Conservation International wins Microsoft challenge

Data — the key to understanding and tackling some of the world’s toughest problems — suffers from at least one major challenge.

It’s often scattered and disorganized.

Whether stored in a university database, a government server or a scientist’s hard drive, data is not useful if no one knows where it is or has access to it.

This week, a hackathon hosted by Microsoft challenged participants to find solutions to real-world problems using artificial intelligence — and a team from Conservation International took the top prize.

The solution? An AI-powered restoration tool that can quickly identify where restoration will have the greatest impact for people, nature and climate.

CIERA (Conservation International Ecosystem Restoration Assistant) combines available geospatial data with information pulled from public policies, government guidelines and scientific articles to support the faster and more efficient identification of priority areas for forest restoration.

What used to take months of analysis, CIERA can do in minutes — making restoration smarter, faster and more scalable.

“CIERA can represent a significant advance in the way we identify and prioritize areas for restoration,” said Akel Saliba, a member of Conservation International’s team at the event. “By combining geospatial data with legal documents, we can cross-reference information and offer solutions with greater impact and assertiveness, adapted to local needs and requirements, benefiting both nature and the communities involved.”

With this tool, anyone from rural landowners to local community members to policy makers can access detailed and personalized information about areas suitable for restoration.

“The future of nature restoration is here — and it’s powered by collaboration, creativity and AI,” said Conservation International CEO M. Sanjayan.

CIERA was developed by Conservation International collaborators from the United States and Brazil in partnership with Microsoft, Esri, University of Maryland, Utah State University, and threshold.world.

Hack4Good 3.0, part of the Global Nonprofit Leaders Summit, brought together NGOs, technology partners, students and Microsoft developers to find solutions to problems in fields ranging from conservation, health, sports and technology.

Mary Kate McCoy is a staff writer at Conservation International. Want to read more stories like this? Sign up for email updates. Also, please consider supporting our critical work.