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A team of researchers from Virginia Tech is preparing to embark on a journey to Brazil’s Amazon rainforest to participate in an international competition to survey the biodiversity of a square kilometer of the forest. The competition, called XPRIZE Rainforest, will challenge teams to use automated technologies to identify species in the rainforest without any human interaction.

The team from Virginia Tech will have 72 hours to survey the rainforest, with one day dedicated to fieldwork and two days for analysis and interpretation of data. The team will use a tool called Limelight, along with drones and other technologies, to collect images, acoustics, and DNA data to identify species at every level of the rainforest.

The winning team will be awarded a $10 million prize for developing the fastest and most efficient automated technologies for biodiversity surveying. The team from Virginia Tech, consisting of Niyomi House, Daniela Campos, Isabella Burgos, Julie Allen, and Kanna Yerks, is gearing up for the competition on July 8.

This competition highlights the importance of biodiversity conservation and the role of innovative technologies in protecting fragile ecosystems such as the Amazon rainforest. Virginia Tech’s participation in the XPRIZE Rainforest competition showcases the university’s commitment to cutting-edge research in environmental science and conservation.

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