Biodiversa: the 3Bee game app to monitor biodiversity

The naturetech 3Bee is launching Biodiversa, the free game app for monitoring biodiversity and protecting ecosystems that allows you to 'collect' and easily identify the plants and flowers you come across during an outdoor walk. An ambitious citizen science project that aims to create a cooperative archive dedicated to flora (and in a second phase fauna) in Europe, involving player users with challenges to catalogue species, some of which are rare or endangered. Taking advantage of the most advanced photo-recognition and machine learning technologies, Biodiversa allows users to enrich their knowledge of European biodiversity and actively contribute to its conservation through a game dynamic, which is the real driving force behind the scientific objective.

Biodiversa is the app that aims to collectivise biodiversity conservation by encouraging the active participation of players in the collection of crucial data for ecosystem conservation. Through a true collective mapping, Biodiversa aims to facilitate the identification and visualisation of vulnerable areas and plant species, acting as an essential tool in the strategy of conservation and mitigation of risks related to climate change. Indeed, the 3Bee team developed the Biodiversa app with the aim of integrating and enhancing the XNatura protocol for monitoring terrestrial biodiversity, which allows organisations and companies to objectively verify and quantify their impact on biodiversity, consistent with the current European regulatory framework.

"The project Biodiversa is the result of 3Bee's journey in the field of technology applied to nature, from 2017 to the present: by developing the innovative biodiversity monitoring protocol XNatura, we understood the importance of a collaborative approach, which integrates businesses and citizens in the data collection process. To build this database, it is necessary that the information collected is detailed by species and highly scalable. - says Niccolò Calandri, CEO of 3Bee - Thus came the idea of Biodiversa, a free game app that transforms biodiversity monitoring into an interactive and engaging experience and represents the fusion of our three pillars: monitoring, regeneration, dissemination".

Available for iOS and Android as of 5 June 2024, Biodiversa has a dynamic similar to that of some well-known free-to-play video games that encourage moving and travelling in the real world to 'collect' characters. The app made by 3Bee in fact offers a playful experience in which the plants, the flowers and the pollinators - available in the next version of the app - are all to be 'collected' and identified. With Biodiversa, each snapshot from the smartphone collects a plant and gives experience points, allowing users to level up and climb the scale. From 'Sprout Scout' to 'Biodiversity Superhero', each level passed allows one to conquer kingdoms and habitats, advancing one's contribution to the preservation of biodiversity. The Biodiversa app represents a bridge between technology and conservation, involving citizens, institutions and businesses in a European citizen science project that has a real impact on the environment.

The app, entirely conceived and developed by the naturetech 3Bee team, transforms everyday activities into educational and conservation opportunities, adapting to a wide range of interests and passions. School trips are transformed into open-air classrooms, where teachers and students become true biodiversity explorers, using the app to identify and catalogue local flora and promoting a hands-on approach to science. In the corporate context, Biodiversa is an innovative tool for organising sustainable, interactive and educational team building activities. By means of cataloguing challenges and outdoor adventures, Biodiversa makes it possible to strengthen the bond between company employees, but also to promote values related to sustainability and corporate social responsibility.

Not only that: for families, a simple trip to the park becomes an opportunity for discovery and learning through direct observation of nature. Even travellers and adventurers use biodiversity as a tool to enrich their explorations, turning each destination into an opportunity to study and conserve biodiversity. Finally, tourist guides and nature parks, find in the app a new tool to tell the story of biodiversity, quickly surveying the hundreds of species present with the help of visitors, tourists and citizens.

On the occasion of World Environment Day, which is celebrated on 5 June, the naturetech 3Bee calls citizens, organisations and companies to a "duty" of monitoring biodiversity, incentivising them to take an active role through a citizen science tool that combines advanced technology and collective participation. This project fits into the mission of 3Bee, which aims to build and strengthen a solid scientific database for the future of environmental conservation.