XPRIZE Announces Finalists for Rainforest Competition: The Best Use of Drones for Conservation

image: Arnie Chou, via Pexels

XPRIZE Announces Finalists for Rainforest Competition

by DRONELIFE Staff Writer Ian J. McNabb

Recently, XPRIZE announced 6 finalists for its $10,000,000 Rainforest competition to develop new biodiversity assessment technologies, all featuring the use of UAV technology and drones to improve scientific research and conservation in these increasingly endangered ecosystems.

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As XPRIZE stated in their press release, “Successful competing teams must demonstrate their technology’s scalability to measurably improve biodiversity monitoring, and include a process to improve autonomous and rapid data integration that provides unprecedented levels of detail in real time”. In their press release, Peter Houlihan, EVP of Biodiversity and Conservation for Xprize, stated, “We cannot effectively protect what we cannot accurately measure and understand. I’m extremely encouraged by the advancements these teams…