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Protecting elephants and rhinos with drones, data, and IoT

Written by Sanele Malwane - EPI-USE Labs | Jul 12, 2018 12:13:51 PM

Elephants, Rhinos & People (ERP) is digitalizing the fight for Southern Africa’s threatened population of elephants and rhinos in the wild, and has built some mobile apps, drones and data analysis to assist in ERP's mission, some of which are using SAP HANA, Fiori and Cloud.

EPI-USE Labs is a proud member of Group Elephant. Four years ago, Group Elephant launched a non-profit initiative called Elephants, Rhinos & People, or "ERP" for short (https://erp.ngo).

 

ERP's mission is conserve Elephants & Rhinos in the wild through a poverty alleviation strategy. This is not a typical CSR program where we just give money to charities. We've built our own non-profit capability, so we can run it like a business and know exactly how effectively funds are used.

 


"We are the only IT company I know of that has a wildlife veterinarian and social workers on staff. EPI-USE Labs, and all the other companies in Group Elephant, give 1% of their revenue towards ERP. Thereby we can cover not only our field work, but all operational expenses. By doing this, we can give external donors the assurance that 100% of their donations go directly into the projects on the ground, and don't cover any overheads," says Jan van Rensburg, SVP at EPI-USE Labs and ERP Director.

 

"As we are technology biased, we are trying to find new and innovative ways towards conservation and poverty alleviation. We've built some mobile apps, drones and data analysis to assist in ERP's mission, some of which are using SAP HANA, Fiori and Cloud.

 

SAP responded very enthusiastically on hearing this, and have been very supportive. They recently published an article about ERP to showcase some of the things we are working on."

 

SAP plans to highlight ERP in future campaigns, and we'd like to thank them for their support.

For more information, visit SAP ERP news or the ERP website.