 Thank you everybody for joining. Welcome back to X-Prize Rainforest. We're excited to share a few updates on the competition and updates from the guidelines. Maybe you attended a webinar back in June or various talks throughout the year. We're going to get into that. But first, a few key talking points. Allison, do you want to do these? Sure. So just know that your mic has been muted today. If you have any questions at all throughout the webinar, please use the Q&A tool or the chat tool to ask those. And we'll try to get to all questions at the end of this webinar. We are recording the webinar, so we'll send it to everyone after for those who couldn't attend, we'll send that out. And of course, if you have any additional questions, you can always email us at rainforest at X-Prize.org. And then just a quick reminder, we will have our office hours next week. We're going to try to do this once a month, leading up until registration. So it will be next week, January 27th at 9 a.m. So please, if you have any additional questions about the rules and regulations or anything pertaining to the competition, please join us there. And just a reminder here is what the Q&A tool looks like. Awesome. Thanks, Allison. And just a few quick intros as people are coming in. I'm Peter Hulahan, our technical lead of X-Prize Rainforest. Allison, who you just met, is our community lead. And John, who you'll be hearing from in a little bit, is our program lead. So we're really excited to be continuing on this journey with all of you today. We'll be sharing general competition updates. We released our rules and regulations last week. We'll be providing some updates on those details. And just in general, competition updates from what we've been working on over the past year, leading up to closer registration in just under two months. And then after that, feel free to send us any questions and we'll answer what we can. So getting into those competition updates. Again, X-Prize Rainforest is a five-year $10 million competition to enhance our understanding of rainforest ecosystems around the world. The winning team is going to survey the most biodiversity within 100 hectares of tropical rainforest in 24 hours and produce the most impactful real-time insights within 48 hours. And so some of these numbers we'll explain in a little bit are expanded or more clarified from the initial guidelines that stated testing would be six or eight hours. That has been expanded to one full day now of sampling to encompass diurnal, nocturnal, and corpuscular species. So we'll get into that in a little bit. But off the start, just a quick thank you to some key competition partners. Esri is an official partner of X-Prize Rainforest and by competing as soon as you register, we will set you up with an account and you'll have access to Esri's full suite of tools. So we're extremely grateful for that. It's not obligated, but certainly a huge resource and asset to any of the teams that take them up on this incredible offer. We're also extremely grateful for our partnership with GCF Task Force, the Governor's Climate and Forest Task Force, which is a subnational collaboration of states all over the world across the tropics that we're working closely with on our testing locations, our recruitment and a variety of opportunities throughout the competition. Throughout the past, in the fall, we finalized our advisory board and our judging panel. We're really grateful for this stellar advisory board with leading experts around the world across many different sectors and expertise that are included in this competition. And we're just really grateful for their support and guidance. And then we also recently finalized our judging panel at the end of the year. Also, a phenomenal group of experts who will be tasked with and responsible for evaluating the teams throughout the competition. So this includes the qualifying submission and semifinal submission before field testing. And then they'll be out in the field with us evaluating teams and solutions during testing. And last but certainly not least a core pillar of our competition is working with supporting empowering and co designing solutions with indigenous peoples and local communities. Over the past few months, we've had a few convenings of our IPLC working group, which is essentially a steering committee that we're working in collaboration with different individuals and organizations and communities really to discuss all of the different stages of this long term competition to ensure that indigenous knowledge and data ownership and rights and solutions are all done so appropriately. And that solutions to this competition really are applicable meaningful and useful on the ground where tropical rainforest occur. And with that I'm going to pass it over to john to give an overview of our competition timeline and where we're at. Hello everyone just want to highlight a few key dates and milestones for 2021 following the release of the rules and regulations. The next important date on our calendar is March 15 and this is an important date to mark down because this is when registration for the competition closes. Following the close of registration we have the qualifying submission deadline, which is May 6 for this competing teams will submit documentation outlining their approach to the competition. And this document will become available to fully registered teams on pop next month. Our judging panel will then review these submissions and select up to 50 teams to move on to the next round. And these top teams will be announced in June of this year. The last thing I'll highlight is that following the announcement of the qualified teams, we will organize a virtual team summit which will likely take place in q3 of this year. And we're really looking forward to this event, which gives an important opportunity for competing teams to meet the X prize rainforest team are judging panel and also to to meet one another as well. And now kick things over to Allison Clower. Thanks, John. All right. So I know some of the next slides might be a little bit repetitive if you've joined us in any of our previous webinars so I'll try to go through those quickly. And just to remind her we will share this at the end so if there's anything I went too fast, hopefully to take a look. The three steps for finalizing your team registration, create or join a team at pop.express.org complete the registration form and then the last step most importantly signed a competitor