Facilitating Innovation for the Digitization of Collections (FIDoC)

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Of the estimated 1.8 million named species of organisms on Earth, many are becoming or are already extinct. This vast biodiversity is documented in millions of research specimens housed in the collections of natural history museums, universities, and botanical gardens. These collections are an untapped source of knowledge that is critical for research, education, and decision-making about the environment, public health, food security, and commerce; however, most collections data is underutilized because it is not accessible electronically. This project will administer an NSF innovation inducement prize that will engage a broad community to develop pioneering technologies for automated digitization of biological specimens. The challenge is to digitize pinned insect collections, one of the most daunting tasks confronting the digitization of biological collections. Developing fully automated approaches will likely require the design and deployment of robotic 3D digital imaging instruments, image-capture software, advanced optical character recognition methods, metadata integration, and workflow optimization. Beyond collections digitization, the technologies developed for this prize should have national value in their wider application to research, education, and manufacturing. The American Institute of Biological Sciences will administer the prize and will convene an interdisciplinary committee of expert volunteers to develop the prize criteria and judge the entries. A prestigious prize competition mechanism has the potential to create new partnerships and transformative technologies. Additionally, the prize will inform the public about science and engineering research areas that are important to the NSF and the Nation.