Latest news with #PunchcardSystems
CTV News
3 days ago
- Science
- CTV News
Birds Canada goes high tech to better understand what avian populations reveal about the environment
A new app has launched in an effort to track and protect dwindling bird populations. A new app has launched in an effort to track and protect dwindling bird populations. New app to track and protect birds A new app developed for Birds Canada is designed to help scientists and volunteers collect information about birds and their population, faster and with greater precision. The charity teamed up with Punchcard Systems to create the NatureCounts mobile app. Whether it's a tree swallow or a yellow-headed blackbird, all species play a critical role in helping scientists monitor environmental health. 'They're a great canary in the coal mine, the first indicator that will tell us, 'Oh, something might be wrong here,'' says Catherine Jardine with Birds Canada. For decades, bird counts were conducted with pen and clipboard, a method that was not only time consuming, but hardly foolproof. 'That introduced a lot of potential for errors,' says Kyle Horner of Birds Canada. 'At some point somebody has got to interpret that handwriting, or maybe it's rained on the data sheets,' he said, giving examples of how the old-school method impacted the results. Now, that's changing, because new data can be entered on the spot. Birds Canada told CTV News that NatureCounts, is already having an impact with five years of research all digitized and easily accessible. 'We're reducing errors,' Jardine explains. 'We are making things faster and more efficient. We're eliminating tedious data entry so that conservation happens faster.' Even better, the app isn't just for scientists. It includes features that let the public join in as 'citizen scientists", contributing to bird monitoring and helping expand the reach of environmental research.
National Post
3 days ago
- General
- National Post
NatureCounts App Launches, Introduces Point Count Technology to Support Bird Conservation
Article content Birds Canada and Punchcard Systems revolutionize how bird populations are tracked and protected with the unveiling of novel point count technology. Article content Article content EDMONTON, Alberta — In response to the stark decline of bird populations in North America, Birds Canada, working together with Punchcard Systems, has officially launched the NatureCounts mobile app, an intuitive digital tool that empowers conservationists, scientists, and volunteers to collect data faster, more accurately, and at greater scale than ever before. Article content Collapsing bird numbers show no signs of stopping. Since 1970, North America has lost nearly 3 billion birds. In Canada alone, well over a third of bird species have declined over the same period, according to the 2024 State of Canada's Birds Report. Birds play a critical role in healthy ecosystems, and their populations signal broader environmental changes, making their decline a warning sign for biodiversity at large and creating an immediate need for better tools to understand which species are at risk, why they are declining, and how to act swiftly. Article content 'With bird populations in crisis, we need better data and faster action,' said Catherine Jardine, Associate Director of Data Science and Technology at Birds Canada. 'NatureCounts makes that possible by empowering Citizen Scientists, researchers, and volunteers to collect high-quality information and drive urgent, informed decisions to protect our birds and our ecosystems.' Article content At the core of the new NatureCounts app is the point count interface, a one-of-a-kind tool that digitizes one of the most critical and widely used bird monitoring methods in conservation science. By integrating satellite imagery, precise GPS mapping, and a mobile-first design, the new point count tool replaces a traditionally paper-based, time-intensive process with an intuitive, efficient, and scalable solution. Early trials show the technology has already saved over five years' worth of manual data entry, freeing up valuable time for analysis and action. Article content 'At Punchcard, we're proud to partner with organizations tackling urgent, real-world challenges, and Birds Canada is a perfect example,' said Sam Jenkins, Managing Partner at Punchcard Systems. 