WILDLABS
Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)
The Variety Hour hosted by WILDLABS returns this June with a special marine-themed edition in recognition of World Ocean Day. From sea turtle conservation and marine protected area monitoring to environmental DNA, wildlife telemetry, and human-AI collaboration, this month's talks showcase how emerging technologies are helping conservationists better understand, monitor, and protect ocean and coastal ecosystems.
You never know what you'll find or who you'll meet at our Variety Hour, and that's part of the fun! You might catch speed talks from community members working around the world, learn from a leading conservation tech expert, discover a new tool, test your wildlife trivia skills, or find a great opportunity, maybe even all of the above.
Rather than a traditional webinar or structured lecture series, the Variety Hour is a flexible, interactive space where ideas move quickly between presentation and discussion. It is designed to surface emerging work, encourage questions, and connect people building and using conservation technologies in very different contexts, from remote field sites to global data platforms.
The Variety Hour: June 2026
Join us on June 24 at 11:00 EDT / 16:00 BST for a fantastic lineup of talks. To come along, register here.
This month's session features three short talks from Aden Ip, Matt Pickett, and Alasdair Davies, followed by a long presentation from Kalindi Fonda. Together, the talks will showcase the use of Edge AI and drones to support sea turtle rescue operations, portable real-time eDNA sequencing systems that bring species identification directly into the field, new low-cost open-source satellite telemetry tools designed to expand access to wildlife tracking, and new approaches to marine protected area monitoring that combine machine learning, citizen scientists, and expert knowledge.
Whether you're interested in marine conservation, AI, wildlife monitoring, genomics, telemetry, or simply want to discover what others in the WILDLABS community are building, we hope you'll join us for another exciting Variety Hour.
Agenda:
- Aden Ip - No lab, no cold chain, no bioinformatics: real-time eDNA species identification from a backpack
- Matt Pickett - Utilizing Edge AI enabled UAS to support response and rescue of cold-stunned sea turtles
- Alasdair Davies - A breakthrough in low cost sea turtle satellite tagging and telemetry
- Intermission - The WILDLABS Quiz
- Kalindi Fonda - Spyfish Aotearoa: Fish, People, Pipelines
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