The WILDLABS Awards 2025 are wrapping up after receiving 252 applications for the 5 grants of $50,000 and 10 grants of $10,000 available. After the WILDLABS team reviewed 71 $10,000 applications, we forwarded 25 to Arm for final eligibility verification and selection. For the $50,000 awards, the leadership team at WILDLABS narrowed down the shortlist to 27 finalists, and right now a shortlist of 17 is being evaluated by the judges.

The judging panel is composed of 14 experts in the conservation technology sector, each with decades of experience in their field. Panelists represent a diverse spread of gender, nationality, and conservation technology specialisations to account for similarity bias during application review.

As described in the announcement article for the Awards, judges are reviewing applications based on four criteria:

• Application quality
• Perceived feasibility
• Team capacity
• Contribution to the conservation technology sector 

Next week, the judges will make their final deliberations and will select the 15 awardees. Awardees will then be contacted, followed by an announcement to the general public. 

Meet the judges below! 

The WILDLABS Awards 2025 Judges

Sumit Arora (@Sumit_Arora): Sumit is the Director of Technology and Partnerships at the Centre for Wildlife Studies. He started and leads the Wild Incubator and Wild Incubator Tech programs, where they give seed grants to smaller and innovative conservation non-profits.  He is also working on conservation and AI projects for the conservation Ecosystem in India.

Narangua Batdorj (@Narangua): Nara is the Regional Conservation Technology Lead for Asia with the Conservation Technology Team at WCS and has been a Conservation Technology Officer with WCS Mongolia since 2021.

Eric Becker (@Eric_Becker): Eric is a conservation engineer at WWF, where he researches and develops sensor based systems to detect poachers in protected areas in Africa and Asia to stop wildlife crime.

Vanessa Couldridge: Vanessa is a lecturer and researcher in the Department of Biodiversity and Conservation Biology at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. Her research interests are in insect sound communication and the use of acoustic monitoring as a conservation tool.

Sophie Fillion (@sophieaya): Sophie is a Senior Manager in Conservation Science at Conservation International, where she leads projects that leverage new scientific insights and nature tech solutions to mitigate tropical deforestation and enhance landscape-level conservation planning. 

Raymond Jakub: Raymond is the Senior Director of Applied Science at Rare's Global Hub for Collaboration and Learning. He works with several country teams to translate science and technology into practical solutions for small-scale fishing communities.

Corinne Kendall: Corinne Kendall is Curator of Conservation and Research at North Carolina Zoo where she uses a variety of technologies with particular focus on animal movement to support conservation outcomes.

Jes Lefcourt (@jesl): Jes is the director of the EarthRanger program at the Allen Institute for AI where he combines his engineering expertise with his love of animals to build solutions for the protection of wildlife and their habitats.

Adrien Pajot (@Adrien_Pajot): Adrien is a Programme Manager at WILDLABS, where he leads the funding programme, including the WILDLABS Awards and The Boring Fund. With a passion for nature and a strong technical background, Adrien is passionate about supporting projects that merge technology with conservation impact.

Jacinta Plucinski (@JC): Jacinta is the CEO at Freaklabs, bringing over 20 years of cross-sector and international experience in strategic planning, implementation and management to harness collective experiences and networks to develop technology for those tackling today’s urgent environmental challenges.

Chelsea Smith (@Chelsea_Smith): Chelsea is a technical specialist in GIS & Remote Sensing at Fauna & Flora focused on applying technology to increase conservation impact, she is particularly interested in increasing access to technology.

Talia Speaker (@TaliaSpeaker): Talia is the Interim Executive Manager at WILDLABS, where she oversees big-picture programmes, research, strategy, funding, and more. She’s led the research division of WILDLABS for over five years, including horizon scans on movement ecology and bioacoustics, as well as community and sector research. 

Rosalie Tribe (@rosalie.tribe): Rosalie is a Senior Manager, Social Impact & Innovation at Arm, where she is leading global initiatives that leverage technology to drive positive social change. Rosalie plays a key role in shaping strategic partnerships that advance innovation for sustainability, inclusion, and global development. Passionate about the power of collaboration, she works to ensure technology is a force for good, creating lasting impact in communities worldwide.

Chris “Akiba” Wang (@Freaklabs): Akiba is the CTO at FreakLabs, where he leverages his experience in the technology industry to address critical environmental and wildlife conservation challenges through technical direction and development of wireless sensor networks (WSN) and hardware design and manufacturing.

About the Awards 

With $50,000 and $10,000 grants available for 15 outstanding projects, the support of engineering and technology talent from Arm (the leading semiconductor design company), and access to the world’s biggest conservation technology community, the WILDLABS Awards are a powerful opportunity for users and makers of technologies for nature to take their projects to the next level.