Students from FIT BUT founded a start-up Zaitra. They plan to innovate forestry

Modernising forestry and offering foresters advanced technology allowing to make caring for forests more effective. That is the goal of the Zaitra start-up founded by classmates from FIT BUT, Marek Marušin, Radoslav Pitoňák and Martin Javorka. They started their business after succeeding at last year's hackathon and, thanks to combining artificial intelligence with satellite imagery, they were also chosen by the European Space Agency for its incubator.

Start-up Zaitra uses satellite images and their processing to make predictions and map forests. According to one of its co-founders, Marek Marušin, it should be used mainly by owners or managers of forests or companies harvesting lumber. "We call it smart stocktaking. Thanks to satellite image analysis, they can keep track of what is happening in the forest. So far, they had to patrol the forests themselves or pay for helicopter or drone mapping, which is costly. On top of that, aerial photography and use of drones are very irregular," explains Marušin.

Thanks to the fact that Zaitra uses space image analysis, it was also chosen by the European Space Agency for its development programme. That is because the European Space Agency uses its incubator to support young and promising companies which use space technology on Earth. "We know exactly when a satellite is passing over the place being mapped. We built a system which automatically downloads and subsequently analyses the images. It searches for any changes that occurred at the given territory," describes Marušin. Thanks to this it is able to detect the consequences of drought, deforestation and pest infestation.

Ström can not only map the current situation, but it can also predict future development | Author: Zaitra archive

Apart from mapping the current situation, the system, which its authors named Ström, can also create predictions based on the data. That way, the users will not only get information about what is currently happening in their forest but also about what will happen to it if they do not act soon.

Apart from image processing, Zaitra's work also makes use of artificial intelligence. It helps them for example to classify individual territories. "It helps us to divide territories into categories such as fields, meadows, clearings, etc. It can also detect deforested parts and individual species of trees," says Marušin. On top of that, it can even help on a cloudy days. In case the images are obscured by thick clouds and it is impossible to tell what is beneath them, artificial intelligence can make a suggestion about what are the users probably looking at.

Zaitra founders can use their tool, to which they plan to add further technologies and services in the future, to transform the field of forestry. Forestry in Eastern Europe, to be precise. "The eastern market is specific and compared to, for example, Scandinavian countries, it still has some catching up to do," adds Marušin. It is the hope of this Czech start-up that innovation and use of modern technology will aid sustainability of forests.

At the moment, Zaitra's product is in the testing phase. It should make it to the market within about six months. "We are currently still working on improving the algorithms. We are also adding new functions and new types of analysis," explains Marek Marušin, also adding that should anyone had use for their product, they can contact the company. "So far, we offer our services in exchange for feedback," he concludes.