Posts

Machine Learning, AI and Climate

  As the impacts of climate change on the planet become clearer, scientists and professionals in climate science are looking at the latest tools and technologies in AI and machine learning to help understand and mitigate the effects. At the same time, career opportunities in the field are growing and we’re seeing increasing numbers of students and early career professionals interested in developing and using their skills in ways that can help the planet.   So, when and where can machine learning and AI be used in climate science? And what are the pitfalls? If you’re working in environmental and earth sciences, you probably already have a pretty big toolbox that has been developed over several decades! It consists of standard statistical techniques including spatial and temporal statistics, a range of physics-based or process based models, and several data collection and data integration technologies at different scales.   What can machine learning add to this? Does it rep...

Robots in Clean Technology: Navigating Oceans and Atmosphere Efficiently With AI and Biomimicry

If there’s one area in clean technology and data science that’s seen tremendous growth in the last three years, it’s the use of robots, drones and satellites to collect data and perform tasks.   Satellite data was used in the early 1970s for applications in clean technology through machine learning and statistics. Back then, LandSat were the earliest satellites and the data were used to understand land use and monitor environmental impacts from space. Of course, today we’ve got a wide range of satellite data available for all kinds of applications - from traditional government sources like the LandSat and Copernicus satellites to commercial satellites launched by companies like Planet.   Similarly, we’ve seen an explosion in the use of robots and drones in different clean technology areas - ranging from ocean monitoring to repairing infrastructure like oil and sewer pipes to maintaining solar arrays and wind turbines to cleaning up plastic pollution to harvesting fruits an...

Looking back at 2021 - Clean Technology Meets Data Science

As we enter 2022, let’s take a look back at what happened in the clean technology and data science space during the last year. It was certainly an interesting year from a technology perspective - and not just because the pandemic upended industries all over the world!   Clean technology saw some remarkable growth during the past year. We saw the explosion in the market share of electric vehicles (EVs), significant increases in renewable energy production and use around the world, the growth of wastewater surveillance and startups and utilities focusing on water management tools, and finally with COP26, we saw climate and sustainability come to the forefront with major players asking for better monitoring and decision making tools.   As clean technology sectors grew, we also saw data science tools and technologies being deployed more frequently - not just by startups and other innovators, but also by larger companies and organizations. And data science was being used not just t...

News: Water Tech, AgTech and more about our new, redesigned platform

We've been in "building mode" here at Ecoformatics for the last few months and are delighted to announce our new products! First, welcome to our new, redesigned website. We've consolidated all our products and services under a single platform with Teachable to make it easier for our members to access all our content. As a reminder, your existing account for courses and webinars will still work on our new website. Second, our live events will be back starting January!   Our events will continue to be primarily virtual, and we're adding a new networking aspect to all our events. We are looking forward to talking about data science, machine learning and sensors in different clean technology sectors with professionals from around the world! And finally, we’re excited to announce our new products - the WaterTech track and the AgTech track . These are our first tracks where we focus on data science in a particular clean tech sector - specifically the water and wastew...

Will AI Transform Water, Agriculture, Energy And Other Clean Technology Sectors?

  Will AI transform water, energy, agriculture, climate and all the other clean tech sectors? Can AI transform these sectors? Some version of these questions always gets asked at any meeting or conference in clean technology. Of course, part of that is because there’s been so much hype around AI and the whole “software is eating the world” interviews that came out a couple of years ago. But part of it is also because these tools are so powerful that professionals working in these sectors can see the potential - but just aren’t sure if it’s applicable to their sector yet. So, let’s start by asking a couple of fundamental questions. Why do we need AI at all? Or any models for that matter? Models are used to understand the world - to estimate the impacts of changes in systems and to try and predict what will happen in the future. Typically, the approaches used in building models can be classified into three broad categories - physical or mechanistic approaches, statistical approaches ...

Adapting AI for the Planet

The last couple of months have been interesting from a climate viewpoint - we’ve seen a record number of climate related disasters around the globe - drought, floods, fires, heat waves…..and it looks like this is probably going to be what our planet will look like in the near future. Add to that the COP26 conference that is scheduled for October 31st - and climate, sustainability and technology are front page news! So, let’s talk about one of the technologies in the news - artificial intelligence (AI) and its impact on climate, water, agriculture, energy, forestry, ecosystems and other sectors in clean technology . AI and its subset of tools - machine learning (ML), data science and statistics - are being touted as one of the key technologies in solving the problems facing the planet today. And while these technologies are certainly powerful - applying them effectively to solve problems in clean tech is another issue altogether. AI has been used by scientists in different clean tech se...

AI, Healthcare and the Environment

When discussing complicated topics like artificial intelligence (AI), it’s often easier to understand the issues in a sector like clean technology by comparing what’s happening in other sectors like manufacturing or healthcare. So, this month, let’s talk about building useful artificial intelligence(AI) tools, the need for expertise in adapting these technologies, and how our experience using AI in other sectors is similar to what we experience in clean technology. Since we’re still in a pandemic, let’s take a look at healthcare and clean technology. To start with, what do these two seemingly very different sectors have to do with each other? Quite a lot, as it happens. First, the environment has a huge impact on public health - think wildfire smoke or poor air quality and the impacts on cardiovascular health and asthma in people. Second, monitoring the environment allows us to better understand the health of communities - for example, monitoring wastewater for SARS-Cov2, the virus cau...

New products in progress!

We're in the processes of building a couple of fantastic new offerings that many folks in our community have asked for - so blog posts will be limited for a few months. Our jobs portal will still be updated regularly to make sure that all our members can keep up with what's happening in the sector. We can't wait to share what's happening at our end!

Corporate sustainability and carbon markets: The role of data science

  Every Earth Day we hear from companies around the world about their sustainability efforts - the gallons of water they have saved, the reductions in energy use, the systems they have converted from fossil-fuel to renewable energy, the ecosystems they have restored and, more recently the amount of carbon they have offset. On the face of it, these are amazing and hopeful numbers - the very fact that corporations are paying so much attention to sustainability and the environment is testament to the fact that consumer and citizen pressure is yielding results. In fact, with every successive year, it seems that companies and organizations are able to sequester more carbon, minimize greenhouse gas emissions and thus mitigate climate change.     What allows companies to make these claims - especially with respect to carbon and greenhouse gas emissions? The way that most companies claim these credits is through carbon markets or “cap and trade” programs. In these programs, a com...