Cisco and Dimension Data have announced ramping up their Connected Conservation efforts, moving into phase two of the goodwill project aiming to stamp out animal poaching in Africa.
The pair of tech giants have been focusing on rhinoceros conservation in Africa since 2015, motivated by the statistic that one rhino is killed every eight hours in South Africa.
Following the success of phase one, the tech project will be expanding; Dimension Data's group executive for the Cisco Global Alliance Bruce "Doc" Watson told ZDNet that the solution in place in South Africa is going to be replicated in three other regions.
"Our plans are to go further into Africa, just completing another installation in Zambia, and then we are going to follow up and go into Kenya in a reserve as well as Mozambique, and the whole idea is to push more into Africa to put our solution in," Watson explained.
Work on the Zambia installation is in progress, while the Kenya location will be live before the end of the year. The Mozambique solution is currently in the design stage.
Connected Conservation is a passion project for Watson, who started the initiative by approaching Cisco's CEO and a handful of other executives at a partner summit.
They agreed to be part of the project, and in February 2015, Watson led a research and development team comprised of staff from both companies. The team went into a private reserve alongside the Kruger National Park in South Africa, an area of 135,000 acres, and developed a solution that linked people, gadgets, and technology together.
"The whole idea was to create a safe haven for animals, in particular rhinos, for them to run freely