agreement and pay the registration fee as John just mentioned that the line is March 15th of this year with a $1,000 registration fee. So I just wanted to talk about our event and hopefully you guys all saw this but we are hosting a X prize rainforest summit going to be next month, February 18th and 19th a two day digital conference featuring some of the most knowledgeable and influential individuals and the conservation conservation and tech space. So the first day is open to the public and the second day is really specific for pre registered teams. You can register on pop.express to be invited to that second day. You can find out more information about the summit at rainforest.express.org and of course, if you have any questions at us now. Alison I might just add one point to that. We will be having it's pre registered and registered teams, but we'll be having a lot of different speakers from that advisory board and judging panel that we introduced in earlier slides. And that's an opportunity really to engage with these individuals as we will provide opportunities to do so throughout the life of this prize. So definitely check it out. Thanks. Thanks Peter. So just in terms of that opportunity that we just talked about the event we have coming up. We do have a special discounted registration opportunity. It's three steps, but step three if you register by February 19 end of day of that second day of the event. We actually have reduced our registration fee by 25%. So it'll only be $750. So an opportunity if you haven't registered already to get a discount on the registration feed through that. I just wanted to mention another thing we do understand that the registration fee sometimes can be a challenge for teams, but I wanted to point out once you make it through the qualifying submission and the semifinals submission. If you're one of those top 25 teams that are selected to go to semifinals testing, you do have an opportunity for a milestone award so it's $250,000 split between up to those 25 teams that make it to testing. So if you have an additional opportunity if you make it to a finals testing, there's a semifinals prize first for those up to 10 teams that make it to our finals testing, which is to be split of $2 million. So there'll be several opportunities throughout the prize for additional funding to help you guys throughout the competition as well. So if you haven't already, you can go to our main webpage rainforest.xprice.org, or go directly to pop.xprice.org to register. You'll see this pop up here just click on the registration link, you'll get an email confirm your account that way. And then once you're in pop, I just wanted to go over a few quick resources that are super helpful. And then you'll come to this page here. This is the activities page. So this is very important. This is the page where you'll go to pay your registration fee. And also where you'll sign the competitor agreement and just wanted to highlight that we have added that additional activity there for the discounted registration fee if you pay by that February 19th date. Also resources, lots of resources on this page that will be helpful for you but just wanted to point out a couple are rules and regulations of course have been uploaded here for your review. The competitor agreement is also available here if you want to review it before you go into the activity page to actually sign it. And then our team pitch webinar. So I know there's still several individuals or smaller teams that are interested in competing but are still looking to join forces with other teams. So we've had two team pitch webinars. Please take a look at those. See if there's any individuals or teams on those that you've looked to join. So just wanted to give you guys an idea on that note of where our teams are coming from. So we have teams from all over the world are registered and pre registered teams as you guys can see through this map here. So hopefully if you're interested in joining, there's a team or an individual near you that's looking for more people to join their team. And this is just a table of all of our interested teams so far, just broken down from that map there so as you can see we have 231 teams that are still interested from 53 countries. And our registered teams. So at the close of registration last year, early registration. We had 20 registered teams from 10 countries. I know several of these teams are still looking for additional team members as well. And I'll let you know how you can do that in just a bit through our pop. So here we go. So through pop, if you're an individual or a team. If you're looking for additional members you can all do this through that pop dot X prize dot org website. You can look for team members by the skills that you're looking for so if you're looking to add a biologist your team you can search that way and find anyone who is listed that as a skill that they possess. You can also search as a team, if you're looking for additional members as well. And we've added stuff, as you guys saw through the resources tab there so please look especially to pitch webinars. And then you also have the opportunity through pop so if you do see a team or an individual that you'd like to add. You can message them, let them know, you know why they would be an asset to their team, or as a team by what that individual is joining you so you can do that all through pop and then also through slack. So in December we set up a slack channel for everyone interested in competing in the X prize rainforest. This is just another tool outside of pop or you could communicate with other individuals and teams. So we're looking for and then private message them through that platform. Everyone should have access if you can register and pop but of course email us. If you're having any trouble with pop or didn't get that invitation and we can send it over. And then just a reminder on the competitor agreement I touched on it earlier. The competitor agreement is due on that March 15 date at the end of registration. You must continuously meet these requirements throughout the competition to be eligible for any of the milestone awards, or that final prize purse. As I mentioned it is located on pop, you can also find it on our website. And then just a big highlight here for those teams that do register by the March 15 date we cannot look at your qualifying submission until you sign that competitor agreement so make sure you get that in for our judges to have a chance to