On 18th of March, Seeed Studio hosted a Tech4Good webinar for the UN ITU’s 13th World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Forum 2022. Tech4Good webinar has been focused on introducing real-life application cases of AIoT and open source solutions for the most pressing SDG challenges of our time: Carbon Neutrality, Climate Change, Wildlife Conservation, and Sustainable Communities.
System integrators and IoT developers can dramatically reduce time, resources, and costs in developing and
Marine Litter Detective is a GPS-tracking device for monitoring marine pollutants, such as plastics and oil spills. This was developed by WWF Hong Kong in cooperation with MakerBay and Seeed. As a result, this Project has enabled the tracking of the origins and whereabouts of trash floating on the water surface (and inside the marine ecosystem), which disclosed how the marine litter ends up in the ocean from the land. Consequently, the Project can positively influence the UN’s SDGs 14, 6, 3, 17, 13, 11, 12, 4, 9 and 16.
Through collaborating with FFA and Seeed, Microsoft developed “FarmBeats for Students Program” to facilitate technological empowerment of young people to learn about AI, Machine learning, and IoT in agriculture. This affordable, hands-on and learning-by-doing education can enable the students to understand automatic irrigation and fertilization applications, crop yield prediction, and pragmatic tools to tackle the world’s hunger issues. Thereby, this Program seeks to accelerate the UN’s SDGs 2, 10, 4, 1, 5, 9, 8, 6, 7, 12, 11, 13 and 17.
To encourage and foster an environment where university students’ creativity, enthusiastic hearts, and innovative solution ideas on sustainable development challenges can be nurtured, “SDG Open Hack” has been organized annually since 2019. Ever since the Hack was held, Seeed Studio has been an engaged partner to contribute to the advancement of SDGs in the academic realm through mentoring and sponsoring open source hardware products. In this two-day event, students came up with innovative solutions on elderly care, waste management, digital recycling, cultural heritage protection, and shared economy, by incorporating the application of science and technology. Thereby, SDG Open Hack sought to achieve the UN’s SDGs 4, 12, 11, 17, 5, 9, 13 and 16.
In order to resolve the world’s oil spill issues caused by the Deepwater Horizon Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, Protei (a wind-powered and automated sailing fleet robot) was developed by MakerBay and Seeed. By shifting its shapes according to water waves and wind directions, the robot has been useful in collecting and cleaning thin sheens of light oil on water surfaces. Thanks to the fact that it is robustly built to survive in harsh weather conditions and hazardous chemical zones, it is now also used to clean material wastes and other chemical pollutants in the ocean. Now, Protei is the ongoing result of glocal open innovation communities. Accordingly, this Project seeks to achieve the UN’s SDGs 6, 14, 11, 15, 3, 1, 7, 9, 8, 12, 13 and 17.
In 2019, by partnering with Seeed Studio, Microsoft developed an AIoT solution for local farmers – “FarmBeats” Project. The Project has been designed to deliver Internet connectivity and to make precision farming to local farmers at affordable costs. More specifically, Seeed’s Sensor Box was developed and used for the Project to monitor various environmental conditions that affect the crop growth. As a result, agricultural productivity rate has been increased, while overall maintenance costs and human labor inputs have been minimized. FarmBeats Project has been recognized to help accelerate the UN’s SDGs 2, 9, 12, 5, 6, 7, 8, 4, 13, 17, 1 and 10.
In an effort to encourage high school and university students to address SDGs in practical and rapid manners, “SDG Summer School 2021: Open Source Health Solutions” was organized in July in Switzerland (Geneva), France (Paris), South Korea (Seoul), China (Shenzhen), Singapore, and Chile. This was organized by Geneva Tsinghua Initiative (GTI) and supported by its manifold partners, including Chaihuo Maker Space and United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). As a result, participants came up with open source hardware and software solutions to tackle health-related challenges. This hands-on educational program seeks to achieve the UN’s SDGs 3, 4, 5, 12, 9, 10 and 17.
Smart Citizen Kit is a completely open-source environmental monitoring device developed for the global Smart Citizen Project by Seeed, Fab Lab Barcelona, IAAC, and European Commision. This Kit allows citizens to easily measure, collect, integrate, and visualize data on an openly-shared platform that will help the citizens to tackle local challenges in their communities. This Project seeks to influence the UN’s SDGs 1, 12, 3, 16, 17, 13, 4, 6, 10, 5 and 9.
Seeed’s SenseCAP LoRaWAN devices enabled IIoT solution in Malaysia’s durian farming sector, tracking environmental growth conditions of the sensitive tropical fruit. The Project was successful in drastically decreasing the amount of human labor and natural resources, and predicting suitable irrigation patterns and pest control periods. Therefore, this Project directly and indirectly contributes to the UN’s SDGs 9, 12, 8, 2, 13, 16, 6, 7, 11 and 17.
For Stanford University’s open source haptic device called Hapkit, Seeed designed and made an all-in-one controller board called “Hapkit Board” to reduce the costs on microcontrollers and amplifications that support the Hapkit. This Hapkit Project witnessed a dramatic cost reduction in building educational haptic devices compared to previous models, as well as facilitated convenient learning for learners without mechanical knowledge. In this way, this Project contributes to the UN’s SDGs 4, 5 and 17.
With more and more people joining to build the People’s Network by deploying Helium gateways