Summary
We are launching an Innovation Challenge to develop remote-sensing technology and help us with cost-effectively scaling our program. We offer financial rewards to interested parties who can successfully develop models that would allow us to utilise remote-sensing for our programming.
The Innovation Challenge is now open until February 28th, 2025.
More information (including submission details) can be found here.
The Problem: Limitations of Our Farmer Program
In FWI’s current main program, the Alliance for Responsible Aquaculture (ARA), field teams collect water quality data from member farms. If critical water quality parameters indicate that fish may be exposed to poor conditions, the field teams provide farmers with recommendations for corrective actions.
The current ARA model requires FWI staff to physically visit fish farms to measure water quality. The scalability of this model is limited by its dependency on in-field measurements which caps the number of farms FWI staff can visit each day. The limits to scalability also reduce the overall impact and cost-effectiveness of the program and we therefore want to determine ways to assess water quality without intensive in-field presence.
The Proposed Solution: Satellite-Based Remote-Sensing
Monitoring water quality using satellites may be one opportunity to remotely assess critical parameters and improve the scalability and impact of the ARA. Remotely monitoring water quality would allow water quality data collection from member farms more frequently and with lower resource input. And with that we could identify more instances where fish welfare is compromised. This technology also offers a potential mechanism to support many more farms, helping to cost-effectively scale the program.
While we have previously undertaken a project to explore the potential for remote-sensing water quality in aquaculture farms, our efforts were unable to provide models that matched our needs. However, we believe that the potential of this technology is so exciting and transformative for our programming, that it warrants further investigation. To boost our chances of success, we are launching an Innovation Challenge.
The Innovation Challenge
We are interested in a partnership with an entity who can successfully show that they have models matching our needs to leverage satellite technology to help scale our program and improve the welfare of millions of fishes.
We are seeking interested parties to either
develop new models allowing us to remotely monitor key water quality parameters at aquaculture farms in India through analysis of satellite data, or
share existing models that can be utilised for our purposes.
We will provide a financial reward—up to USD 10,000—based on the outcomes of a validation process.
This innovation challenge is open to anyone. We encourage submissions from technology companies, academic institutions, non-profit organisations, individuals/groups, or any party that has relevant experience that can be applied to this challenge. Interested parties are invited to notify FWI that they have a model or models ready for validation by February 28th, 2025. The submission process does not require the submission of any code, merely a brief description of the model(s).
Full details of the Innovation Challenge can be found here. Please share this with anyone who could be interested in submitting a model. Thank you!