#51 Dryad Networks
Protecting forests with AI-powered IoT sensors
Read time: 5 minutes
Hi, I’m Javi Gascón.
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Today we’ll distill a company that’s pioneering IoT for ultra-early wildfire detection and forest health monitoring: Dryad Networks 🇩🇪
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What Problem Does Dryad Networks Tackle❓
Plain and simple: wildfire detection and prevention. The problem has are several aspects…
1. Delayed Detection: Traditional methods, such as cameras and satellites, often detect wildfires too late, allowing them to spread out of control. By the time firefighters arrive, the fire has often grown too large to be contained.
2. Scale of Wildfires: The frequency and severity of wildfires is increasing, with millions of acres of land affected annually.
3. Limited Communication Infrastructure: Forests typically lack reliable communication infrastructure, making it difficult to transmit early warnings of wildfires. Mobile operators often do not install base stations in remote forest areas due to high costs
4. Environmental and Economic Impact: Wildfires result in massive environmental damage, including deforestation, water pollution, and 7.8 billion tons of CO₂ emissions annually. They also have huge economic and social impacts, such as property loss and health risks.
So yes, the sooner we detect them, the better.
Product / Service 📦
To deal with this Dryad Networks created Silvanet, an ultra-early wildfire detection and forest management system. An AI-enabled IoT solution that detects fires within minutes of ignition!
Here’s why it’s so awesome:
Ultra-Early Detection: Silvanet uses solar-powered gas sensors to detect wildfires in under 60 minutes, even during the smoldering phase, before an open fire develops.
Reliable Communication: The system employs LoRaWAN technology and direct-to-satellite connectivity, ensuring reliable communication in remote forest areas without relying on terrestrial networks. This enhances the system's redundancy and real-time monitoring capabilities.
Comprehensive Monitoring: Silvanet includes a cloud-based dashboard and analytics platform that monitors indicators such as air composition, temperature, and humidity. It also issues alerts to forest managers, helping to protect forests, wildlife, and communities.
Scalability and Adaptability: The system is designed for large-scale deployments and can be expanded to monitor tree health, soil moisture, and other forest parameters, making it a versatile tool for forest management.
Market 🌐
The forest wildfire detection system market is growing significantly (CAGR of 6.5-9.2% from 2024 to 2031). That’s because new tech is enabling better monitoring and sadly wildfires are becoming more frequent due to climate change.
Other Key Players
Dryad Networks is a step above the other solutions in speed, scalability, and reliability but here are other solutions:
Pano AI 🇺🇸: Advanced wildfire management solutions using ultra-high-definition cameras, AI, and data feeds for early detection and rapid response.
Firetech Connect 🇦🇺: Combines satellite and ground-based sensors to detect fires in minutes. It can also evaluate and map their growth and movement in real-time.
Founding Story 🦄
Dryad Networks was founded in Germany in 2019 by a team of seven co-founders, led by CEO and co-founder Carsten Brinkschulte. The inspiration for the company came during a period of intense and widely covered wildfires in 2019, which highlighted the urgent need for innovative solutions to mitigate these disasters.
Brinkschulte, a serial entrepreneur with a background in telecommunications and technology, had recently sold a previous company and was looking for a new challenge. He decided to leverage his expertise to address the global issue of wildfires.
The founders, each bringing their expertise from various fields including telecommunications, electronics, and finance, aimed to develop a large-scale IoT network to monitor, analyze, and protect forests.
Since then they have raised €29.41 million, signed large-scale deals all around the world and partnered with global resellers like Vodafone and Bosch.
Top Impact Stats 📈
By 2030, Dryad aims to prevent 2.8 million hectares (6.9 million acres) of forest from burning, which would prevent 1.1 billion metric tons of CO2 emissions
They have sold and deployed over 20,000 sensors across more than 50 installations in Southern Europe, North America, and Asia.
The tech has future use cases in air, farming and water monitoring.
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