- Raffael Hickisch, a conservationist, co-founded the Chinko Nature Reserve in Central Africa, managing it through public-private partnerships.
- Previously, Hickisch struggled with integrating diverse data sources (settlement, deforestation, fire data) for monitoring protected areas due to technical and budget constraints.
- He discovered exe.dev, which allowed him to use AI agent Shelley to quickly prototype apps, like Five Megapixel Conservation, without large budgets.
- Five Megapixel Conservation aggregates and displays global conservation efforts using GPX tracks on a zoomable map, generating reports for protected areas.
- Hickisch also developed an app using 100 parallel VMs to process LIDAR data from Austria, classifying objects to identify old forests needing protection.
- To engage users, he created a settlers-style game linking to real LIDAR data, highlighting the underlying data's importance over the game itself.
- His tools are open-source, aiming for adoption by governments and nonprofits to democratize custom software building in conservation.