We have been following the news about the new AI and Biodiversity Change (ABC) Global Climate Center with great interest since the centre’s opening was announced in the fall last year. The newly funded international centre is part of the NSF-led Global Centers program and is devoted to using artificial intelligence to help understand climate impacts on biodiversity. The Center shares many research interests with us so naturally we have been keen to investigate possible synergies and collaboration opportunities.
WildDrone has entered into a research and educational partnership with the ABC Center to facilitate collaboration around research activities and joint education modules for next-generation researchers (PhD and post-doc). This coming fall, next-generation researchers from ABC and WildDrone can follow a joint course with each their own fieldwork, together with researchers from the Imageomics Institute. ABC and Imageomics will go on a field trip to collect data for the course, whereas WildDrone will complete its own fieldwork and the Kenya hackathons to collect data.
WildDrone complements ABC and Imageomics expertise through our interdisciplinary research in drone operations, where new drone technology is developed in synergy with ongoing research in conservation ecology and machine learning. The partnership also represents an excellent opportunity for the WildDrone doctoral candidates to connect with an extensive network of researchers and practitioners in AI and nature conservation.
We look very much forward to collaborating with the ABC Center and hope that the collaboration will strengthen our research projects and further the impact of our network.
You can read more about the ABC Center and its mission here.
