The Rainforest Connection: How to monitor illegal logging with old phones.
“Pollution is nothing but the resources we are not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we’ve been ignorant of their value.” ~ R. Buckminster Fuller
How many phones have you had in your life? How many do you use now?
What if they could do something to help out the planet?
Come on over to CRASH Space and learn about the Rainforest Connection, a project dedicated to using cellphones to build a network to remotely monitor forests for illegal logging.
When: 3pm Saturday April 21st.
Where: CRASH Space
10526 Venice Blvd, Culver City, CA 90232
RSVP: Eventbrite link
About our speaker Topher White:
Topher White is Founder and CEO of Rainforest Connection. Topher has experience building
systems for large and small startups as well as international science projects, including four
years working on nuclear fusion at ITER, in France. He has received multiple accolades for his
work, including being named a National Geographic Emerging Explorer in 2015, a current
Draper-Richards- Kaplan (DRK) Fellow and an “Engineering Hero” by the Institute for Electrical
and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
Topher graduated from Kenyon College with a B.S. in Physics. Topher’s background is primarily
in Physics, software development and Communication, having received a degree in Physics at
Kenyon College and going on to work for years at SLAC Natl Accelerator Lab (High Energy
Physics) and the ITER Organization (Fusion Power) in France. Along the way, he also served as
CTO for two startups in San Francisco, where he obtained industry-level experience in software
development– the foundation of the Rainforest Connection platform.
About Rainforest Connection:
Rainforest Connection (RFCx) is a global team of passionate individuals committed to applying
the most effective and timely technology to protect our planet’s precious, ancient forests and
wildlife.
Our approach is to use the most advanced techniques available to make the ultimate solution
elegant and simple. We listen to the rainforest remotely, using commonplace mobile tech and
existing telecommunications infrastructure, and transform these audio streams into a profound
and automatic understanding of the forest soundscape, rooting out any threats.
RFCx partners with local NGOs and indigenous tribes to deter incursions through real time
threat detection and providing forensic evidence to enable governments to take action to
prevent further incursions. RFCx plans to make this data available to academic researches and
government agencies to assist the fields of field ecology and conservation.