Social Innovation Wildlife Website Created by 16 Year Old Boy That Attracts Google
A 16-year-old schoolboy, Nadav Ossendryver, has created a hi-tech social innovation solution that provides real-time updates on wildlife sightings in South Africa's world famous Kruger National Park. This young whizz-kid has developed LatestSightings.com, which has since caught Google's attention, which wants to find a way to commercialise Nadav's idea. His website reports live wildlife sightings from the Kruger National Park, and allows visitors to the Park to track the animals and see them in action in nature.
Nadav has set up LatestSightings and in just eight months, he has gained 18,000 followers from around the world from countries such as the U.S, India and Britain. His updates are along the lines of "Leopard feeding in tree"; "3 wild dogs"; "2 male lions 4km south of lower Sabie across river bank.' However, there is also a strong positive side to Nadav's work and Web site: it holds the contact numbers to report rhino poaching. Unfortunately, the killing of rhinos has been driven by the rising demand for its horn in the Far East and has resulted in 281 of these endangered species dying this year.
This social innovation idea came to Nadav because he was fed up asking his parents to ask passing motorists in the Kruger Park where the best wildlife sightings were. He took things into his own hands and set up a blog that grew into Kruger Sightings. He is directly engaged with people, asking them for their animal sightings at the Park and posts updates each morning onto the site that he receives from visitors using Twitter, Facebook, BlackBerry messenger or who leave messages on the website itself.
