For the Stewards of Alberta’s Protected Areas of Alberta (SAPAA), the Site Inspection Report (SIR) is a key activity to better understand the state of these protected areas. SAPAA took over the SIR function from the Alberta government in 2023 and created a manual process. Collaborating with the University of Alberta, SAPAA is developing an application that streamlines the reporting process. A presentation at the 2026 Dragon’s Den virtual meeting will showcase its features while inviting expert feedback.
- Register for the Online March 19, 2026 Dragon’s Den
- SIR, The Cost!
- An App for That, Not Really
- University of Alberta to the Rescue!
- What Does App Look Like?
- March 19, 2026 Dragon’s Den
- Who Are the Dragons and the Moderator
- Hire the Students
- Notes and References
How do you know you are missing something if you don’t know what you had it in the first place?
This is the conundrum of natural areas. They don’t have Wi-Fi, no Instagram accounts, nor annual reports. They just exist as they have always existed – until they are gone. A Site Inspection Report (SIR) captures snapshots of an area’s status so that society knows at least what it has at that moment in time. More importantly, a SIR tells the story for an area and documents its worthiness to remain for future generations.
Register for the Online March 19, 2026 Dragon’s Den
A Zoom Link will be sent to all those who have signed up. Registration closes at 8 a.m., March 19, 2026.
SIR, The Cost!
A site inspection is a costly affair for the individual. The person visiting a site spends time and gas getting there, not counting the time it has taken to gain the experience the person brings to the site. At home, the individual still needs to write their report and upload photos.
When SAPAA receives a report, it currently takes 30-60 minutes to process the information. This includes transferring the data across multiple systems, managing images, and following up on any inquiries.
SAPAA’s SIRs are availble to the provincial government, but is the information subsequently used? Sadly, the answer is “maybe” at best. Fragmented and underfunded provincial resources mean there is little time for analysis and all but the most egregious problems are likely to be left unresolved.
An App for That, Not Really
With an estimated 5-9 million phone applications [1], surely there must be one that can take on at least some of the SIR-burden? Unfortunately, there is not. The inspection report questions are unique. There are other applications that support sub-functions of the application. For example:
- 50-100 GPS/Hiking applications such as Alltrails, Koomoot, or Gaia.
- 20-35 nature recording applications, with iNaturalist.ca and eBird.ca being ones run by nonprofits and focused on citizen science.
- 100-150 Digital Asset Management systems to manage images.
There are many applications that perform some of the functions but none that do everything.
University of Alberta to the Rescue!
Over the past two years, SAPAA has been working with the University of Alberta (UofA) to build a system that eliminates (or reduces) the manual efforts involved. The technical details are as follows:
- Hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS).
- Backend (database, etc.) is built on Supabase.
- Security and access management is via Supabase.
- Front End via Vercel.
- User Documentation & Training, WordPress.com.
What Does App Look Like?
2026 Site Inspection Process: Precursor activities, report visit details, provide images, use result in a report. Login page for the application. 
Landing page of sites that can be accessed. 
Detail of one inspection for one site (Alexo X 2017-11-21) 
Detail of one Question X one Site (Alexo) 
Example of online reporting within the tool. Limited drill down functionality exists 
Example of user management which give differentiated access to the tool.
March 19, 2026 Dragon’s Den
Pulling all of this together, two former UofA-SAPAA students will present version 1.0 of the application. The focus is on the Web Version of the tool. As time and development allows, an Android and iOS may be presented. Student biographies are listed below.
Acting as Dragons will be computer and environmental industry experts. This will be a cross-functional panel that will probe any weaknesses. Individuals directly and indirectly involved in environmental or computer technology are encouraged to be audience members. An open microphone section will allow for comments and questions.
Who Are the Dragons and the Moderator
We are currently recruiting Dragons. Are you a technical, business, or environmental leader interested in participating? Please email president@sapaastewards.com.
Sara Heerema is a Conservation Outreach Specialist at Alberta Wilderness Association. Her focus is on connecting people to Alberta’s public lands and wild spaces in order to inspire action to protect them. She acts as one of AWA’s SAPAA stewards and has recently visited the Beehive Natural Region to document conditions there. Sara holds a BSc in Geography from the University of Calgary, and a MES from the University of Waterloo.
Jon combines the technical with the customer as an experienced Enterprise Architect and Product Manager. A proven leader in delivering solutions for automation and integration across on-premise, Cloud, and hybrid environments.
Jon holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Sciences and Master of Management Sciences from University of Waterloo.
Tony Blake, since being a conductor for CP Rails (retired, 2009), Tony has spent most of his time outdoors – his passion. His retirement job as a vegetation manager takes him across Alberta and Saskatchewan to assess the health of plant communities from oil refineries to nature reserves. He graduated from the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in 1976 in the engineering technology program. Tony is a SAPAA board member.
Chris is an experienced leader working both in both the private and public sector. Most recently he was a vice president of a leading Research and Development organization in Alberta. Prior to that Chris was a Chief Information Officer. He has worked as a management consultant with KPMG as well as holding board positions for various local and national organizations. He is a retired CPA and also holds an MBA and an Economics degree.
Hans Potter is a familiar face to SAPAA and the moderator for this session. He has been involved in the performing arts from a young age. He combines a love of academics with acting on stage or in front of the camera.
He is a successful Voice Coach (MPM: Accent Training) and has recently launched a film production company which is in post-production for their fourth film.
When not acting, he is directing, teaching, and raising a young family in Vancouver… and he also gets dragged into moderating by his father, Frank Potter, president of SAPAA.
Hire the Students
Gabriel (Gabe) Bautista is a 4th-year Computer Science student at the University of Alberta specializing in Software Practice. He aspires to pursue full-stack development and enjoys solving complex problems, particularly in collaborative environments where ideas are shared and refined into innovative software solutions.
Gabe enjoys staying active and trying new things. Recently this included badminton, weightlifting, and new foods.
Mehrdad Panah is a Computer Science graduate with a minor in Psychology. He has a commitment to lifelong learning and taking on complex challenges. He enjoys finding creative solutions that prioritize the user experience and developing technology that is as intuitive as it is powerful.
When not working on software projects, he is in the gym, at music festivals, grilling, trying new recipes, exploring hiking trails, and lamenting over his past stock picks.
Notes and References
- All values are estimates via Microsoft Copilot AI. As the exact number is not really that important, no further references are provided. Your search and AI results may vary.
SAPAA 
Pingback: Volunteer Stewardship – Backgrounder | SAPAA
Pingback: Testing SIR SAPAA | SAPAA