The NGO OCEARCH specializes in real-time tracking and visualization of the movement of sharks and other marine animals. The organization was facing a new challenge – the unification of the surveillance system and making oceanic data effectively available to scientific teams and the general public. Learn how Mapotic has created an online service and a mobile app that supports activities to maintain the oceans balance and reduces the impact of climate change.
OCEARCH is a scientific organization that collects data on the movement of marine animals. It provides data to laboratories and universities around the world, but also makes them available to the public, which helps to spread the organization’s mission and allows the users to interact.
In 2019, OCEARCH contacted us with a plan to rebuild the organization’s original app: “Shark Tracker” as it had started showing its limits. In the case of tracking the movement of marine animals, which can be found even in the most remote places of our planet, it was essential to use technology capable of collecting data from devices located on individual animals.
It was also necessary to unify the flow from satellites and other data sources in order to process and utilize them effectively. Not only for scientific purposes, but also as a tool for communicating with fans around the world and for spreading awareness and media coverage of the impact. This was related to the design and implementation of a user-friendly mobile application supporting user interaction with OCEARCH researchers and also with each other.
We embarked on the creation of an online service and mobile application that would bring an innovative generation of telemetry to the remote wildlife tracking industry. We have built up access to ocean data to scientific teams and the public on four basic pillars:
As for the main technology, we decided upon the Argos satellite system, which uses satellites to collect data from so-called ‘tags’ located on the dorsal fins of individual sharks.
The data, along with other geolocation data sources (GPS trackers, IoT devices) are processed primarily in a central scalable database in the Amazon cloud.
Data goes to our Mapotic cloud platform, where OCEARCH employees work with them using the back office.
The solution enables visualization of real-time data on the web, which is extremely useful for scientists, who use the data to observe migration routes. The mobile app supports the interaction of users who communicate with each other and helps to spread the message of OCEARCH.
Technologies such as Amazon and Mapotic allow for continuous development and improvement of all areas of the project, such as avoiding system breakdowns due to high traffic or further development and expansion of the Shark tracker by adding new functions.
After the launch of the new generation of the Shark tracker, the project was also noticed by a number of media ranging from Fox News TV and USA today to Forbes (Czech Republic). Thus, the organization has acquired not only efficient technology, but also a tool to promote the impact of its activities and spread public awareness to support research in the world’s oceans.
European structural and investment funds Operation programme Prague – Growth Pole Czech Republic.