Wild Animals in Daily Life

We created an information system capable of indexing and protecting sensitive real-time tracking data from wild animals and overlaying it on our own human data to achieve greater empathy and understanding.

Humans have historically low engagement with the natural world. Global urbanization has led people to abandon wildlife-rich landscapes. To encourage sustainable relationships between humans and other animals, technology to reconnect is urgently needed. Here we introduce a novel information system, including a mobile app and privacy tools, to enable reconnection with the natural world. We propose the combination of real-time tracking data from wild animals and humans. Novel wildlife experiences, integrated into people’s daily lives, increase connectedness to nature, which serves as a key factor for pro-environmental behavior. Further benefits are identified in education, philanthropy, health, and entertainment. We utilize an innovative privacy-preserving architecture to shield wildlife data from criminal intent.

The International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) is “the most prestigious gathering of information systems academics and research-oriented practitioners in the world.” Less than 1/3 of paper submissions were accepted. Our paper was nominated by the track chairs for the Most Innovative Short Paper Award.

with R. Frey (MIT/ETH-Zurich), A. Ilic (ETH-Zurich), E. Fleisch (ETH-Zurich), and A. Pentland (MIT).