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How Recycled Solar-Powered Phones Could Save Rainforests and Change How the Tech Industry Tackles Climate Change
Rainforest Connection installs smartphones on tree canopies to transmit real-time alerts in areas where illegal deforestation is taking place.
Credit: Rainforest Connection
Topher White and Dave Grenell used $167,000 raised through Kickstarter to launch Rainforest Connection, a startup designed to curb illegal logging. The team installs smartphones on tree canopies to transmit real-time alerts in areas where deforestation is taking place.
Rainforest Connection's smartphones can pick up the sound of a chainsaw up to one square mile away, and instantly send the sound's location data to the cloud, enabling alerts to be sent to forest rangers. White says it took the team about 18 months to develop a solar panel design for powering the phones.
Rainforest Connection's initial tests have so far used Android phones, some of which are up to five years old, but White says additional types could soon be used in the near future.
The Rainforest Connection website enables consumers to send in their old smartphones to be retrofitted and used by the team. The crowdfunding money, as well as donations from the site, will be used to conduct pilot projects in Indonesia, the Amazon, and Africa later this year. Rainforest Connection already has several partners in these regions, and also plans to unveil a mobile app to enable users to listen to the sounds of the rainforest and eventually to receive alerts on illegal logging occurrences.
From Tech Republic
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