review your qualifying submission. All right, and with that, I will pass it back to Peter to get to those exciting rules and regulation updates. Thanks Alison and just one more point. We do have an opportunity as well for registered teams, you should have received an email about a possibility or opportunity to be featured in that X Prize Rainforest Summit Day event. So you should all have received that email but it's a great opportunity to be included and be able to share a little bit about your team. If you're interested in that opportunity. Follow the instructions on that email or if you need them again feel free to reach out. We can send them to you again. The email is rain forest at X prize.org. So with that a few rules and regulations updates. As I said, the testing time will now be 24 hours for both semi finals and finals. That's been standardized across the competition and the 48 hours for data analysis commences immediately at the close of that 24 hours that was the same as before. In semi finals, you will have to demonstrate and articulate how you would be developing the insights that we go into detail on in the new rules and regulations. And that's the opportunity to extrapolate broader impact of your data that you're collecting from the biodiversity inventory that you're carrying out the finals testing is when you actually need to produce those. So please check out those rules and regulations to really see how to develop those and for our judging and evaluation, you'll need to ensure traceability, so that the judges can follow along the process to arriving at those insights and their educational policy oriented ecologically focused and so on but the insights can take many different shapes and forms and something that we will be incrementally advancing over the next two years before testing actually takes place. So this is our qualifying submission and semi final submission will ask more information from the teams in terms of what taxonomic groups you are aiming to survey and what insights you are intending to develop and we will work with you and our judging team to provide feedback we don't as we say in the rules and regulations, we will not be providing an exhaustive list on approved methodologies, we are more focused on what methodologies are accepted and reputable and most commonly used for the given taxa or micro habitat environment conditions. In that qualifying submission and semi final submission, our judging panel will approve different methodologies and if you want to explore something different novel that's great. Just include that in there and we'll work with you. I think everybody's aware that surveying all biodiversity and tropical rainforest around the world. There are many different avenues to go down to the absolute least so we'll be working with you in this process rather than just providing a rigid, you know, framework upfront that will be modifying that a bit based on the novel technologies that teams intend to use in this competition. And for really the ability to judge this, you'll have up to 100 hectares. That'll be the space constraint for the testing. Once we get to testing and again testing will take place in the beginning of 2023. So there's a lot of time to develop solutions but when we get to that point, we will have a practice area. There will be assigned testing locations and in the competition area, but the specific location will be kept a little bit secret I guess until testing is about to take place but when we arrive will we will allow probably teams to arrive a couple weeks ahead of time to get on the ground with the location. Troubles to your solutions in an area that testing will take place in but will be representative of the environment. It will be in the vicinity of where testing will take place. And so one one additional change is given the international scope of where teams are coming from Allison showed that map. Previously, we have teams that are pre registered from over 50 countries, and to increase accessibility and impact and global reach of the competition. We are aiming to host semifinals testing in multiple regions. Right now, you know everything is covered dependent in terms of travel, but we do intend to provide a testing location in each of the Americas, Africa and Asia. So, later this year our team will be scouting out locations to fit the needs of the competition. And those will be all of these aspects over the next couple of years will be incrementally rolled out and you'll continually receive more information through our newsletter will update the regulations of our rules and regulations you'll receive technical updates and certainly when we determine where testing is going to take place. There will be a lot more information on all of those factors, but the rules and regulations right now are intended to guide and steer you further in a direction to be able to be conceptualizing the competition what you need to how you need to approach it. Qualifying submission will go out pretty soon for you to get your eyes on to begin working on but that's that's going to be your like concept note research proposal type, just general questions about your team your approach methodologies and things like that. And ultimately that finals testing location for up to 10 teams will be in one location so some of finals is to really prove who are the top 10 teams worldwide that will compete on one rainforest testing stage together and and from there, we'll get to that finals location. And I touched on a little bit of this in terms of testing. We are aware, especially for semi finals, being in different locations as I just said the idea is to pull those top 10 teams overall. In terms of who are the best performers who have the most effective technologies in this competition scoring methodology is certainly again, some of finals being cognizant of the fact that biodiversity is different whether it's in the Amazon or the Congo basin or parts of Southeast Asia. And so we will be accounting for that as you saw the judging panel that we presented earlier, they will be serving as a third party myself Allison and john will not be scoring at all reset the framework for the competition and that independent judging panel will be evaluating and selecting the winners. And so that's why we've selected that group and as we determine where testing will take place will be expanding that judging panel to include individuals with local and regional expertise as needed to supplement that so insights