Kristof Klipfel
- @kristof_klipfel
- | He/Him
Hi everyone! My name is Kristof.
I'm a game technology developer transitioning into conservation tech, and I'm so excited to have discovered this community - I honestly had no idea there was such an amazing space for conservation technology folks to connect and share ideas!
A bit about my journey:
I've spent 8 years in tech startups, but I've reached a point where I need my work to be more meaningful. Years ago, I discovered conservation technology existed and knew immediately that's where I belonged. Life took me elsewhere, but now I'm back with more experience and ready to make this transition happen.
This is the work I genuinely want to dedicate my time to and I'm so eager to learn from this community and discover where my technical background might be helpful.
To show I'm serious, I built something:
I created an interactive 3D visualization of elephant movement data from Etosha National Park using Unreal Engine. The project tracks 7 individual elephants over 9 months (November 2008 - July 2009) using GPS collar data downloaded from Movebank.
Features:
- Real-time 3D visualization overlaid on satellite terrain
- Individual tracking for each elephant with color-coded trails
- Time scrubbing to watch movement patterns unfold over months
- Camera controls: free exploration, jump to any animal, or follow mode
- Customizable colors for labels and trail paths
- Full 3D navigation with terrain context
Why I built this:
Proof of Concept. I wanted to understand what conservation data actually looks like and explore whether game engine technology could make spatial-temporal data easier to explore and understand. 2D maps are incredibly valuable, but I was curious whether 3D visualization could help show terrain influence, elevation changes, and how animals actually navigate their environment.
This specific data didn't provide much insight on the impact of elevation on movement behavior due to the nature of flat desert environment so next I'd like to try this in a more mountainous region and see if there is some interesting data that comes from that.
Next Attempt: Wolves
Importing and evaluating different data is relatively easy in this project so trying this in different regions with different animal types is trivial to set up.
Game engines like Unreal Engine provide the opportunity for interacting with real-time data in 3D and I'm eager to understand more about how this could be helpful in the field of conservation research.
If you have any questions about this application specifically please feel free to ask. I threw this together in a few days so its a bit rough and it could easily be adapted to match other needs.
What I'd love to learn from you:
- Would this type of tool actually be useful for your research / outreach, or is it more "cool to look at"?
- What would make something like this genuinely valuable in your day-to-day work?
- Where are the real technical challenges in wildlife tracking and conservation tech?
- What problems are you wrestling with that technology might help solve?
My technical background:
- Unreal Engine (3D Game Engine) development (8 years)
- Technical leadership (Technical Director, Head of Engineering roles)
- Hardware prototyping: robotics, arduino, raspberry pi, drones (Part 107 certified), 3D printing
- CAD work (SolidWorks, Blender)
- Photogrammetry and computer vision experience
I'd genuinely love to chat with you:
If you're working on wildlife tracking, camera traps, field hardware, acoustic monitoring, or really any conservation challenge that involves technology, I'd be so grateful for the chance to learn from you. I'm trying to have conversations with as many people as possible to understand this field and where I might actually be able to help.
If you'd be willing to spare 20-30 minutes for a call to share your experiences and insights, I'd really appreciate it. I'm more than happy to share anything from my game dev or hardware background that might be useful to you as well. Feel free to DM me here or connect on LinkedIn.
I know everyone's busy, so even if you can't chat, I'd be incredibly thankful for any introductions to others who might be open to a conversation.
Thank you so much for having me in this community. I'm really looking forward to getting to know you all!
Kristof
15 December 2025 3:09pm
Kristof,
This PoC is super cool, congrats!
In the context of Ocean Conservation, 3D visualizations like this are crucial to give decision managers an interactive view on their environments and how they would respond to specific anthropogenic/climate stressors.
Think visualizing the biodiversity fish in coral reefs around the coastlines of a country, and how it would react to an increase of sea temperature.
Also, you might be interested in the OceanX Hackathons, programs which invite game developers to the OceanXplorer research vessel to brainstorm/hack science/education solutions to Ocean Conservation.
29 December 2025 8:38pm
Hi Kristof,
Very cool that you made your own app like this! I'm not a movement ecologist, but I'd generally say this sort of thing will be more nice to look at than solves research questions. For example, most statistical models will show that proximity to water and human development are the strongest predictors of elephant movement. But it's still a very cool tool for outreach and communication with the general public or conservation decision makers!
I can imagine a visualization like this being very helpful in communicating drivers of human-elephant conflict in SE Asia, where elephant movements outside of protected areas may be explained by the combination of attractive food crops, accessible water and shade refuge in tree plantations, and repulsive hazing by farmers. These sorts of things that can be modeled statistically don't necessarily translate well to the public - so visualization is really important!
On a non-geospatial note, I would say that AR/VR also has a lot of potential for increasing public engagement/support for conservation. Getting individuals who may never go to East Africa to experience visually how increasingly severe droughts affects the landscape and promotes conflict between pastoralists and agriculturalists and wildlife could be really powerful. That's perhaps an area where game development expertise would be particularly useful.
Cheers,
Brandon
20 April 2026 4:05am
I am glad to see more programmers coming into the conservation field. The first big project I did that really got me involved with conservation work, was taking the path finding algorithms I used from learning game programming, and using them to detect and measure the distance of routes that turtles traveled up and down streams in a river drainage.
20 April 2026 7:39am
Wolves, cool!
Will this then need collared wolves ?
Filippo