community announcement / 6 May 2022

WILDLABS 2.0: Introducing Our New Platform

We're so pleased to introduce you to the new WILDLABS Platform. For the past year, we've been hard at work building a new home for our conservation technology community. Now that it's time to welcome members new and familiar to see what we've created, we hope you'll be as excited as we are! 

When WILDLABS launched nearly seven years ago, we always hoped it would grow into a vibrant, diverse, and supportive community that spans every continent, with members using every type of technology to meet major conservation challenges. It has been such a privilege to not only see this community grow day by day, but to now have a new home in which our community can continue to thrive together. 

For the past 18 months, we've been hard at work building this new home for our conservation technology community. Every new feature of our platform has been designed with all of you in mind. We set out to make WILDLABS even more engaging and interactive, and full of ways to connect with other experts, peers, and friends around the global conservation tech field. As you get to know our new platform, we'd like to share a few of the features we've created for you.

Turtle image: 'Para descifrar “los años perdidos” de las tortugas carey (Eretmochelys imbricata) liberamos a este neonato con un transmisor satelital. Lo bautizamos con el nombre de Julián en honor a un biólogo de siete años y medio. Suerte Julián, llévanos a descubrir!' (Equilibrio Azul / www.equilibrioazul.org)

The heart of WILDLABS, our Groups, are more than just places to start conversations: they're places to share and post original case studies, resources and events, meet others working with similar tech tools or species, and find answers to your conservation tech questions with people who understand your work and unique challenges. 

By joining a group, you're also able to curate your personal Feed, as 'My Feed' will only display content from groups you've joined. And new to our Groups is the ability to share content and questions across multiple groups at once, helping you reach the right cross-section of our growing community. 

Also new to the updated WILDLABS platform is the ability for all members to write and share their own content like case studies, articles, interviews, project updates, and more! You can also add your events to our events calendar. Over the years, you've often told us that WILDLABS should become the central online hub for all things conservation tech. We share that vision, and we realized we needed to put all of our publishing and community building tools directly into your hands. We hope you'll add your voice to the WILDLABS platform and share your experiences with other members around the world who can learn from your work. 

  • Can't figure out how to do something? Jump into our 'How do I...?' help thread and we'll walk you through what you're trying to do. 

 

To post to WILDLABS, you'll need to login or create an account. You'll then see a 'Post' button appear in your top menu. 

You'll also find our brand-new Collections feature on WILDLABS. By bookmarking your favorite content from across our platform, you can curate your own collections of resources, events, and reading material so you never lose track of it - and so you can share it with others with common interests!

You'll find many more new and improved features on our platform, like better search functionality and an expansive global feed. As you explore our new home and find your place within it, we hope you'll continually discover new ways to engage with projects that inspire you, people who support you, and ideas that spark innovations. That's what WILDLABS has always been about, and we're glad you're here with us for our next chapter. 

This work has been enabled with the generous support of the UK Space Agency and Arm, with additional funding from Microsoft and the WILDLABS Partnership - Conservation International, Fauna & Flora International, Wildlife Conservation Society, World Wildlife Fund and the Zoological Society of London. The design and build of the platform is the hard work of the Octophin Digital team and Simon Collison, with additional service design and UX support from our collaborators at the Satellite Applications Catapult

This community platform and the new infrastructure we will be introducing in the next few months have been brought to life through the hard work, brilliance and dedication of a huge number of people. A big thank you to everyone who has been involved; we couldn't be more proud of what we've been able to create together.

Warmly,
Stephanie O'Donnell 
WILDLABS Community Manager


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