The Social Affect Associate Highlight collection highlights numerous nonprofit group companions which are leveraging expertise to assist remodel the lives of people and communities. This weblog options Splunk’s partnership with OpenAQ, Radiant Earth, and WattTime, demonstrating their efforts to reinforce knowledge entry and digital instruments that assist knowledgeable decision-making for a more healthy planet.
Information, synthetic intelligence (AI), and digital instruments can assist uncover options to complicated environmental challenges that may be carried out at scale for optimum affect. Nonetheless, whereas a lot of the information exists, the datasets are monumental. That implies that too typically, nonprofits, governments, and different organizations aren’t capable of entry the information in a searchable and usable approach.
In October 2024, Splunk was happy to supply strategic grants to a few nonprofits which are working to advance options for a sustainable planet: OpenAQ, Radiant Earth, and WattTime. Whereas every has a particular historical past and strategy, they share a dedication to rising knowledge entry and offering digital instruments to assist higher decision-making that can have a optimistic and lasting affect on our world.
Empowering a world group to enhance air high quality
OpenAQ is an environmental tech nonprofit centered on rising entry to air high quality knowledge to assist communities take motion to pursue clear air initiatives. Its story began ten years in the past when founder Christa Hasenkopf was a State Division scientist working to compile knowledge on air high quality at embassies. She shortly realized that knowledge was both nonexistent or not brazenly obtainable, and when existent, it was difficult to entry and never standardized. Christa and her partner, Joe Flasher, who labored at an engineering firm that applies vitality and environmental knowledge to international challenges, knew open knowledge was essential in educating folks on the severity of air air pollution. They envisioned a universally accessible, open-source database of air high quality knowledge, and once they couldn’t discover one, they got down to construct one.
At the moment, Open AQ’s open-source, open-access knowledge platform is the biggest such platform on the earth. It aggregates real-time air high quality measurements from 1000’s of monitoring stations worldwide, harmonizing the information for consistency, specializing in core air pollution like PM2.5, PM10, NO2, SO2, CO and ozone. That knowledge empowers communities to research and forecast air high quality, elevate consciousness among the many public, and develop options to fight air air pollution. Customers embrace scientists, journalists, authorities companies, entrepreneurs and NGOs, united by a typical objective: supporting a world the place everybody breathes wholesome air.
Making environmental knowledge available to extra folks
Based in 2016, Radiant Earth allows data-driven choice making to deal with challenges associated to sustainability and conservation. By offering a platform and sources for accessing and using satellite tv for pc imagery and geospatial knowledge, Radiant Earth is making environmental knowledge extra accessible to assist governments, analysis establishments, and civil society organizations tackle complicated international challenges.
One instance of that is their work organizing the Cloud-Native Geospatial Discussion board, which brings geospatial knowledge customers collectively from throughout authorities, trade, and academia to develop open and extra accessible strategies for working with Earth science knowledge over the Web – together with satellite tv for pc imagery, climate knowledge, and local weather fashions – which may present very important insights for purposes like crop mapping, forest monitoring, and concrete planning. This strategy is designed particularly to empower researchers in growing nations to entry and analyze knowledge that was beforehand solely accessible to analysis establishments with highly effective compute infrastructure.
Creating instruments that enhance vitality effectivity and cut back emissions
What if three easy fixes may save 9+ gigatons of greenhouse fuel (GHG) emissions yearly: altering once we use vitality, the place we construct new clear vitality sources and which suppliers we procure from? WattTime is growing modern data-driven options that enable people, corporations, and governments to make knowledgeable vitality selections, enhancing vitality effectivity and decreasing emissions.
WattTime makes use of real-time electrical energy grid knowledge to find out the emissions affect of utilizing electrical energy at any given second. Based by UC Berkeley researchers, its instruments pinpoint the emissions from turbines working to satisfy electrical energy demand, combining this data with forecasting methods to foretell when vitality has the bottom GHG emissions. It transforms that knowledge into actionable indicators that may robotically modify the timing of vitality use, shared with companions by means of an API.
These indicators can be utilized to optimize good gadgets like electrical autos, thermostats and water heaters to make use of electrical energy at lower-emission occasions, with slight timing shifts including as much as vital reductions in emissions. Equally, it will possibly assist assess the place constructing new clear vitality sources may have the best affect on decreasing energy grid emissions. That helps improve the adoption of fresh vitality sources, benefiting each folks and our planet.
To be taught extra about how organizations are harnessing the ability of expertise to drive local weather options, go to Cisco’s Local weather Grants and Investments web page.
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