Gautam Shah: Saving wildlife from behind the computer screen
National Geographic Explorer Gautam Shah hopes to catalyze new ways to engage people with wildlife through groundbreaking technology.
Gautam Shah is the founder of Internet of Elephants, a social enterprise that develops groundbreaking digital tools to engage people with wildlife.
For most his life, living in the United States, India, Argentina and Kenya, he’s had incredible experiences with wildlife around the world — but no positive impact on that wildlife.
In 2014, Shah decided to change that and quit his job of 20 years as an IT consultant at Accenture to pursue new ways that technology could be used towards wildlife conservation.
Through unique mobile games, augmented reality and data visualizations that use GPS and other data gathered about individual animals, Internet of Elephants tells the stories of individual animals studied by conservation organizations and individuals all over the world. In doing so, Shah hopes to catalyze whole new approaches to engaging the public with wildlife.
He is still ruining his back and his eyesight behind a desk and a laptop, but at least he is using his background and experience toward what is most important.
Shah lives in Nairobi with his wife and newborn daughter.
