Great companies are not driven by technologies or products, they are driven by vision and culture. When Jan and I founded Edge Impulse we envisioned that embedded machine learning would have a huge impact on society and our environment. To ensure that it has a positive impact, we included Tech for Good as a fundamental part of our values along with developer enablement and user experience. Today we’ve announced that Edge Impulse has joined 1% for the Planet, pledging to donate 1% of our revenue to support nonprofit organizations focused on the environment. Towards this pledge, Edge Impulse has partnered with Rainforest Trust, with an initial donation to protect 5,000 acres of threatened rainforests and other tropical ecosystems around the world, supporting endangered species and storing 737,500 metric tons of carbon. We are the first AI company to make this commitment to environmental work.
The partnership with 1% for the Planet and Rainforest Trust is aligned with our mission to create the best machine learning and artificial intelligence solutions for developers on edge devices. Moving machine learning from the cloud to edge devices already saves huge amounts of energy and has the potential to make whole industries and the electric grid more efficient. This technology is having real impacts on both health and nature conservation in the field. Over the last two years, Edge Impulse has championed projects that span a collaboration with the United Nations around COVID-19 containment in low- to lower-middle-income countries, a joint elephant machine learning monitoring solution with Smart Parks and the World Wildlife Fund, and aided conservation researchers with machine learning to detect animals through bioacoustics and computer vision. We see increasing opportunities to help projects apply machine learning to conservation work in the field, stay tuned for what we can achieve together in 2021!
By contributing 1% of their revenue, thousands of 1% for the Planet members have raised over $270 million to support approved environmental nonprofits around the globe. Rainforest Trust ensures the protection of these vital ecosystems through partnerships with local communities and trusted in-country partner NGOs. The charity has already saved over 25 million acres of rainforest and other tropical ecosystems.