Presentation on innovative solutions to forest protection challenges in Armenia at the headquarters of the BSEC Organization

04 November, 2019

On November 4, 2019, the delegation of Armenia delivered a presentation on “Innovative solutions to forest protection challenges in Armenia” at the meeting of the BSEC Working Group on Cooperation in Emergency Assistance held at the headquarters of the BSEC Organization.

First, the Armenian delegation briefly showcased the country’s new impact investment platform, ImpactAim Venture Accelerator, which helps generate a new range of innovative tools aimed at leveraging private investment for public good and with an impact on sustainable development goals (SDGs). Initiated by UNDP Armenia, ImpactAim Accelerator brings together the private sector, the government and development agencies to exit solutions and startups that both: are targeting the development of a specific sector and have a sustainable business model that can be further scaled.

The presentation particularly elaborated on two startup projects namely Datathon - a quick response system for wildfires and Forest Guard –a smart wireless sensor system for forestry that aims to prevent illegal logging, vehicle entrance and forest fires, which will have positive impact on the environment and climate change. Developed by utilizing complex algorithms and artificial intelligence, Datathon collects data on peculiarities of the given forest, combines it with the information about weather conditions and predicts how the fire will spread depending on where in the forest it starts, and Forest Guard detects a forest fire, illegal logging and illegal vehicle entrance and immediately sends an emergency signal to the customer as an incredibly energy efficient system. The participants have been informed that those two startups target the governments and wildfire emergency management stakeholders inside and outside of Armenia as potential customers.

At the end, the Armenian delegation highlighted the importance of collaboration between BSEC member states and their startup enterprises in the area of impact investments and finding sustainable development solutions, which can be replicated across the BSEC region and beyond. First as pilot projects and now to be fully operational systems, Datathon and Forest Guard can be expanded into the other countries in the region.

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