The Social Influence Accomplice 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 boost knowledge entry and digital instruments that help knowledgeable decision-making for a more healthy planet.
Information, synthetic intelligence (AI), and digital instruments will help uncover options to advanced environmental challenges that may be carried out at scale for max influence. Nonetheless, whereas a lot of the information exists, the datasets are monumental. That signifies that too usually, nonprofits, governments, and different organizations aren’t in a position to entry the information in a searchable and usable approach.
In October 2024, Splunk was happy to offer 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 growing knowledge entry and offering digital instruments to help higher decision-making that can have a constructive and lasting influence on our world.
Empowering a worldwide neighborhood to enhance air high quality
OpenAQ is an environmental tech nonprofit targeted on growing 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 out there, 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 power 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 present, Open AQ’s open-source, open-access knowledge platform is the biggest such platform on the planet. It aggregates real-time air high quality measurements from hundreds 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, increase consciousness among the many public, and develop options to fight air air pollution. Customers embrace scientists, journalists, authorities businesses, entrepreneurs and NGOs, united by a standard purpose: supporting a world the place everybody breathes wholesome air.
Making environmental knowledge available to extra folks
Based in 2016, Radiant Earth allows data-driven determination 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 handle advanced 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, business, 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 might present very important insights for functions like crop mapping, forest monitoring, and concrete planning. This strategy is designed particularly to empower researchers in growing international locations to entry and analyze knowledge that was beforehand solely accessible to analysis establishments with highly effective compute infrastructure.
Creating instruments that increase power effectivity and cut back emissions
What if three easy fixes may save 9+ gigatons of greenhouse fuel (GHG) emissions yearly: altering once we use power, the place we construct new clear power sources and which suppliers we procure from? WattTime is growing revolutionary data-driven options that permit people, firms, and governments to make knowledgeable power decisions, enhancing power effectivity and lowering emissions.
WattTime makes use of real-time electrical energy grid knowledge to find out the emissions influence of utilizing electrical energy at any given second. Based by UC Berkeley researchers, its instruments pinpoint the emissions from mills working to satisfy electrical energy demand, combining this info with forecasting methods to foretell when power has the bottom GHG emissions. It transforms that knowledge into actionable alerts that may routinely alter the timing of power use, shared with companions by means of an API.
These alerts can be utilized to optimize sensible units like electrical autos, thermostats and water heaters to make use of electrical energy at lower-emission instances, with slight timing shifts including as much as important reductions in emissions. Equally, it may possibly assist assess the place constructing new clear power sources may have the best influence on lowering energy grid emissions. That helps improve the adoption of unpolluted power sources, benefiting each folks and our planet.
To study 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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