Recently, an Internet toy called "AI Enlargement" has been highly sought after by young people.
To put it simply, if the user provides a **, the AI tool can use its imagination to extend the picture.
Netizens use the ** produced by it, which is sometimes hilarious and sometimes shocking.
But what Imeijun wants to say is:
Don't underestimate the power of this **.
Because when a technology can be widely used by the general public, it means that its maturity has already been fully proven.
In fact, the "tech heroes" have taken the lead in injecting this power into more realistic fields, and they have reaped a lot of results.
AI can bring us more than just "fun", there are so many moving stories behind it.
A **,
Changing the fate of a species?
If I said that a ** can change the fate of a species, you probably wouldn't believe it.
However, the truth is, the "tech guys" made this possible.
The Chinese white dolphin, for example, was once widely active in China's coastal waters.
However, urban sprawl, industrial development, water pollution, overfishing, shipping and traffic have not only taken away the unique habitat of the CWD, but also destroyed important places for them to find food and reproduce in this area.
Today, the species is on the IUCN Red List.
Protection, imperative.
However, the implementation of conservation efforts is extremely difficult, as tracking dolphin trackings is an almost impossible task.
In this regard, Zheng Ruiqiang, a doctor from Sun Yat-sen University who has been tracking white dolphins for 14 years, has the most right to speak.
Once, in order to obtain first-hand scientific research information, he could only wait for the rabbit on the ocean
All the white dolphins encountered are identified by the method of ** identification, and the dorsal fin information is recorded.
Because the key to identifying the Chinese white dolphin is the dorsal fin, the dorsal pattern information of each body is unique.
And that's not even counting the data processing.
Every time they go out to sea, the expedition team brings back thousands of **, which belong to different dolphins.
They needed to take out the dorsal fin from the images they had obtained, compare it with the naked eye with the thousands of dolphins in the database, archive the existing dolphins with the previous ones, and create a new archive of the new dolphins that were discovered for the first time.
You may want to ask:
What's the point of collecting these?
For example, there is a white dolphin with the number A0067 in the database, which has been tracked by researchers for 11 years and photographed a total of 139 times, which records the changes in its body characteristics.
Through the accumulation and analysis of data over the years, researchers can better understand the social, courtship and predatory Xi of white dolphins, so as to understand the relationship between dolphin migration, flow and environment, and formulate scientific plans for the conservation of white dolphins.
Source: Dolphin |Love Dolphin Public Welfare Innovation Program.
However, the CWD is a long-lived species that can live up to 40 years of age, while conservationists have limited research and conservation careers.
Constrained by issues such as opaque data and lack of investment in protection, Dr. Zheng Ruiqiang worries that the work they do may not be able to form an effective protection plan and formulate corresponding protection measures.
As non-specialists, we can also imagine that this is tantamount to a fool moving mountains.
But Dr. Cheng said
"If you don't act on it, you risk extinction. ”
Thank you,
"Tech Hero".
Dr. Cheng has been looking for a solution to this dilemma.
He has tried to use AI technology to assist researchers in completing huge data processing work, and he and his team independently developed a Fingo project that can realize the individual identification of Chinese white dolphins.
However, at that time, "fingo" was not perfect enough, and the biggest problem was that the calculation speed was slow and the accuracy was not high enough.
In addition to this, the range of applications is limited.
It was not until December 2021 that the Tencent Charity Association announced the launch of the "Tencent Technology Venture Philanthropy Program".
Relying on Tencent's technological capabilities and advantages, the program encourages social professionals to use their technical capabilities to address public welfare pain points and development problems, explore sustainable social values, and jointly create benefits for society.
Dr. Zheng Ruiqiang's Hainan Smart Fishery Sustainable Technology Development Research Center submitted a project application and received support.
Especially after receiving the support of Tencent Cloud AI, "idolphin" was born, and the most critical technical problems were solved.
Source: Dolphin |Love Dolphin Public Welfare Innovation Program.
There are more than 36,808 dorsal fins** of white dolphins in the Mini Program database, covering the individual identification data of 2,698 Chinese white dolphins in 5 populations, 14 years.
Not only that, but "idolphin" is also open to the public.
