Last Friday, Robotto CEO and Co-Founder Kenneth Richard Geipel spoke at Microsoft's latest Fast Forward event. Panel and audience members gathered to discuss innovation, specifically, what does the future looks like in this fast-forward world of ours? And how can we innovate ourselves to a better and brighter future?
In 2018, four university students gathered to discuss potential ideas for a bachelor thesis. The idea was how to use drones to do dirty and dull tasks. Quickly realizing the potential for this innovation was large, the team decided to apply their ideas to combating wildfire: applying innovation to create a better and brighter future.
“We saw a record-breaking number of fires in Sweden, we saw devastating wildfires running through Greece, and we saw another record-breaking mega-fire in California – a record that has been broken five times since. And we asked ourselves, how can we help with this pressing issue”, Kenneth Richard Geipel said during his segment.
Today innovating for a better and brighter future is still at the very core of what we do. With Robotto Fire we knew bringing the power of AI to Fire detection and analysis had the potential to save lives and save nature, and this knowledge fueled our determination to bring this to market.
KNOWING OUR IMPACT
In 2021, this determination and passion for innovating for good inspired us to ensure our idea was in fact, beneficial for our users. Together with the Footprint Firm, we ran an analysis based on interviews, case studies, and literature in the hopes of gaining a true understanding of Robotto Fire's overall impact.
Through these studies, we calculated the overall resources used by fire departments as well as the total spread of the fire.
Then we compared data from case studies where Robotto Fire was used. Seeing these numbers strengthened our passion for innovating in the field as Robotto Fire clearly had a large impact on not only the total resources used but the overall spread of the fire.
Continuing in this quest to understand our overall impact, we conducted calculations on the environmental impact of wildfires.
"According to the CAMS scientists, global wildfires in 2021 caused an estimated total of 1760 megatonnes of carbon emissions, which is the equivalent of 6450 megatonnes of CO2. To put this figure into some perspective – total CO2 emissions from fossil fuel in the EU in 2020 amounted to 2600 megatonnes, in other words - wildfires this year generated 148% more than total EU fossil fuel emissions in 2020." Source
Recognizing the impact wildfire has on climate change as well as the impact climate change has on wildfires, we decided to further calculate Robotto Fire's impact. To do so we evaluated wildfire trends and wildfire emissions.
With these assumptions and averages, we summarized that:
Wildfires emit between five and 30 tons of carbon p. ha
In an average year (with 30 million ha burned), wildfire emissions range between slightly below industrial emissions to six times more than that of industrial emissions
In an exceptional year, with approximately 120 million ha burned, wildfire emissions range from four to 23 times that of industrial emissions.
Knowing the impact Robotto Fire has on reducing overall burn sizes, doing so at a faster rate than traditional detection and analysis methods (due to an improved allocation of resources and faster data collection and analysis) we then calculated Robotto Fire's estimated impact on wildfire emissions. Through this, we found that Robotto Fire has the potential to eliminated emissions equal to the total emissions of the country of Denmark. (By increasing effectiveness of current firefighting by 10%).
INNOVATION AT ROBOTTO
A better and brighter future requires a change, but this doesn't always mean reversing or altering our behavior on an individual level. Through innovation, we as a society have the ability to make substantial, lasting, and impactful changes.
At Robotto our innovation follows a triangle method. We build, measure, and then learn to make improvements.
Together with the Danish Emergency Management Agency, we have been able to experiment with our software based on our own hypothesis, then measure and analyze metrics, giving us a better point of perspective.
For larger organizations, innovation is incremental small steps to existing products. But for organizations such as ours, "innovation is at the heart of what we do. Innovation means nothing to startups. That’s our world, the norm," says Robotto CEO and Co-Founder Kenneth Richard Geipel. Innovation is seeing the larger potential in a fun idea university project, taking this idea and developing in the hopes that it brings about a brighter and better future.
See a recap video here:
Read about the other attendees here: https://pulse.microsoft.com/da-dk/transform-da-dk/na/fa3-fighting-wildfires-with-drones-and-3d-printed-shoe-soles-what-does-the-future-look-like-in-this-fast-forward-world/
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