The Social Affect Companion Highlight collection highlights numerous nonprofit group companions which can be leveraging expertise to assist remodel the lives of people and communities. This weblog options Splunk’s partnership with OpenAQ, Radiant Earth, and WattTime, demonstrating their efforts to boost information entry and digital instruments that help knowledgeable decision-making for a more healthy planet.
Knowledge, synthetic intelligence (AI), and digital instruments may help uncover options to advanced environmental challenges that may be carried out at scale for max influence. Nevertheless, whereas a lot of the info exists, the datasets are huge. That implies that too usually, nonprofits, governments, and different organizations aren’t capable of entry the info in a searchable and usable manner.
In October 2024, Splunk was happy to supply strategic grants to 3 nonprofits which can be working to advance options for a sustainable planet: OpenAQ, Radiant Earth, and WattTime. Whereas every has a particular historical past and method, they share a dedication to rising information entry and offering digital instruments to help higher decision-making that may have a optimistic and lasting influence on our world.
Empowering a worldwide neighborhood to enhance air high quality
OpenAQ is an environmental tech nonprofit targeted on rising entry to air high quality information to assist communities take motion to pursue clear air initiatives. Its story began ten years in the past when founder Christa Hasenkopf was a State Division scientist working to compile information on air high quality at embassies. She shortly discovered that information was both nonexistent or not brazenly accessible, and when existent, it was difficult to entry and never standardized. Christa and her partner, Joe Flasher, who labored at an engineering firm that applies vitality and environmental information to international challenges, knew open information was essential in educating folks on the severity of air air pollution. They envisioned a universally accessible, open-source database of air high quality information, and once they couldn’t discover one, they got down to construct one.
At this time, Open AQ’s open-source, open-access information platform is the biggest such platform on the earth. It aggregates real-time air high quality measurements from 1000’s of monitoring stations worldwide, harmonizing the info for consistency, specializing in core air pollution like PM2.5, PM10, NO2, SO2, CO and ozone. That information empowers communities to research and forecast air high quality, increase consciousness among the many public, and develop options to fight air air pollution. Customers embrace scientists, journalists, authorities businesses, entrepreneurs and NGOs, united by a standard objective: supporting a world the place everybody breathes wholesome air.
Making environmental information available to extra folks
Based in 2016, Radiant Earth permits data-driven determination making to handle challenges associated to sustainability and conservation. By offering a platform and sources for accessing and using satellite tv for pc imagery and geospatial information, Radiant Earth is making environmental information extra accessible to assist governments, analysis establishments, and civil society organizations tackle advanced international challenges.
One instance of that is their work organizing the Cloud-Native Geospatial Discussion board, which brings geospatial information customers collectively from throughout authorities, business, and academia to develop open and extra accessible strategies for working with Earth science information over the Web – together with satellite tv for pc imagery, climate information, and local weather fashions – which may present very important insights for functions like crop mapping, forest monitoring, and concrete planning. This method is designed particularly to empower researchers in creating international locations to entry and analyze information that was beforehand solely accessible to analysis establishments with highly effective compute infrastructure.
Creating instruments that increase vitality effectivity and cut back emissions
What if three easy fixes might save 9+ gigatons of greenhouse gasoline (GHG) emissions yearly: altering after we use vitality, the place we construct new clear vitality sources and which suppliers we procure from? WattTime is creating modern data-driven options that permit people, corporations, and governments to make knowledgeable vitality selections, enhancing vitality effectivity and decreasing emissions.
WattTime makes use of real-time electrical energy grid information to find out the emissions influence of utilizing electrical energy at any given second. Based by UC Berkeley researchers, its instruments pinpoint the emissions from turbines working to fulfill electrical energy demand, combining this info with forecasting methods to foretell when vitality has the bottom GHG emissions. It transforms that information into actionable alerts that may robotically alter the timing of vitality use, shared with companions via an API.
These alerts can be utilized to optimize good gadgets like electrical autos, thermostats and water heaters to make use of electrical energy at lower-emission instances, with slight timing shifts including as much as vital reductions in emissions. Equally, it may well assist assess the place constructing new clear vitality sources might have the best influence on decreasing energy grid emissions. That helps improve the adoption of fresh vitality sources, benefiting each folks and our planet.
To study extra about how organizations are harnessing the facility of expertise to drive local weather options, go to Cisco’s Local weather Grants and Investments web page.
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