As CEO of Hitachi Vantara, Gajen helps solve clients' problems by bringing to bear Hitachi's unrivaled industrial expertise across sectors. You might not think saving the world's tropical rainforests is a data challenge, but the urgent task of protecting the last remaining two million square miles of forest is precisely that. What is more, the challenge holds vital lessons for anyone tackling a data project with seemingly insurmountable odds. Logging, much of it illegal, strips the planet of more than 32 million acres of natural forest every year. If you ever imagined literally trying to find a needle in a haystack, then you might be able to contemplate what it is like to find a chainsaw in forested areas the size of Australia.

The Salish Sea, which extends from British Columbia to Washington State in the U.S., was once home to hundreds of killer whales, also known as orcas. Now, the population of Southern Resident Killer Whales, a subgroup of orcas, is struggling to survive--there are only 73 of them left. Building on our work using AI for Social Good, we're partnering with Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) to apply machine learning to protect killer whales in the Salish Sea. According to DFO, which monitors and protects this endangered population of orcas, the greatest threats to the animals are scarcity of prey (particularly Chinook salmon, their favorite meal), contaminants, and disturbance caused by human activity and passing vessels. Teaming up with DFO and Rainforest Connection, we used deep neural networks to track, monitor and observe the orcas' behavior in the Salish Sea, and send alerts to Canadian authorities.

We invited three industry expert speakers using AI to battle climate change. During the hour long webinar, Anita Faul, Data Scientist at the British Antarctic Survey, Lauren Kuntz, CEO and Co-Founder of Gaiascope and Topher White, CEO and Founder of Rainforest Connections walked us through their business use applications of AI to fight the change in climate. Anita started her talk with an explanation of the Thwaites Glacier, otherwise know as the'Doomsday Glacier'. This glacier is responsible for 4% of all sea level increase - if it were to melt completely, sea levels would rise by half a meter in total (hence the name). Therefore, Anita's objective at the Antarctic Survey is to identify icebergs efficiently and reliably in Synthetics Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite images to estimate ice loss.

If an oil spill were to hit B.C.'s southern coast, threatening the local orca population, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) could respond in a way that wasn't technologically possible just two years ago, says Paul Cottrell. For years the marine mammal co-ordinator counted on a network of 18 hydrophones – underwater listening devices lining much of Vancouver Island – to detect calls of the endangered southern resident killer whales and track their movements in the Salish Sea. But what if artificial intelligence could be harnessed to automatically detect the calls of that one particular subgroup of orcas around the clock? That was the pitch Google's (Nasdaq:GOOG) artificial-intelligence division made to the DFO at a 2018 workshop in Victoria. "The opportunity to work with such cutting-edge individuals and technology was amazing," Cottrell said.

It's easy to get cynical about artificial intelligence (AI). China is using facial recognition against the Uighurs. NYT: 'One Month, 500,000 Face Scans: How China Is Using A.I. to Profile a Minority' Google's participating in the development of autonomous weapons. The Intercept: 'Google Continues Investments in Military and Police AI Technology Through Venture Capital Arm' And facial recognition programmes are still struggling to recognise black faces. But last year I also saw another side.

Non-profit technology startup Rainforest Connection has utilized artificial intelligence to help monitor West Sumatra's rainforests. The tool, named The Guardian, uses Google technology called TensorFlow that can record sounds in the forest and send them to the forest rangers' smartphones through the Rainforest Connection mobile application. Rainforest Connection founder and CEO Topher White explained that the tool was quite simple. "Basically, The Guardian is a box containing a battery, used cellphone, voice recorder and solar panel. To operate this equipment, we put it on top of the trees, which allows them to record voices using its microphone and send it directly to the cloud using TensorFlow," Topher said in a statement.

Google's machine-learning tool is being used to detect and combat illegal deforestation The news: Rainforest Connection, a San Francisco nonprofit, has developed a cheap, rigorous acoustic monitoring system made from modified cell phones and solar panels. An app on the so-called Guardian devices, which can be hidden in trees throughout forests, continuously listens for the telltale signs of illegal logging and animal poaching. On March 21, the organization announced that it will be using Google's TensorFlow, a free tool that makes it simpler for other companies and groups to develop machine-learning software (see "Google stakes its future on a piece of software"). Rainforest Connection says it will enable the organization to more accurately detect troubling sounds in the uploaded audio, such as chainsaws, vehicles, and gunshots. Deforestation reduces biodiversity, increases erosion, and promotes desertification.

Can old cell phones and machine learning help stop deforestation? The Tembé tribe from the central Amazon hopes so. In collaboration with Rainforest Connection, an environmental nonprofit, the Tembé are using old cell phones hidden in trees and TensorFlow, Google's open-source machine learning tool, to listen for sounds of illegal logging.

Editor's Note: Rainforest Connection is using technology to protect the rainforest. For me, growing up in the 80s and 90s, the phrase "Save the Rainforest" was a directive that barely progressed over the years. The appeal was clear, but the threat was abstract and distant. And the solution (if there was one) seemed difficult to grasp. Since then, other worries--even harder to grasp in their immediacy and scope--have come to dominate our conversations: climate change, as an example.