'This collaboration brought together deep field expertise and thoughtful technology design to strengthen, not replace, traditional conservation methods. NatureCounts represents a powerful step forward in global conservation, and we're proud to support Birds Canada in leading that charge.' Article content Key features of the NatureCounts app include: Article content Mobile-first data collection: Designed for smartphones and tablets, the NatureCounts app enables users to capture detailed observations in the field, even offline. GPS and satellite-enabled interface: Interactive mapping ensures accurate geolocation and route planning for repeatable surveys. Flexible protocol customization: Supports more than 80 biodiversity monitoring programs, including regional, national, and international standards. Offline functionality: Built for use in remote and rugged environments with no cell signal. Article content Tens of thousands of individuals in North America are already contributing data through Birds Canada programs. Early adopters of NatureCounts in the United States, including the Pennsylvania Bird Atlas, are reporting transformative improvements in data quality and efficiency. As adoption grows, NatureCounts is poised to support international conservation efforts, including national biodiversity strategies, environmental policy, and species assessments. Article content 'When we started planning the Pennsylvania Bird Atlas point counts, it quickly became apparent that all other existing tools lacked crucial features,' said Amber Wiewel, Coordinator of the Pennsylvania Bird Atlas. 'The NatureCounts mobile app has been the perfect solution for our needs, and I am so impressed with the new point count feature. It's intuitive, efficient, and exactly what we needed to properly collect and manage this critical data.' Article content Birds Canada and Punchcard Systems continue to enhance the platform with new features and improvements planned for 2025 and beyond. Article content About Birds Canada Birds Canada is a national charitable organization whose mission is to drive action to increase the understanding, appreciation, and conservation of birds in Canada. Through its many citizen science programs, research projects, and conservation initiatives, Birds Canada generates and uses an enormous amount of conservation data to help protect birds. Article content About Punchcard Punchcard Systems is a Canadian digital transformation innovation consultancy that helps organizations turn complex problems into purposeful, human-centred software solutions. Founded in 2016 by Sam Jenkins and Estyn Edwards, Punchcard was built on the belief that software should be a catalyst for growth, not a hurdle. Recognized as one of Canada's Top Growing Companies by The Globe and Mail, Punchcard partners with over 250 clients across Canada and the U.S., and continues to push the boundaries of what thoughtful technology can do for business, community, and society. Article content Article content Article content Article content Article content Contacts Article content Article content Article content
Business Wire
3 days ago
- Science
- Business Wire
NatureCounts App Launches, Introduces Point Count Technology to Support Bird Conservation
EDMONTON, Alberta--(BUSINESS WIRE)--In response to the stark decline of bird populations in North America, Birds Canada, working together with Punchcard Systems, has officially launched the NatureCounts mobile app, an intuitive digital tool that empowers conservationists, scientists, and volunteers to collect data faster, more accurately, and at greater scale than ever before. Collapsing bird numbers show no signs of stopping. Since 1970, North America has lost nearly 3 billion birds. In Canada alone, well over a third of bird species have declined over the same period, according to the 2024 State of Canada's Birds Report. Birds play a critical role in healthy ecosystems, and their populations signal broader environmental changes, making their decline a warning sign for biodiversity at large and creating an immediate need for better tools to understand which species are at risk, why they are declining, and how to act swiftly. 'With bird populations in crisis, we need better data and faster action,' said Catherine Jardine, Associate Director of Data Science and Technology at Birds Canada. 'NatureCounts makes that possible by empowering Citizen Scientists, researchers, and volunteers to collect high-quality information and drive urgent, informed decisions to protect our birds and our ecosystems.' At the core of the new NatureCounts app is the point count interface, a one-of-a-kind tool that digitizes one of the most critical and widely used bird monitoring methods in conservation science. By integrating satellite imagery, precise GPS mapping, and a mobile-first design, the new point count tool replaces a traditionally paper-based, time-intensive process with an intuitive, efficient, and scalable solution. Early trials show the technology has already saved over five years' worth of manual data entry, freeing up valuable time for analysis and action. 'At Punchcard, we're proud to partner with organizations tackling urgent, real-world challenges, and Birds Canada is a perfect example,' said Sam Jenkins, Managing Partner at Punchcard Systems. 