throughout this entire competition. This is the one thing over the past year that we have received the most questions about and when I came on board last year. I also had the most inquiries about it and and this is something we've been working on quite a bit but ultimately the objective of this competition is, it's a technology competition that is geared at advancing our ability to survey tropical rainforest biodiversity. But we don't want it to stop at just a species list we want to in other grant proposals whether that's NSF or things like that. It's essentially a broader impacts opportunity to expand beyond what does if we, many of us in this competition or many of the teams in this competition I'm not competing but we know places that are the most biodiverse on the planet. The idea is to expand and extrapolate and create conclusions from these data and and how is that how are we going to transform the field of conservation policy action. Education, social justice or however you want to take these insights. How do we go beyond just biodiversity alone and enact change from technology and data so that is the crux of the insights and our judging panel this is articulated in the rules and regulations of how that will be approached. And again the qualifying submission the semifinal submission and the semifinals testing are all opportunities to present how you're going to be approaching this and how you're going to really recognize the field from data driven technology advancements so last but not least environment and safety of course are are really important in this. We don't want to be unnecessarily harming the environment. Again with methodologies you'll be submitting your approaches in these different submissions and we recognize whether you're serving insects or plants or primates birds. All of these different methodologies that we traditionally use in biodiversity survey expeditions or tropical ecology research. They vary a lot and are very tax on specific or species specific so please outline those in as much detail as possible. There will be, you know, DNA approaches that will require sampling and things like that but the idea with environment and safety concerns is certainly we don't want to be causing unnecessary harm to the environment. In the survey methods so all of these aspects every team and what we have seen so far teams have come up with amazing from what we've seen you're not required to submit until a qualifying submission really diverse varied exciting approaches. The idea here is not to restrict you in any way but to provide framework to pursue these so please work with us as Alison mentioned we will be hosting office hours the first of that, being the 27th I believe. And throughout the competition so over these next couple years reach out to us we are review. This as a movement we want to be working with our community with our ecosystem to really be moving the field forward together so it is a competition but at the same time I think we all have shared interests and goals and objectives so with that said, I think those are key updates there. The main things are spatial and temporal aspects. Nothing that's too crazy but honestly those adjustments are based on feedback from all of you from people throughout this past year of ways to ensure that the competition as is as impactful and meaningful to the field as possible so as always please reach out to us we really have appreciated the support and feedback and conversation throughout this past year and we do look forward to opportunities to convene with our team. And our judging panel and our ecosystem this year so as always stay tuned to that newsletter for in person opportunities later in the year hopefully we can get to some conferences. So I'm going to host some events but in the meantime February 18th and 19th. Check out that XPRIZE Rainforest Summit or pathways to conservation events. And again if you register before the end of that you get 25% off registration. And as Allison noted, if you are one of the teams that make it to field testing, there are pretty substantial milestone prizes to submit so if you register, if you get that discount before the event, that's 750 bucks. If you make it to testing in two years, you will definitely be rewarded in that sense so thank you all for tuning in. Again, our email is here. And if you have any questions we will stick around and take those and thank you again John and Allison for sharing. And again those updated rules and regulations are on our website and in pop so check those out for more details and please if you have any questions at any point. Reach out to us we're happy to set up calls we're happy to meet with your teams. And if you have any hesitations or concerns or questions that if you're on that fence about your pre registered team, looking to register. Please reach out to us we're happy to answer any questions and again I can't stress enough that the cost upfront now will pay off if you really if you make it to the testing. Great question Martin and thanks for tuning in. Any idea how far the site, the base station will be. Any idea but as of yet we haven't we haven't even scouted the top testing locations in each region that we will be visiting hopefully later this year everything being covered dependent. The idea is to be able to be. People will be at a research station lodge type facility that will be having electricity internet access things like that. And that's where you'll be able to state your accommodations, you know troubleshoot things, the time being the general idea is to be able to deploy your solutions from just outside of the testing area. So that hundred hectares being just outside of it and you can have your solutions, your drones your robots whatever come outside of that but the idea is to just not have. Have humans inside of the testing area during it so only the tech the robots the technology will be in the space, but you can be just outside of it. And of course, as we hone in and select what these testing locations are. We will be sorting out all of these are locations. I've, I've been to probably many of our teams have been to, but the idea is setting up that framework and the accommodations the logistical structure for the needs of the competition and and our teams. So, it's, it's not intended to be traveling far you'll be able to be just outside of it. Thanks Martin. And thanks again for the Duke event. For those of you, the Duke team here had a blueprint rainforest and restoration