4 ms·
Ask HN: How do I help wildlife conservation and ecology with tech?
In my professional career spanning roughly a decade, I have been a developer, product manager and a co-founder at small startups.
While I have not made a truckload of money, I have made enough to afford a decent living. More importantly I have realized that accumulating more barely moves my happiness-meter.
So I'm looking into areas that I have always loved but haven't really contributed to. Wildlife conservation, oceans and general ecology. And TBH I am clueless where to start looking. Do I get an internship at a research lab, work at a zoo, document flora and fauna?
I have recently started course material that is used for master programmes in universities, but that is to build a fudamental understanding of the space.
Any advice/feedback/links would be really appreciated.
From the professional career, I have these skills that I think maybe relevant:
- Image processing
- Natural language processing
- Neural networks, ML etc (would rate self 3/5)
- Web dev
I also have love for maps and outdoors if that matters.
Thank you in advance.
- warrenm 5y agoI can think of several things off the top of my head: - go work for a group like WWF - work on "outdoors" apps (hunting, hiking, trail-riding, etc) - build website(s)/app(s) that help conservation groups, folks interested in wildlife, etc find places to sight-see, get involved in local activities, etc - work for a group that does educational outreach (eg your local cooperative extension office) I bet some of the other smarter folks hereon can suggest another 100 or more ways you could "help wildlife conservation and ecology with tech" :)
- hbornfree 5y agoThanks for the suggestions @warrenm. While I understand the importance of climate awareness and community building, I'm afraid that isn't where I shine. Anything more technical, maybe in the fields of camera-traps, drone deployment, remote-sensing, satellite imagery, GIS, data analysis/viz etc may be a better fit. Trying to look for a way to get started in these. Thanks again for taking the time to reply. Really appreciate it!
- pcdoodle 5y agoI'm interested in developing a product to increase farm animals quality of life. Does this resonate with you? I develop PCBs for IOT type stuff. ML could translate into detecting sick animals, falling, coughing, eating habits, etc. ML is not my strong point.
- hbornfree 5y agoThis does resonate with me! Happy to discuss and help you where possible. How can I reach out to you? Or maybe you can send me a 'hi' at harsha.xg{at}gmail.com?