'This collaboration brought together deep field expertise and thoughtful technology design to strengthen, not replace, traditional conservation methods. NatureCounts represents a powerful step forward in global conservation, and we're proud to support Birds Canada in leading that charge.' Key features of the NatureCounts app include: Mobile-first data collection: Designed for smartphones and tablets, the NatureCounts app enables users to capture detailed observations in the field, even offline. GPS and satellite-enabled interface: Interactive mapping ensures accurate geolocation and route planning for repeatable surveys. Flexible protocol customization: Supports more than 80 biodiversity monitoring programs, including regional, national, and international standards. Offline functionality: Built for use in remote and rugged environments with no cell signal. Tens of thousands of individuals in North America are already contributing data through Birds Canada programs. Early adopters of NatureCounts in the United States, including the Pennsylvania Bird Atlas, are reporting transformative improvements in data quality and efficiency. As adoption grows, NatureCounts is poised to support international conservation efforts, including national biodiversity strategies, environmental policy, and species assessments. 'When we started planning the Pennsylvania Bird Atlas point counts, it quickly became apparent that all other existing tools lacked crucial features,' said Amber Wiewel, Coordinator of the Pennsylvania Bird Atlas. 'The NatureCounts mobile app has been the perfect solution for our needs, and I am so impressed with the new point count feature. It's intuitive, efficient, and exactly what we needed to properly collect and manage this critical data.' Birds Canada and Punchcard Systems continue to enhance the platform with new features and improvements planned for 2025 and beyond. About Birds Canada Birds Canada is a national charitable organization whose mission is to drive action to increase the understanding, appreciation, and conservation of birds in Canada. Through its many citizen science programs, research projects, and conservation initiatives, Birds Canada generates and uses an enormous amount of conservation data to help protect birds. About Punchcard Punchcard Systems is a Canadian digital transformation innovation consultancy that helps organizations turn complex problems into purposeful, human-centred software solutions. Founded in 2016 by Sam Jenkins and Estyn Edwards, Punchcard was built on the belief that software should be a catalyst for growth, not a hurdle. Recognized as one of Canada's Top Growing Companies by The Globe and Mail, Punchcard partners with over 250 clients across Canada and the U.S., and continues to push the boundaries of what thoughtful technology can do for business, community, and society.
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Out of office: COVID normalized remote work, but is it really here to stay?
When the World Health Organization declared a pandemic on March 11, 2020, companies across Canada scrambled to shift their employees to home setups. Within days, old computer monitors were dragged up from basements and assembled into makeshift work stations. Spouses jostled for laptop space at the kitchen table, while other workers designed camera-ready backdrops of bookshelves and plants for daily Zoom meetings. For the dozen or so staff at Edmonton-based tech company Punchcard Systems, the new reality meant figuring out "new patterns" of how to communicate as they would have at their downtown office. That meant implementing systems to streamline collaboration and automate workflows, the company said. Five years on, many office workers from Victoria to St. John's are back to busy commutes and coffee runs, at least some of the time. But for Punchcard, now with more than 50 staff scattered across the country, home is where they remain. The company, which develops custom software, apps and other digital tools, has ditched the centralized office in its headquarter city entirely. "Obviously in March 2020, the parameters for all of us changed and that was really, I think, a point of inflection for us as an organization," said Sam Jenkins, Punchcard's managing partner. "We knew that once we opened Pandora's box of a distributed team that we had to make sure we didn't turn remote employees into second-class citizens. If we pulled in our Edmonton staff into a single office, I don't think it would be fair for Edmonton and it wouldn't be fair for the rest of our team." As the five-year anniversary of the pandemic approaches, companies and their employees continue to wrestle over the ideal balance of in-office and work-from-home requirements. Costs, productivity and morale are among the factors tilting the pendulum in either direction, with many workplaces having settled somewhere in between a fully remote or in-person model. But there's rarely a one-size-fits-all happy medium, especially for the new parent juggling work with childcare responsibilities, or the boss trying to build a culture of camaraderie that goes beyond screens. John Trougakos, a professor of organizational behaviour and HR management at the University of Toronto, said one of the "silver linings of a very terrible time" is that the pandemic normalized the concept of hybrid work, which had been uncommon before 2020. "The pandemic has fundamentally shifted the way we work," said Trougakos. "The majority of office jobs now can in some way incorporate hybrid into their work based on the technologies that are available and the comfort that