Introduction to IBEIS

Adding to what Tanya has already written, here is an introduction to what we are doing...

Our team of faculty, graduate students, and professionals from Princeton, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, University of Illinois-Chicago, and WildMe, working in biology, ecology, computer science and software engineering, has gathered work at Ol Pejeta Conservancy and Mpala Research Center in the Laikipia region of Kenya to install, test and refine a (very) preliminary version of IBEIS, an Image-Based Ecological Information System.

What does this mean?

. Pictures!  Tourists on safari take lots and lots of pictures. So do scientists and technicians.  Now mix in automatic systems like GoPros mounted on tour vehicles and (eventually) UAVs with cameras  on them.  The result is many thousands of pictures a day, and at just one location.

. Algorithms and software.  There are too many pictures and too many animals to process the data by hand.  Instead, we are developing algorithms to find animals of certain species in the images - zebras and giraffes so far, with elephants and others soon to follow - and algorithms to identify individual animals if they have been seen before - works with almost any species with stripes or spots - or to decide which ones are new.  We have built a software system around these algorithms.  All are very much works in progress, but we are testing them here "on the ground" in Kenya and learning first-hand about how they might be used.

. Science.  Using the pictures, IBEIS will determine who the animals are, where they are, and when they are there.  From this, the scientists can determine what they are doing and why they are doing it.  With so many pictures, we should obtain a great deal of detailed information...  Who? When? Where? What? Why?  That is our mantra

. Tourists. Those who contribute pictures will quickly learn about the animals they photographed through the magic of IBEIS's detection and identification software.  Using the version of IBEIS we are installing, tourists will be given simple life histories of "their"  animals by the next morning.  In the future, the feedback will be almost immediate.  The goal is an enhanced tourist experience, leading to a long term connection between tourists and the animals they saw, the wildlife parks they visiting, and ideally conservation in general.

. The Team.  We are working together at many different locations, including New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Oregon and, of course, Kenya.  We need to get to know each other, form a cohesive team,
understand our purpose, and push toward our goals. It doesn't hurt that we are doing this in Kenya, with baboons and vervet monkeys lurking around the corners, and giraffes, elephants, zebras, rhinos,
impala, warthogs, buffalo, fish eagles, secretary birds, gazelles, and maybe lions, leopards and cheetahs just a game drive away.  Talk about incentive for doing well!  Just this afternoon driving back from Ol Pejeta to Mpala, I saw an infant plains zebra, zebras mating, rhinos fighting over a potential mate, and my first kudus and elands!

So, with this introduction, Tanya and I will invite the team members to write by contributing quick thoughts, short vignettes or longer descriptions.

We are excited about IBEIS, thankful to our universities, to Microsoft Research and East Asia, to Ol Pejeta Conservancy, to the Mpala Research Center, to private donors who have helped us get started, and to the US National Science Foundation.  And, we are anxious to get started!