Fast Company's World Changing Ideas award gave an honorable mention to the initiative
The collaboration between SAS, a global data and AI leader, and the Galapagos Science Center was recognized for the public-facing AI application that helps protect endangered sea turtles. The app – which received an honorable mention in the Nature category at the awards World Changing Ideas, from Fast Company – provides valuable information, more quickly, for properly monitoring the health of each turtle and its migratory patterns over time.
Through an app called ConserVision, civilian scientists can compare images of turtles' facial markings to help train the SAS computer vision model and accurately identify each individual turtle. The objective is for the model to be able to perform facial recognition on any image of a sea turtle, whether coming from a conservation group or images from tourists.
“This year, I was struck by the global scope of the honorees,” said Fast Company editor-in-chief Brendan Vaughan. “It is extremely rewarding to see how the world comes together to develop innovative solutions to tackle our most complex problems. We need ideas from everywhere, and this year’s World Changing Ideas Awards are an extraordinary encapsulation of the innovation and creativity that is so abundant on a global scale.”
World Changing Ideas is one of Fast Company's main annual awards programs and is focused on social good, seeking to elevate innovative products and concepts that make the world better. Judges choose finalists, winners and honorable mentions based on viability and potential for impact. With the intention of rewarding creativity and promoting innovation, Fast Company brings attention to ideas with great potential and helps expand their reach to inspire more people to work on solving problems that affect us all.
In addition to turtles, the Galápagos Islands are home to countless unique species that don't exist anywhere else. An ecological haven for researchers since Charles Darwin passed through in 1835, the islands also host the Galápagos Science Center, the only university research institution in the Galápagos Islands, which is a collaboration between the UNC Center for Galápagos Studies, and the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, in Ecuador.
Find out more about how SAS uses data in social projects.
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