To address the many pressing scientific questions and challenges facing our planet, we must increase global understanding of how human activity is affecting natural systems and create a community of change, driven by data and cutting-edge technology. Modern technologies, such as satellite imaging, bioacoustic monitoring, environmental DNA, and genomics, can capture data at a global scale, but also produce massive, complex data sets. Artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing can capitalize on the potential of such data, leading to faster and more meaningful insights and creating the opportunity for transformative solutions.
The National Geographic Society and Microsoft’s AI for Earth program are partnering to support novel projects that create and deploy AI tools to improve the way we monitor, model, understand, and ultimately manage Earth’s natural resources for a more sustainable future.
The grants given by the partnership will support projects that use cloud computing to create and deploy open-source models and algorithms that make key analytical processes more efficient in the field. This partnership is focused on supporting projects that will build tools such as applications, application programming interfaces (APIs), or packages to be shared. Microsoft will help the successful applicants make their models and tools available for use by other environmental researchers and innovators.
