As far as possible, all our projects are Open Source. For finished and available projects and our consulting services, have a look at our products. Here follows a list of development projects in which we are currently involved or that we are considering for the future. If you have a specific project that you believe should be part of our planning, please contact us. If you want to contribute to a specific project, either in time or money, get involved in either a research project, a software development project or a hardware development project.
Projects include both for-profit and non-profit, and the two types of projects are generally funded separately. The idea is that the for-profit projects will subsidize the non-profit projects so that New Development would be able to function independently from funding sources that do not share all of our vision (while remaining a non-profit). Specifically, sometimes there are conservation projects that are not charismatic or likely to attrack much funding, but ultimately very important for biodiversity. Having an extra source of income will eventually enable New Development to be able to contribute to these "less sexy" projects as well.
Present projects
- The Farming with Predators project. Finding solutions for livestock farmers in Namibia to prevent livestock losses due to predators on their land.
- As an outflow of the Farming with Predators project, we will write a Decision Support System, that farmers can use to determine the best (most cost-effective, sustainable and likely to succeed) anti-predation method to use on their farm.
- We are still looking for engineers to partner with us in developing hardware solutions.
Planned project possibilities
- The ecological basis for the Farming with Predators decision model is still not well known and based on a lot of uncertain assumption. While it uses a Bayesian Network to deal at least partly with the uncertainty, further research on the ecology of predators on farmlands is required to improve the reliability of the software.
- The Meeting Site. There is currently a gap in the market for a good, free "dating" site aimed specifically at Christians. We would like to write a social media application that can be used as a vitual "place of fellowship" for young believers to grow in their relationship with Jesus and each other. An important part of the aim of the Meeting Site, will be to teach young believers how to find their future life partners "in holiness and honour" and specifically as a follow-up of those young people who had been on wilderness camps with us. It will provide an opportunity for chat groups and private person to person conversations and use a better algorithm for linking potential romantic partners than current dating sites. Over time, the site can also be expanded to be used by non-Christians and provide an opportunity for young believers to learn how to share the Good News of God's Kingdom in a respectful and inviting manner, through the Holy Spirit. Once the site grows large enough to attract advertisers (if it is able to deliver on the promise of being better), contextual ads will be used to monetize it and provide a source of income covering at least the support costs. If the right business partner can be found, the meeting site could be combined with an online game to provide the "community board" for the game.
- We plan to write a revolutionary new 3D GUI interface for Linux (and possibly port it to MS Windows and the Apple Mac. This project is less likely to be a source of monetary income and might fit better as an Open Source learning exercise and as publicity for New Development. But on the other hand, as disruptive technology it could become the future standard desktop interface for all Operating Systems. Currently a kind of "gamble" project (once there is a working protoype, it might become a worthwhile investment).
- Farm management Software are not widely used by Namibian or South African farmers, except for a few really intensive farming enterprises. This could be either because of the high prices of many software options, a fear by older farmers of computers, or simply because current software does not do what farmers really want. New software that runs on Android smart phones and maybe fit with the existing CyberTracker Predator Management app, could break into this market. This software can be provided as part of our farmer consultancy service with a monthly subscription fee of about R100-00, instead of selling a single software package for a high price, as is usually done now. More market research is required.
- One of the major obstacles in the Farming with Predators project was the lack of affordable technology, specifically GPS collars, for getting spatially behavioural data on the predators. We plan to design an affordable GPS collar costing less than US$1000 that are light enough to fit on small predators like black-backed jackals, and have a long enough battery life for getting at least a year's worth of data. The technology exists already, but needs to be put together into an affordable collar. If the collar is cheap enough, it will open up the market to livestock farmers and pet owners to use it, instead of the current, relatively small, market of researchers. The specs of such a GPS collar can be found here.
- In the short term, and functioning as the "base station" for our GPS collars, we want to develop an airdrone. It should be energy independent (e.g. getting all its energy from solar panels only with no need to charge batteries from another power source), be remote controllable (so that a specific predator can be followed from the air), carry a "pan, tilt, zoom (PTZ) type camera and be able to download and store data from GPS collars. The full specifications for this is still being written.
- A Long-term future development, based on the technology developed for the airdrone, is a new full-sized airship, capable of replacing current aeroplanes through being energy-independent from both fossil fuels and the power grid.
What does all these projects have to do with our vision and mission? Does it all seem too all over the place? How does it fit all together? What might not be clear from the above list of projects is how these projects are going to result in 50% of habitats being protected and in disciples being made from the Southern point of Africa all the way back to Jerusalem. The answer lies in "the mustard-seed principle": start small, lay a good foundation, and grow exponentially instead of linearly.
