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$30,000 left to reach the funding goal.
India is almost blank on the world's open wildlife map. I want to change that, starting with Tamil Nadu's wetlands.
Wildlife Network (wlnw.org) is a free, open live map that listens to nature. It already brings together 20,000+ sensors and 300 million+ detections from BirdWeather, iNaturalist, GBIF, Xeno-canto, OBIS and Orcasound. I'm building low-cost solar listening stations (Raspberry Pi, a weatherproof mic, a 50 W panel and a LiFePO4 battery) that recognise birds, frogs and bats by sound on the device. No raw audio of people leaves the site, and locations of sensitive species are rounded. Every detection is published openly in WDX, an open format I wrote (DOI 10.5281/zenodo.22200864). All code is open at github.com/wlnw-org.
The Madras Crocodile Bank Trust in Chennai has agreed in principle to host the first stations from December 2026.
First, build and install 15 stations at the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust, Pallikaranai and Pulicat between December 2026 and June 2027. Second, publish every detection live on wlnw.org and to GBIF, with the model, version and confidence on every record. Third, get the data checked by ecologists so researchers and forest staff can trust it. Fourth, train local technicians in Chennai to build and repair stations, so the network can grow to 100 stations along Tamil Nadu's coast and wetlands.
Stations stay online through the monsoon. Detections show up live on the map every day. Expert review shows the species calls are right often enough to use. Partners and researchers start using the data.
USD 5,000 buys parts for 15 stations (about USD 320 each). Up to USD 30,000 also covers spares, installation, a year of 4G data, expert validation and a part-time local technician.
Me, Arun Rajiah, in Chennai. I started as a hardware service engineer. I founded RaOneBytes (2015), India's first animatronics and robotics R&D and rapid prototyping company, and Code4Cause, a tech-for-good community of 7,000+ volunteers in 13 countries. I built the Wildlife Network map, its data pipeline and the WDX format, and TrailWatch, an open OpenCV agent for camera-trap footage.
Heat, humidity and the monsoon can kill hardware, so I test the first 3 stations before building the rest. Some sites have weak signal, so stations store detections offline. Bird models are weaker on Indian calls, so experts check the data and every record carries its confidence. Even if the pilot struggles, the designs, data and lessons stay public.
An Emergent Ventures India grant (individual). A few small grant applications are pending.