Smart savannahs
| Reference number | |
| Coordinator | Linköpings universitet - Institutionen för systemteknik |
| Funding from Vinnova | SEK 1 500 000 |
| Project duration | December 2014 - December 2016 |
| Status | Completed |
Important results from the project
Ngulia is a rhino sanctuary in Kenya, home to about 80 black rhinos. Project Ngulia is a public-private partnership that aims at developing innovative cost-efficient technical solutions to assist the park rangers to monitor rhinos and combat poaching. In our bottom-up approach, we are focusing on the important work of the park rangers. We want to make their work more efficient and safer by digitisation, to secure the information from loss, change or unauthorised access.
Expected long term effects
Today, the rangers use smartphones with an app we developed together with them to report whatever they see during their patrols, and the officers can in real time see their reports and get regular activity and report summaries from the system. We now have a digital platform ready to replicate in other parks in Kenya and Africa, and to extend with sensor networks. In the future, we want to provide the rangers with super-eyes and super-ears using modern sensor technology featuring smart algorithms from our research.
Approach and implementation
The project is based on a public private partnerships where the operator Airtel, Nokia and Kolmården are our gold partners, and the IT companies HiQ and iHub (KE) are our implementers and silver partners. We have together with HiQ and iHub visited Ngulia about 40 times, the first ten times to design the solution together with the end users, and the remaining times to train the users and get feedback to our continued development.