July 2022: Seeed’s Field Application Engineer Will Be at Dinacon 3 in Sri Lanka for Wild Hacking for a Holistic #IoTIntoTheWild Project Implementation!

Figure 1. Dinacon 3 Ⓒ (Digital Naturalism Laboratories, 2021)

Dear Community,

Hi, there! As you’ve probably learned from our recently-launched “IoT Into the Wild Contest for Sustainable Planet 2022” on Hackster.io, the world is seriously lacking applicable, scalable, plug-and-play, and easy-to-deploy AIoT solutions, that might be helpful for solving myriads of real-world challenges in the wild.

To continue the discourse and our efforts on wildlife, biodiversity, and environmental conservation, we’d like to share a good news that Seeed’s Field Application Engineer, Lakshantha Dissanayake (Figure 2), will be joining the 3rd edition of The Digital Naturalism Conference (often abbreviated to ‘Dinacon 3’) in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka (Pearl of the Indian Ocean) from July 1st to 10th, 2022 (Figure 1).

Figure 2. Lakshantha Dissanayake,

Field Application Engineer at Seeed Studio

Now, you may ask us, “What’s Dinacon 3? That sounds pretty cool and unique!” Indeed, so here it goes. Founded and spearheaded by Andrew Quitmeyer (Figure 3) and Digital Naturalism Laboratories (aka, ‘Dinalab’), Dinacon is a non-traditional, extraordinary, experimental, and hands-on annual gathering (more likely, an ‘un’conference) of 100+ people from diverse backgrounds from all fields to collaborate on finding new ways of interacting with nature, through combining Field Biology with Interaction Design and Wild Hacking. For this year, Dinalab partnered with a local non-profit social enterprise – DreamSpace Academy – to organize the Dinacon 3. As the organizers shared in their promotional video (Digital Naturalism Laboratories, 2021),

“[Dinacon 3] brings people together to make things and explore the natural world. … Interact with forests, spot elephants and whales, while living and working together with scientists, crafters, designers, artists, and hackers from local communities and all around the world. … [Dinacon 3] has a simple, open-ended structure. You just need to, first, ‘make something’, ‘share it openly with the world [through open-sourced documentation]’, and then ‘give others feedback’. ”

Figure 3. Andrew Quitmeyer,

Founder and Executive Director of Digital Naturalism Laboratories and Dinacon

Ⓒ Andrew Quitmeyer (Dinacon, 2017)

That being said, let’s come back to what Lakshantha is up to at Dinacon 3. He shared that after arriving at the Dinacon 3 site in Batticaloa, he plans to first study and explore the natural surroundings of the region to figure out some of the concurrent local challenges. After learning about the local landscapes, resources, and other participants’ multi-disciplinary skills, he seeks to develop a holistic #IoTIntoTheWild project. How? Through collaborating with other participants, and using AIoT hardware and software tools like reComputer J1010 powered by Jetson Nano, reTerminal, Wio Terminal, SenseCAP LoRaWAN Sensors and Devices, SenseCAP weather stations, Grove Modules, YOLOv5, Roboflow, Node-RED, and the like. Currently, Lakshantha’s mind is full of enthusiasm for Dinacon 3 and potential project ideas like the following:

💡 Wild animal detection and counting system to prevent human-wildlife conflicts

💡 Poacher detection system for anti-poaching purposes

💡 Animal behavior tracker for the identification of animal disease symptoms or health issues

💡 Wildlife habitat monitoring for wildlife conservation (ex. wildfire detection)

💡 Crop maturity level classification system

Sounds interesting? Please stay tuned for Lakshantha’s upcoming #IoTIntoTheWild project and adventure in July 2022, as we’ll be coming back with a follow-up blog on his experience at Dinacon 3, as well as the FULL project documentation. Until then, why not take a sneak peak at the outcomes of the previous Dinacon 2 in Panama here? Until next time, then! Ciao! 😉