event a couple weeks ago with just an awesome opportunity for students so I think that'd be something cool to work with in the future with our we're always looking for opportunities to expand our ecosystem, provide opportunities for a team so if you or anybody you know have educational conference opportunities like that we're always excited to unite our ecosystem. And we can stick on a few more minutes, but please feel free to reach out to us anytime. If you have any questions will, we will catch you next time on our next webinar or hopefully our office hours. Next week, or our event next month so thanks again everybody for for being involved and again if you're pre registered and have questions to confirm whether or not you're going to be fully registered. Well with that, I think if there are no further questions we're we're happy to end it here and on the judging panel. Yeah. That's another thing as I said we're looking to expand. We have a number of partners that we're actually working with in terms of drones and robotic support on the ground that would be providing support possibly to teams but also individuals who we may bring on board as additional judging experts on our panel so. Yep, great point and you know we do, we are always open to additional suggestions in terms of relationships partnerships. And we can have teams directly suggest judges but we will be expanding that based on needs of the competition. Another question about is there a limitation a number of drones and robots which can be deployed. No there are not, however, the idea is for you need to be able to transport your solutions to the site. And what that means is really one of the aspects of how what judges will take into account is, is this scalable. Is this reasonably affordable, could this be amplified and actually use in the field beyond the scope of the competition. So you can, you're able to approach this however you would like. I think the concept is what we say the guidelines is something along the lines of if you could transport everything to the field how you might typically do on some kind of field expedition whether that's in a pickup truck or that if your solution to the competition you know requires a cargo plane to fly everything in that that would probably be something that we will reach out to you saying this is beyond the location limitations of the testing location. And it's probably not something that might be it's, we want the solutions to also have relevance beyond just a one off approach so keep that in mind as well. That's not 100% of the testing evaluation but it is something that will be factored in is this technology that could, you know, move the field forward by being applied and reinforced around the world. So, no limit on drones and robots, but we will be working with you if you have additional questions please send them to us if you have something that you feel is potentially excessive or substantial reach out to us as well and we'll have those conversations. Anybody else. So, we'll be counting seasonality and weather proofing will there be additional time given for bad weather. Actually, yes, so seasonality will be accounted for in terms of locations and timing of testing. Absolutely. So, weather, because teams because of how teams will be testing in those locations. We do imagine that teams will need to be on the ground for several weeks, even though that 24 hour window is when data collection will take place. So, we'll be there together and if, if there is, like, whether that is inclement beyond what is typical in terms of a tropical rainforest. We will adjust that on the site within the parameters of the time that we have notified teams to be in that area. So there will be that buffer window. Yes, great. Another great question, Martin will X prize. Do you any prep for legal issues like drone laws and permissions. Absolutely. We were already working on some of that. And specifically regarding drones. Another thing with our partner GCF task force, we've been in communication with and working with ministers of environment secretaries of technology and innovation. We've had many different potential locations and certainly we will be. We've also been working with a few kind of like higher level international aviation authorities on this to not only provide that legal framework and permissions on site but to have them standardized throughout the competition. Yeah, line of sight, and other aspects in terms of height and for drones and other things as well. That's something we're working with on location with with governments about so great question that will all be addressed and when we select the testing locations. We'll provide that information to you to be able to plan around but again in the qualifying submission and semifinal submission. Please outline your general approaches to these types of things so that if there's anything that's outside of the norm in terms of how we might. So things have traditionally been approached. Certainly we want to revolutionize an advanced novel approaches. So please, you know, push the limits push push the boundaries. The idea is to be audacious in this competition. We just in terms of coordinating these site legalities and logistics we have to have an idea of what teams are going to be doing on the ground so we don't end up in a legal trouble or worse. That's another great question. Thanks. Anybody else. All right. Well, thank you again everybody those are great questions and that's exactly, I think, as everybody here understands, there are many different ways that you can approach this competition, and we will be like working on these types of things given parameters of what is allowed you know we're dealing with different countries provinces tax a whole many different factors. But I think the exciting part about this, the thing that I'm most excited about. Certainly there will be winning technologies from this but I think we will all be pushing the field forward you know pushing that needle forward in ways that will advance. The speed at which technology can survey tropical rainforest, and how data can be utilized for conservation and the field so. Thank you all for participating and being part of our ecosystem. We're really excited for you know this this movement and that you're all a part of it so. Stay tuned and again, our emails there and our, our website is rainforest x prize that work. So with that, thank you all we will be in touch and hope you have a great rest of your week.