Africa to support their ongoing work in conservation and community development.
Animal tracking is an ancient art, and the number of skilled trackers has been declining over the years. Observing, capturing, and analyzing wildlife behavior data is crucial for conservation efforts. But with the decline in trackers and the added challenges of lack of connectivity in remote locations and hurdles for real-time data sharing, there are limits to what can be done.
For these reasons, Alex Van den Heever, general manager of the Tracker Academy, looked for a technology partner that could help. After talking with multiple solution providers, they decided to partner with HPE due to the breadth of our technology solutions and the power of what we are able to offer.
Van den Heever engaged with the HPE team to formulate the requirements for the project and map out what we could do together. This resulted in the creation of an AI-powered application that allows animal trackers in Africa to digitally record wildlife data.
The project brought together network connectivity and positioning (HPE Aruba Networking), along with AI/ML analytics capabilities (HPE Ezmeral) and a platform to seamlessly connect all the pieces (Hewlett Packard Labs). Through tight collaboration across multiple technology groups within HPE, we delivered a functional prototype of the application to the Tracker Academy in just two weeks!
From there, the team started work on a version built for general consumption. As project manager, Dobias van Ingen from HPE Aruba Networking led a software engineering team to develop an application that will scale as more data is collected. The mobile application integrated with HPE Ezmeral to work where data is collected and AI analytics are processed. And the results were spectacular: the prototype application was easy to use, took less than 15 minutes to set up, and was already 90% accurate with a small set of data (only 1000 images per species). For this, I would like to extend a special thanks to Puneet Sharma, Shivang Aggarwal, and Lianjie Cao in the Networking and Distributed Systems Lab for a job very well done.
Today, we are excited to say the first generation of the application is ready to release for student use. Not only are we looking forward to valuable feedback to enable us to evolve the application over time, but the images created by the students will also increase the size of the data lake and further improve the accuracy of results.
Technology truly is one of our most valuable tools for impacting positive change. I believe that technology has the ability to be a force for good, driving our conservation efforts and more. In this case, taking the vision of a small team in South Africa and adding the creativity and collaboration of multiple teams across the global enterprise that is HPE, we brought ideas, skills, and expertise together to create a new application that will have positive effects on our world for years to come.
There is much more to be said about the ancient art of animal tracking, the modern challenges faced by the conservation trade, and the positive outcomes experienced by the Tracker Academy. Learn more about this project and our other efforts supporting sustainability.
