Earth Tools Maker
Earth Tools Maker is a conservation technology company that designs, builds, and deploys monitoring systems—including sonar, camera networks, drones, and acoustic sensors—for research institutes, NGOs, and public agencies. The team adapts published research into field-ready tools, such as Pyronear, an open-source wildfire detection system that spots smoke up to 35 km away with 4× fewer false alarms.
- Internet of Things
- Clean Technology
- Artificial Intelligence
- Data & Analytics
- Drones & Uncrewed Systems
- Hardware
- Software Only
Funding
Founders
Founder details are not available yet.
Product
Problem
Conservation teams collect vastly more data than they can analyze—years of audio, millions of camera-trap photos, and endless hours of underwater video. Research labs publish methods that could help, but these rarely leave the lab, leaving field teams without reliable, deployable tools for monitoring wildlife and environmental change.
Solution
Earth Tools Maker carries promising research from the lab into the field, building and deploying monitoring technology for conservation. The company works with partners to design, build, and deploy sonar, camera networks, drones, and acoustic sensors, while also developing open and low-tech solutions for fighting wildfires. Its team of engineers and ecologists starts from field problems, adapts published methods to specific species and sites, and deploys systems where the data lives—whether on a riverbank, at a ranger station, or in the cloud. Earth Tools Maker also builds software with field teams, from free downloads to hosted services, and provides ongoing support so systems keep working as conditions change.
Target Audience
Primary customers are research institutes, NGOs, and public agencies working in wildlife conservation and environmental monitoring, including park managers, fire departments, and government bodies like Rijkswaterstaat.
Features
- Deploys integrated monitoring systems including sonar for salmon counting, acoustic sensors for forest elephant detection, and drones for coastal erosion mapping
- Develops Pyronear, an early forest fire detection system using computer vision on low-power hardware (Raspberry Pi) that spots smoke up to 35 km away with 4× fewer false alarms
- Provides BioWatch, an open-source desktop app that analyzes camera-trap data 100% locally to keep sensitive wildlife data secure
- Contributed backend engineering to EarthRanger, the Ai2 conservation platform deployed at 900+ sites in 80+ countries, by separating read/write paths, partitioning databases, and speeding up APIs
- Offers a suite of software tools from free downloads to hosted services, alongside custom integration support for field teams
- Builds AI models trained on specific species and sites, from AI-BIRD for seabird colony surveys to bear identification and snow leopard monitoring