discussion / Early Career  / 28 April 2021

Seeking opportunities: Innovation manager with hands on skills in prototyping, data-science, product

I am looking for career opportunities to align passion for tech with love for nature: I mean that I care about the conseguences of my working activities (including negative externalities I may contribute to) and in perpective I wanna carrying out part of my working activities feeling engaged outdoors.

I love inquiring understanding and observing of animals, I feel comfortable in the wild. I also feel very much comfortable whenever I need to experiment and ideate.

Any suggestions for organisations or networking, where my background can be already OK to start a collaboration and gain experience in nature conservation  + tech ?

Below, a few things I may contribute with:

- In the international developement sector I worked in innovation management, I followed up with projects related to improving livelihood in remote rural areas, and participatory GIS (cybertracker). 
- Data-science researcher - developed sustainability metrics to gauge impact of global food trade. Graph analytics, data-mining, data-sanitisation, some machine learning techniques, data-visualisation.
- Tech startups - co-founder + consultancies. Worked on both UX and tech innovation. Tech-wise, I developed products and models for knowledge discovery. Comfortable with Network science, graph-analytics, data-visualisations, knowledge graphs, some machine learning. Interested about ESG metrics. Savvy about UX, functional design, agile approaches.
- Personal initiatives - developed MVP applications to engage public audiences and civil society in discovery of sustainable food and in uncovering knowledge mapping.

I am interested in machine learning applied to animal communication, bio-acustic, ethology; ML and earth science to gauge deplation of natural capital; I can lead projects related to mapping information and divulging insights to engage decision makers and civil society. Im vocal about the connection nature conservation and inequality. Open to initiatives and suggestions for working opportunities.

I am open to consider volunteer in areas where I can acquire relevant skills and on-field experiences as a relevant investment (but they should at least cover expenses!). Thank you!!!!




Hey there! 

Thanks for sharing and networking on WILDLABS - hopefully some members will chime in with advice on building a network for these opportunities! I'd recommend also checking out some of our other forums like AI for Conservation, Remote Sensing & GIS, etc. to see what projects others need collaborators for, and reaching out to members who are working on projects that sound interesting to you. People here are quite often really happy just to chat about conservation tech career paths! Our WILDLABS Watering Hole forum is also a good place to key an eye on for volunteer opportunities posted by others.

If you have a LinkedIn or any other social media that showcases your work, might also be worth sharing, along with an email address if you'd like people to contact you outside of WILDLABS.

Good luck!

-Ellie

 

Thank you Ellie !
 

I post my portfolio in prototyping and innovation here (there's also my linkedin): 

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vROWuOe9bTz6O0fQqvccumYvgMV120Irr_gNuFtvAHNUVs2Uj2Z1H8G-RTNkls-zdGDRKPa9qy7a2zv/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000

there are also other projects I worked with, more related to managment and coordination and not included in the portfolio (e.g. when I worked on participatory GIS, cybertracker and digitalisation projects on behalf of an international development agency  - https://www.cta.int/en)  

May I ask you about type of projects you are following at WWF ?

Any tips for liaise with teams in WWF Europe and Switzerland will be appreciated - I hold EU citizenship / passport. 

Interesting! I shared with you a message about a project that may be complementary in engaging different expertes. Early stage, I m looking for people to get on board.

I see KeyConservation is founded in USA. Would you kindly let me know best way to reach out to people in wildlabs network, or suggest anyone ? Networking with people in USA and UK would be highly beneficial for the opportunity to engage philantropic organisations + a flare of startup that is beneficial to tune a product.

I would also recommend looking into/reaching out to non-profits in this space. For example, Global Forest Watch and Global Fishing Watch, Vulcan/EarthRanger, TRAFFIC, ConservationX, Cornell's Center for Conservation Bioacoustics, OpenAcousticDevices (AudioMoth makers), Freaklabs, WildID, WildMe, Fauna Labs, Soundscapes to Landscapes, Pachama, Rainforest Connection, Instant Detect (from ZSL), SMART (protected area management software), TechnoSmart, Movebank/ICARUS, Movement of Life, Arribada Initiative, Conservify (FieldKit), Wildlife Drones, Cellular Tracking Technologies, Internet of Elephants, Hack the Planet/Hack the Poacher, SmartParks, ARIES (AI for Environment & Sustainability), Wildtrack Fit, Nature Spy, Planet, OpenCollar, Connected Conservation.       

Or there are also for-profit tech companies getting into conservation tech - Microsoft AI for Earth (& MegaDetector), Google (Wildlife Insights), Tableau (they recently did a collab with EarthRanger), ESRI Conservation (makers of GIS, their philanthropic arm), Xerius Tracking, Conservation Metrics, Wildlife Acoustics.

Times like this I wish I had time to make a conservation tech organization directory!