Applications Invited for National Geographic - AI for Earth Innovation

About National Geographic:

National Geographic is the official magazine of the National Geographic Society.  They primarily contain articles about science, geography, history, and world culture.

AI for Earth Innovation

To address the many pressing scientific questions and challenges facing our planet, we must increase global understanding of how human activity is affecting natural systems and create a community of change, driven by data and cutting-edge technology. Artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing can capitalize on the potential of such data, leading to faster and more meaningful insights and creating the opportunity for transformative solutions.

The grants given by the partnership will support projects that use cloud computing to create and deploy open-source models and algorithms that make key analytical processes more efficient in the field. This partnership is focused on supporting projects that will build tools such as applications, application programming interfaces (APIs), or packages to be shared. Microsoft will help the successful applicants make their models and tools available for use by other environmental researchers and innovators.

Focus Areas:

Proposed work should address one or more of the topics below and create generalizable, scalable tools that can be used by other environmental researchers and conservationists.

Biodiversity

Biodiversity around the world is rapidly declining. AI can help us understand and address challenges such as these:

• Human-wildlife conflict
• Invasive species introduction and spread
• Habitat loss, including agricultural and urban encroachment
• Species discovery, identification, and distribution
• Wildlife poaching and trafficking

Climate Change

Countries and communities around the world are engaged in climate resilience, adaptation, and mitigation efforts. AI can help in areas such as these:

• Understanding and quantifying carbon sequestration
• Monitoring and understanding afforestation/reforestation efforts
• Identifying fire risks and ways to mitigate damage
• Extreme weather and climate modeling
• Sustainable land-use change
• Resilience to impacts caused by extreme events (e.g., droughts, floods, other natural disasters)

To strengthen your proposal, consider building a multidisciplinary team that spans technology and environmental science. For example, pair an expert capable of creating and deploying an open-source model or tool with an environmental research specialist who could use that model or tool to address a pressing habitat loss question. We require that at least one member of your team has demonstrated technical skills (such as in machine learning, statistical data analysis, scientific modeling, software development, and/or remote sensing) to successfully complete the proposed project.

Projects will be evaluated and prioritized on the following:

• Justification and importance of the proposed focus area
• Justification of the need for cloud computing
• Likelihood of the model or tool to scale and create lasting impact

Grants:

• Applicants may request $5,000 to $100,000. The budgets of successful proposals will include reasonable, well-justified costs directly required to complete the project. Successful applicants may use awarded funds over one year.
• In addition to financial support, successful applicants will receive free access to AI for Earth APIs, applications, tools, and tutorials, and support for their computational work on Microsoft Azure.

Eligibility:

You may submit a proposal as the project leader for only one project at a time. All applicants must be at least 18 years old at the time they submit an application. There is no upper age limit for Early Career Grants. However, if you have more than five years of full-time, professional experience in the field of your project focus, you do not qualify for an Early Career Grant.

More specifically, grant recipients must do the following:

• Release source code for projects publicly under the MIT license and feature their work on the Microsoft AI for Earth Technical Resources page.
• Make the training data on which their solutions are developed publicly available in a standard digital format
• Develop and deploy their solutions on Microsoft Azure.

If you have questions about the AI for Earth Innovation RFP, please email at grantsinfo@ngs.org with “AI for Earth Innovation” in the subject line.

Deadline: October 21, 2020.

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