Satélites, mapas e trajeto do boi: saída para reduzir desmatamento já opera no Brasil

The KilimoAI app uses artificial intelligence to help Tanzanian smallholder farmers identify crop diseases through their smartphones, enabling thousands farmers to reduce unnecessary pesticide use. Using the app has lowered operational costs and improved yields by catching crop infections early instead of relying on agro-input shops that often oversell chemicals.

The Global Biodiversity Standard (TGBS) certifies forest restoration projects that demonstrate measurable biodiversity improvements through affordable assessments by regional expert hubs. In its first year, TGBS certified 6 sites and created 15 regional hubs, helping projects to achieve documented increases in native species and forest-dependent wildlife and mentoring failed projects improve their practices.

Silvopasture—combining native trees with rotational grazing on cattle pastures in the Peruvian Amazon—has more than doubled the number of cattle able to graze per hectare. Within a year, significant carbon has been sequestered and cattle health has improved.

In an effort to better support its youngest learners, Mississippi implemented sweeping education reforms, including introducing a standardized “science of reading” curriculum, providing more teacher training and support with in-school literacy and math coaches, and holding back third-grade students who don’t meet their reading skills benchmarks. Over a decade, the number of students reading at grade level has climbed from 12 percent to 35 percent, and the state now ranks among the top ten nationally for fourth-grade reading scores.

A 9.1-megawatt community solar farm built on a contaminated Superfund site in Waukegan, Illinois, is now providing guaranteed energy bill savings to about 1,000 low-income households. The project successfully transformed polluted land into a productive asset that also generates lease payments for the local school district.

Prison nursery programs like Missouri’s allow women who are pregnant when they become incarcerated to stay with their babies for up to eighteen months, as long as they meet certain requirements. One study found that this type of program can help reduce recidivism, and participating mothers say the nurseries helped them become better parents who were more prepared for their release.

In 2017, residents of Kabuga Aisami in Kano built their own maternal and child health hospital to address maternal mortality rates and improve access to care. Led by the Kabuga Aisami Community Initiative (KACI), community members pooled resources to construct the facility, which includes two labor rooms, three wards with 40 beds, four laboratories, a pharmacy, 25 toilets, and three self-contained flats for doctors to enable 24-hour care. Patient volume has since increased by over 250%, and the hospital has expanded to serve 10 surrounding communities, as well.

Cycling Without Age addresses social isolation among elderly people through a volunteer-run program using electric three-wheeled bicycles with two front seats, so elders can enjoy a ride without the physical toll. Founded in Copenhagen in 2012, the program has expanded to 3,600+ chapters across 41 countries with 50,000 volunteers.

In 2014, Dunkirk, France, launched a four-year initiative to become the country's largest city with fare-free public transit. The city rebuilt its bus system with 150 vehicles serving 200,000 residents, redesigning routes, improving vehicle quality, repositioning stops, and implementing 10-minute service intervals. The approach included daily bus cleaning, same-day repairs, smartphone tracking apps, and a testing phase with free weekend travel before the full 2018 rollout. The initiative has increased bus ridership by 165%, with 10% of users abandoning their cars altogether.

To discourage cell phone use throughout the school day, Harvard-Westlake School collaborated with Opal, a program that blocks certain apps so that students can keep their phones on them without getting sucked into games or social media during class time. Opal created a new version of the tech for schools that allows administrators to see when students are logged in and any instances of users trying to get around the blocking settings.