From Field Notes to Gen AI: Modernizing Conservation Science

About this episode

Dr. Lilian Pintea discusses how AI is transforming conservation science at the Jane Goodall Institute.

For over 65 years, the Jane Goodall Institute has been quietly building one of the most extraordinary conservation datasets on earth, captured largely by hand in the forests of Gombe. Now, AI is unlocking its full potential. Dr. Lilian Pintea, VP of Conservation Science at JGI, joins Shaown Nandi, Vice President of AWS Technology, to share how decades of rigorous field research are shaping a thoughtful and powerful approach to AI in conservation science. Lilian discusses how JGI is building an AI platform to identify individual chimpanzees, extract behavioral insights from video, and unlock decades of multilingual field data. Grounded in JGI's community-led Tacare conservation model, he explains why earning community trust and designing for sustainability from the start are not just values. They are prerequisites. This episode is a reminder that the most enduring AI innovations are the ones built with the planet and its people in mind.

People in this episode

Host: Shaown Nandi

Guest: Dr. Lilian Pintea

Topics covered

• conservation science
• artificial intelligence
• community trust
• sustainability
• chimpanzees
• data analysis

Keywords

• Jane Goodall Institute
• AI in conservation
• chimpanzee identification
• field research
• sustainability
• community-led conservation

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Jane Goodall Institute, AWS

Places: Gombe

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