The Lincolnshire Bird Club

Just had this from Florence Wilkinson which sounds very interesting. She is looking for crowd source funding to help develop the app. Have a look and see what you think.

"I hope you don’t mind me getting in touch, but I was hoping you might share some information with your members about a social enterprise project that I’m working on – a smart phone app called Warblr that recognises birdsongs.

We've just finished our prototype of the app, using cutting edge machine learning technology built by my co-founder Dan – an academic at Queen Mary University of London specialising in machine learning.

The way in which Warblr works is simple: users make a recording with their mobile device, and then Warblr identifies the species of bird/s that can be found in that recording, and provides information about those species.

We hope that Warblr will have the power to bring people closer to the natural world through technology. We want to get people outdoors, learning about the wildlife on their doorsteps, because we believe that this will make them want to protect it for future generations.

In the longer term we also plan to use Warblr as a citizen science project; geo-tracking technology will allow mapping of different species as and when they are identified. These data will be made publically available, allowing zoologists, ecologists and societies such as yours to monitor species growth and decline, patterns of migration, and ultimately to aid conservation.

The app will cost around £1.99 to download once it’s finished, and the main reason for this is to make the project sustainable in the long term; Warblr is a social enterprise.

Queen Mary University of London provided us with an initial grant, which allowed us to develop our prototype so that we could demonstrate our technology, but in order to be able to launch in full in the spring we are running a crowdfunding campaign. We’re asking people to donate a small amount of money via our online Kickstarter campaign in return for a “reward”.

I was wondering whether you would mind letting your members know about our campaign? Here’s a link to the campaign: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/11 ... -their-son.

For those who are unable to support us with a small donation, simply sharing the campaign through social media will also be a great help for us. Our Twitter handle is @WarblrUK and our Facebook page is facebook.com/warblr.

Any support you can give us would be hugely appreciated!"