everyone has utilizing these technologies." A report released last September by the C.D. Howe Institute said just over one-quarter of paid employees across Canada spent at least part of their week working from home by the end of 2023. While that's down from 42 per cent in the spring of 2020, Trougakos said the proportion of Canadians still working primarily from home today is more than double what it was before COVID-19. Those still working from home tend to be more educated, employed by large organizations, and are more likely to have young children, wrote Tammy Schirle, author of the C.D. Howe report and an economics professor at Wilfrid Laurier University. "From an employer's point of view, offering work-from-home arrangements can help with efforts to attract and retain productive employees who may have otherwise searched for more flexible work arrangements with other employers," she wrote. The study also found work-from-home arrangements are more prominent in regions where industries such as finance and insurance, professional services, or public administration — occupations often characterized as "office jobs" — account for a large part of the local economy. Contrary to some fears over employees being less productive at home, Trougakos said many companies have found their staff actually get more work done in their own surroundings. Not only are there fewer distractions and disruptions than a shared office space, but remote and hybrid employees tend to indicate they're less stressed, take fewer sick days and value time saved from not having to commute, said Trougakos. "They have better work-life balance," he said. As an employer, Jenkins said he worried at the outset of the pandemic that Punchcard would "lose our culture" and productivity would lag when employees first began working from home. "I didn't realize how much I was going to have to trust that our employees were going to do the right thing, even when nobody's watching," he said. "Lo and behold, we're more productive in a remote environment because people really value the autonomy they get and the flexibility to work in the formats and patterns that work best for them." Still, it's unclear how long these arrangements will stay mainstream. South of the border, Donald Trump kicked off his presidency by ordering federal departments to end remote work and require employees to return to the office in-person full-time. Many large U.S. companies have taken that same approach and it could trickle over to Canada too, said employment and labour lawyer Andy Pushalik. KPMG's 2024 CEO outlook, which surveyed large business leaders from 11 markets including Canada, found 83 per cent of chief executives expect a full return to office within three years. "Maybe the pendulum is really swinging back," said Pushalik, a partner at Dentons. "You just see so much movement of these large companies — Dell, Amazon, JPMorgan and most importantly, the U.S. government — that there's going to be other C-suite leaders looking and saying, 'Well, we may want to make a change for our own workforce.'" Pushalik said U.S. law generally gives employers more flexibility to make workforce changes without notice obligations. But Canadian laws around constructive dismissal mean an employer can't change certain terms of employment overnight, such as in-office requirements, he said. "An employer could not necessarily decide on a Friday that they want everybody working in the office five days a week on Monday," he said. "(An employee) could potentially launch a constructive dismissal claim saying, 'Look, you didn't give me the right amount of notice and this is actually akin to a termination, so pay me out.'" That legal foundation makes it unlikely Canadian companies will fully embrace return-to-office models in the near future, said Pushalik. "I think people have got a taste of the flexibility that can come with the benefits of our technology and our ability to be connected anywhere that it's going to be tough to necessarily go back to fully five days a week," he said. "The challenge is, how can we harness the new normal to have a productive economy, with workplaces that are filled with collaboration and innovation?" For Punchcard, the permanent shift to remote work has prompted the tech company to invest more in digital tools, said Jenkins. Some money saved from reduced overhead has also been put back into the company for travel, so employees can come together twice a year for social and development retreats. But with his team now spread well-beyond Edmonton, including in cities such as Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg and Toronto, he said he won't require them to go to an office, even part of the week. "People do value the camaraderie of getting to see some of their co-workers, but they also value the flexibility of being able to do that on their own terms and their own schedule," said Jenkins. "I don't think we can put that genie back in the bottle." This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 10, 2025. Sammy Hudes, The Canadian Press Sign in to access your portfolio
