Topher White
Innovator | Visionair | Award WEF Young Global Leader | Tedx Speaker | Founder & CEO of RAINFOREST CONNECTION | What can save the rainforest? Your used cell phone. Through his startup Rainforest Connection, Topher White transforms used cell phones into guardians of the rainforest.
Biography
Topher White is an Innovator | Visionair | Tedx Speaker | What can save the rainforest? Your used cell phone. Through his startup Rainforest Connection, Topher White transforms used cell phones into guardians of the rainforest. Inspiring and enabling people to find solutions to complex environmental problems.
How do you combat illegal deforestation in the rainforest? In 2012, Topher White came up with an innovative answer to this question: with old smartphones. Topher White tells us all about his brilliant, simple idea that turned into Rainforest Connection (RFCx). The world's leading organization in environmental protection and biodiversity monitoring with sound.
The sounds of the rainforest include: the chirps of birds, the buzz of cicadas, the banter of gibbons. But in the background is the almost-always present sound of a chainsaw, from illegal loggers. Engineer Topher White shares a simple, scalable way to stop this brutal deforestation — that starts with your old cell phone.
Biography Topher White
Topher White is the founder and CEO of Rainforest Connection, a nonprofit tech company fighting to save the rainforests from illegal logging and poaching using cutting-edge environmental tech. He’s a recipient of the SAP Innovation Award | Next-Gen Innovator (2018) and the Pongo Environmental Prize (2016). He was also a Draper Richards Kaplan Fellow (2016) and a National Geographic | Emerging Explorer (2015).
Topher White served as CEO of Rainforest Connection from its founding in 2013 until 2022, growing an idea into a far-flung company, operating in 26 countries. Today, he serves as Chair of Rainforest Connection and CEO of Squibbon.
Topher White is a Conservation Technologist and the Founder of enviro-tech startups Rainforest Connection and Squibbon. As an inventor, field engineer and social entrepreneur, he has been honored with such titles as World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, Rolex Laureate, National Geographic Explorer, Draper-Richards-Kaplan Fellow and an IEEE Engineering Hero.
Rainforest Connection (RFCx) is the world’s foremost creator and deployer of acoustic technology for environmental protection and high-definition biodiversity monitoring. Squibbon, founded in 2022, employs the sounds of sub-urban biodiversity for consumer-facing and enterprise-facing applications, re-defining the concept of Nature-as-a-Service.
Educated primarily in Physics, software development and science communication, his latter career has been defined by rugged field engineering, environmental advocacy and bio-acoustic design. He received a degree in Physics at Kenyon College before going on to work for years at SLAC National Accelerator Lab (High Energy Physics) and the ITER Organization (Nuclear Fusion Power) in France.
Honors & Awards Topher White
- WEF Young Global Leader (Class of 2020 Selection)
- Rolex Awards for Enterprise (Assoc. Laureate, 2019)
- Ascent Leadership Fellow (2018)
- Pongo Environmental Prize (2016)
- DRK Draper Richards Kaplan Fellow (2016)
- National Geographic | Emerging Explorer (2015)
- Netexplo Innovation Award (2015)
- Malcolm Anderson Cup (2004)
Employability
Speaker
TOPICS SPEAKER TOPHER WHITE
A Shared Purpose: Enabling Rainforest Protection With Conservation Technology
Rainforest Connection has created the world’s first real-time monitoring platform for protecting remote forests by capturing sound signatures of destructive activities, such as chainsaws and illegal incursions.
Besides scalable deployments that protect forests, tribes (under threat) and key biomes– the biggest impact is sharing massive amounts of ecosystem data which are streamed to the cloud automatically - that can be used by the world’s biologists, researchers, data analysts, land managers, governments, and law enforcement.
We work with partners on the ground who receive alerts and reports on patterns of activity for chainsaws and vehicles used in logging. Such partners include park rangers, indigenous tribes, NGOs, and government officials.
Saving rainforests isn’t only the key to halting climate change, It’s also vital to supporting many of the world’s poorest communities who rely on rainforests for food, shelter and livelihood.
Inspiring and enabling people to find solutions to complex environmental problems.
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