Source: Dolphin |Love Dolphin Public Welfare Innovation Program.
If you get a photo, you can also upload it through the applet, and use AI technology to determine whether it is a Chinese white dolphin, providing scientists with a valuable data.
At present, the recognition accuracy rate of a single sheet is more than 93%, and the whole process only takes 11 seconds from uploading, processing to feedback results.
Source: Dolphin |Love Dolphin Public Welfare Innovation Program.
Yimeijun remembered a piece of news last month:
A white dolphin strayed into the river of Guangzhou for several days, but due to the difficulty of tracking, it was not possible to confirm whether it had left safely...
Perhaps in the near future, people can use "idolphin" to rescue the Chinese white dolphins in danger.
Perhaps, more and more species will be rescued in the future.
At present, what we have seen is that with the support of the "Tencent Technology Venture Philanthropy Program", more and more public welfare projects have achieved technological upgrades in the past two years.
For example, "Turtle Map":
By introducing AI technology, satellite data can be quickly processed, errors can be screened out, and sea turtle migration track maps can be generated to improve the timeliness of data.
For example, "Mengxin Beaver Technology Empowerment Public Welfare Project":
Through the labeled data training model, the system automatically labels and separates the footage with beavers, and then develops the beaver monitoring platform to realize the automatic rotation of AI-controlled surveillance cameras and lock the beavers-focus-identification-recording and storage.
This is the change that "tech heroes" have brought to our society.
The impact of these changes goes beyond making individual philanthropic projects more effective.
Technology and public welfare
A two-way street
As we all know, many NGOs in China have some shortcomings and challenges in terms of technology.
For example, the lack of digitalization, the lack of scientific and technological talent, the imbalance in the application of technology, and the lack of adaptability to emerging technologies.
Especially for small and medium-sized public welfare organizations, due to limited resources, it is difficult to keep up with the pace of scientific and technological development, resulting in the uneven popularization of scientific and technological applications in the field of public welfare.
At the same time, many domestic technology companies are also actively trying to establish ties with non-profit organizations.
They are committed to sharing scientific and technological resources and promoting the sharing of scientific and technological experience.
Emeijun learned from the main creative team of the "Tencent Technology Venture Philanthropy Program" that they define themselves as:
"A stringer who connects the needs of public welfare with people, money, and technology. ”
In the past two years, the program has been received in public welfare fields such as ecological and environmental protection, barrier-free, emergency response, cultural heritage protection, life care, rural revitalization, and educational innovation600+ project applications
After professional links such as compliance screening, preliminary review, due diligence, and review, there is near80 itemsGet funding and grow together.
During this time, they truly witnessed the relevance of this work:
Make public welfare actions more efficient;
Save manpower and material costs for the organization;
so that very small organizations can also catch up in the dimension of technology for good;
It is precisely because of these that they have strengthened their sense of social responsibility and belief in technological innovation as the initiators of technology public welfare
Inclusive technology, sustainable development, open cooperation, cultivating innovative talents, solving social problems...
Today, the application window for the third phase of the "Tencent Technology Venture Philanthropy Program" has been opened to the public, and more institutions and "tech heroes" are being recruited to participate.
Tencent Technology Venture Philanthropy Program (Phase III) will continue to set up a philanthropy group and a philanthropy group.
Starting from the effectiveness and practicability of funding, the public welfare practical group sets up three stages: co-creation, co-construction and sharingFocus on the direction of species identification in the field of ecological and environmental protectionTogether with the professional forces of all parties, we will jointly create valuable technical solutions and benefit the industry.
The Philanthropy Imagination Group is concernedCommunity service and eco-friendlyThe two public welfare fields are accompanied and incubated in the form of innovation and entrepreneurship practice courses to stimulate students' creativity and public welfare action.
In addition to cash assistance, Tencent Charity Association also provides technical links, professional ability cultivation, brand communication and promotion, and professional volunteer support.
Technology philanthropy has no boundaries, whether it is a large public welfare organization or a small and medium-sized volunteer team, they can find their place in the tide of science and technology.
Through open cooperation and sharing of resources, we can face social issues together, spark innovation, and work towards a better future!