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 resources. 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 will showcase its features while inviting expert feedback.

1. Register for the Online March 19, 2026 Dragon’s Den
2. SIR, The Cost!
3. An App for That, Not Really
4. University of Alberta to the Rescue!
5. What Does App Look Like?
6. March 19, 2026 Dragon’s Den
7. Who Are the Dragons
8. Hire the Students
9. 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 this moment in time. More importantly, a SIR tells the story for an area so hopefully the Natural Areas will be there for many 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 0800h, 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. Once at a site, it takes years of experience and tools to make the visit worthwhile. At home, the individual still needs to write their report and upload photos. Using Google Forms and clunky image management makes this burdensome.

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.

Is the information subsequently used? Sadly, ‘maybe’ at best. The above efforts leave little time for analysis. The fragmented and underfunded provincial enforcement resources mean all but the most egregious findings are 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 the (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?

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

We are currently recruiting Dragons. Are you a technical, business, or environmental leader interested in participating? Please email president@sapaastewards.com.

Hire the Students

Notes and References

1. 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.