Technology

The Human and the Machine

The human mind is the most advanced information processor on the planet. By collecting hundreds or thousands of minds into a collective intelligence, Tomnod’s crowdsourcing technology solves global challenges with speed and reliability.

Pinning Information on the Planet

All information is location-based. With geographic insight and intuitive mapping, Tomnod’s geospatial analytics tie all kinds of data — tweets, images, people or events — to a place on the planet.

data, Data, DATA

Information drives innovation. But as data gets bigger, messier and harder to manage, extracting information becomes harder. Tomnod combines the scalability of machine systems with the adaptability and accuracy of human perception to turn massive datasets into actionable knowledge.

Key Tomnod technologies:

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  SatEnhance™: A pansharpening approach for increasing the resolution of multispectral satellite images. SatEnhance produces state-of-the-art results and is computationally feasible for large image sets.
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  CrowdRank™: A proprietary algorithm for ranking the reliability and accuracy of each individual in a crowd of contributors. CrowdRank extracts truth from crowdsourced inputs.
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  Augmented Machine Learning: A hybrid system that combines the cognitive power of the human mind with the speed and scale of computer machine learning algorithms. Crowds train the machine to automate human processes.
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  Data Avalanche Management (DAM) System: A cloud-based data warehouse that manages massive datasets and millions of crowd inputs with structured, searchable databases.
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  Tomnod TipQ™: A mobile solution that distills Tomnod’s crowd and machine intelligence to deliver real-time, contextual information to personnel on the ground.

Key platform components include:

Front End
The interface with the crowd. A web-based platform to distribute tasks, engage and educate the crowd. This platform can integrate or reside within existing social networks, such as Facebook.

Back End
The wisdom of the crowd is stored and processed. Huge datasets are divided and distributed, data analytics are performed, and each individual’s contribution to the overall solution is optimized.

Top Level Overview
Seeing the solution. Tomnod provides statistics, results and visualization derived from the crowdsourced knowledge in a top-down overview of the data analysis. Google Earth, ArcGIS, and custom information displays are available.

On the Ground
Crowdsourced knowledge impacts the real world. Tomnod offers hardware/software solutions to provide clients with actionable results. Machine learning models trained on crowdsourced input automate further data analysis. Location-aware tablets deliver real-time analysis to clients on the ground. For example, for its most recent National Geographic engagement, Tomnod created a custom iPad application that integrated the current position of explorers in the field with real-time, crowdsourced analysis of geographic imagery generated by a crowd of thousands from around the world.

Data Flow
Tomnod manages the storage and flow of data between all components of the system, transforming massive data problems into actionable knowledge. Additionally, Tomnod has contracts in place for specialized data acquisition (e.g., aerial and satellite imagery) and is available for consulting and custom system design.