Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) has announced a funding partnership with Ecopia Tech Corporation (Ecopia), to create the first comprehensive digital map of all of Sub-Saharan Africa. This digital map will include an estimated 342 million buildings, 3.8 million linear kilometres of roads and 582 million hectares of forests.
Digital Maps are leveraged globally to improve societal well-being, economic efficiency, and monitor environmental health. Until now, Sub-Saharan Africa has been operating without consistent access to accurate information about its geography – resulting in inefficiencies and inaccuracies in decision making across the continent.
By creating the first comprehensive digital map of key features across all of Sub-Saharan Africa, this initiative will empower governments, NGOs and businesses to optimize their efforts on the ground, gaining insights like never before. This map will be used to optimize the distribution of vaccines, planning and deployment of renewable energy infrastructure, and monitoring and policing of deforestation.
SDTC will provide CDN$6.7 million to support this initiative. Additional contributions from other supporting partners will be announced at a later date.
“Through SDTC, our Government is proud to support Canadian technology success stories, like Ecopia, that are driving cleantech innovation and creating good quality jobs, while also protecting our environment.”– The Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development
“This initiative will enable a wide range of global sustainability and humanitarian benefits, and demonstrate our commitment to helping businesses scale and compete on the global stage. SDTC is proud to invest in a company like Ecopia, using cutting edge technologies to advance sustainability efforts across the world.” – Leah Lawrence, President and CEO, Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC)
“This project will not only showcase Canadian technology on the world stage, but also stands to positively impact the lives of hundreds of millions – by empowering better data-driven decisions to be made surrounding the environment, economy and societies of Africa. We are extremely excited to be part of this initiative, and are thankful to have gained the support of SDTC and the Canadian Federal Government.” – Jon Lipinski, President & Co-Founder, Ecopia
About Ecopia Tech Corporation
Ecopia specializes in extracting insights from geospatial big data. Ecopia’s intelligent systems leverage groundbreaking advancements in artificial intelligence to convert high-resolution imagery of our earth into high-definition (HD) Vector Maps, which are embedded into critical applications around the world. Ecopia has the capabilities to produce the most up-to-date digital representations of reality. For more information, visit www.ecopiatech.com/africa.
About Sustainable Development Technologies Canada
Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) is a foundation created by the Government of Canada to advance clean technology innovation in Canada by funding and supporting small and medium-sized enterprises developing and demonstrating clean technology solutions. For more information, visit https://www.sdtc.ca.
Future Forward Statement
The digital map created through this project will enable a broad range of sustainability activities including: logistical planning and route optimization, the planning and development of sustainable energy infrastructure and the ability to monitor and police deforestation, and humanitarian relief. The complete extraction and digital map of Sub-Saharan Africa will be created within one year. Additional details about the project partners and datasets will be announced at a later date.
