Technology That Sees the Forest Through the Trees

Once there was a time when taking inventory of a forest was an arduous task - one that involved pen, paper and a lot of counting.

Then came SilviaTerra, a startup founded at Yale by Max Nova and Zack Parisa. Nova (pictured at left), who graduated from Yale in 2012 and focuses on the business and technology aspects of the company, will be at the Center for Engineering Innovation & Design (CEID) Saturday to talk about the ins and outs of taking technology and turning it into a business. The event is sponsored by the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute (YEI).

SilviaTerra’s forest analytics technology, which Parisa developed while a grad student at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, significantly reduces the number of plots in a forest that need to be studied to get an accurate analysis of a forest. Not only does it does it reduce the time of the process, it also makes it a lot cheaper for timber companies, foresters and other clients who have hired SilviaTerra. 

Based in Cambridge, Mass., SilviaTerra, which was founded in 2010, combines satellite data with information collected on the ground with a special algorithm. 

“We’re not trying to see individual trees, we instead take a particular area and get a satellite image of the forest,” said Nova, acknowledging that this is a greatly simplified explanation of the technology. In that satellite image, there might be 40 shades of green, from which they can discern tree species and their state of development. They also compile images of same area from different times of the year.

So whether you’re interested in trees, technology, start-ups, or some combination thereof, come to the CEID Saturday. Nova’s talk begins at 7:30 p.m.