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  • How a Young Activist Is Helping Pope Francis Battle Climate Change

    February 08, 2021 |

    The New Yorker |

    Text |

    Over 3000 Words

    Response Location: Holy See (Vatican City State), Rome

    Molly Burhans, a young cartographer and environmentalist, is using GIS technology to map out the Catholic Church’s global property holdings to encourage them to improve the environmental impact on the lands they own. Burhans’ organization called GoodLands has been working with various parishes and dioceses to help Church leaders — including Pope Francis — understand their vast landholdings. While finances and COVID-19 have impacted her progress, Burhans’ maps have been used for other purposes like mapping Catholic radio stations in Africa and tracking the whereabouts of priests accused of sexual abuse.

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  • One, two, tree: how AI helped find millions of trees in the Sahara

    January 15, 2021 |

    The Guardian |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: Algeria

    Tree mapping helps researchers understand deforestation and climate change, however the technologies used often miss trees that aren’t clustered. Researchers, in collaboration with NASA, used high-resolution satellite images, previously only available to commercial entities, to find a surprisingly large number of trees in the Sahara Desert. Using AI deep learning and one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers at the University of Illinois, they identified more than 1.8 billion trees, manually marking nearly 90,000 so the computer could “learn” which shapes and shadows indicated the presence of trees.

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  • A Clever Strategy to Distribute Covid Aid—With Satellite Data

    December 17, 2020 |

    Wired |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: Togo

    To quickly distribute money to poverty-stricken areas in Togo during the coronavirus pandemic, the country's government turned to mobile cash payments. Working with a nonprofit and UC Berkeley’s Center for Effective Global Action, Togo established a system of mobile payments to reach 30,000 of Togo’s poorest people who were identified via satellite imagery and image analysis algorithms.

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  • Powrót wilka

    December 14, 2020 |

    Tygodnik Powszechny |

    Text |

    Over 3000 Words

    Response Location: Poland

    Współpraca naukowców, organizacji pozarządowych, ekologów i rządu pozwoliła na przywrócenie naturze polskiego wilka, gatunku, który był na granicy wyginięcia. Metody takie, jak lokalizacje GPS i badania genetyczne pomogły politykom podejmować decyzje redukujące konflikty ludzi ze zwierzętami oraz zapewniające zwierzętom siedliska bez presji oddziaływania człowieka. W rezultacie tych działań populacja wilka w Polsce w ciągu ostatnich 50 lat wzrosła 50-krotnie.

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  • In Rwanda, Learning Whether a ‘Smart Park' Can Help Both Wildlife and Tourism

    November 24, 2020 |

    Atlas Obscura |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: Rwanda

    Rwanda’s Akagera National Park, once a conservation failure, has been revitalized with fences, patrols, and new technology to become a successful wildlife park. The government partnered with conservation group African Parks to manage the national park, which has led to an increase tourists, patrols, and even lions and black rhinos. Akagera also became the world first “Smart Park” after it installed a telecommunications network called LoRaWAN to securely track, monitor, and communicate between rangers, vehicles, equipment, and animals.

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  • Contact tracing apps: Worth the hype?

    October 22, 2020 |

    BBC |

    Podcast |

    Over 15 Minutes

    Response Location: Switzerland

    Contact tracing apps have received a lot of attention since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, but researchers caution they should be used in conjunction with other tactics and not be relied on to help on their own. However, an early study has indicated that even when only fifteen percent of the population downloads a contact tracing app, infection rates are reduced by eight percent and deaths are reduced by six percent.

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  • How will Lithuania's contact-tracing app work?

    October 13, 2020 |

    Lithuanian Radio and Television (LRT) |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: Lithuania

    Lithuanian officials are launching a contact-tracing app to better trace the path of coronavirus cases and alert people when they have potentially been exposed. Although there have been delays in the roll-out of the app, other countries have already released the technology and have seen success in people downloading the app as well as quarantining when alerted that they've been in contact with the virus.

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  • Spots of hope: Some good news for South Africa's cheetahs

    September 28, 2020 |

    Mongabay |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: South Africa, Durban

    A cheetah conservation project in South Africa has helped the cat population rebound over the years by securing them in wildlife reserves. The Cheetah Metapopulation Project started in 2011 when there were 217 cheetahs, but a decade later, there are now 419 across the reserves. While there is debate about whether the focus should be on the quantity of cheetahs or the quality of their enclosures, the project has been successful and they’re looking to share their cheetahs and conservation lessons with other countries.

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  • Will the Special Investigative Unit decrease gun violence in Flint? Audio icon

    September 15, 2020 |

    Flint Beat |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Flint, Michigan

    In the first full month since it was created to take illegal guns off the street, Flint's Special Investigative Unit seized 64 firearms and made dozens of arrests. The unit's predictive policing approach relies on data that tell the police where gun crimes are concentrated. Critics contend that focusing enforcement on historically high-crime areas creates a feedback loop of racially disparate policing, in that more cops in a neighborhood means more arrests, which in turn invites more enforcement. Targeted gun enforcement has a mixed record of crime reductions and racial inequities.

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  • Women Data Scientists Created GPS-Driven App to Help Kenya Keep Covid-19 Numbers Low

    September 11, 2020 |

    Zenger News |

    Multi-Media |

    Under 800 Words

    Response Location: Kenya

    Women in GIS Kenya created a digital tool that helps the government track the number of Covid-19 cases, recoveries, and confirmed deaths, as well as the number of tests administered. The online database combines a survey that assesses a person's symptoms with cellphone GPS data to create a map of current hot spots and recommend treatment locations. The government credits the tool, which can also predict high-risk areas vulnerable to future outbreaks, with helping to keep Kenya's COVID-19-related deaths relatively low compared to other countries. The tool is popular among younger, tech-savvy populations.

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