As an employee of Arm, I am able to take a 4 week sabbatical once every 4 years. I used mine to spend a month in Ecuador expanding the BearID Project to a new species, introducing AI tools to researchers there and exploring the amazing biodiversity of the country. In collaboration with Dr. Becky Zug of the Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ), we started individual identification projects for Andean bears and pumas. Thanks to an amazing donation from Ampere Computing, we have established a biodiversity server at USFQ to consolidate and analyze camera trap data from across Ecuador. From the Andes to the Amazon, I met with researchers to introduce the biodiversity server and helpful tools like EcoAssist.  I even had a chance to see an Andean bear in the wild!

For a more detailed overview of the trip, you can read my article on LinkedIn:

Read "Bringing BearID to Ecuador (a sabbatical story)" on

Bringing BearID to Ecuador (a sabbatical story)

One of the many perks of working at Arm is the sabbatical program. This is described on the Life at Arm page as: After four years of working with us, you can take an extended paid four-week sabbatical to really hit pause or pursue a passion project.