Hunting for Peru's lost civilizations -- with satellites | Sarah Parcak

In July of 1911,

a 35-year-old Yale graduate and professor set out from his rainforest camp

with his team.

After climbing a steep hill

and wiping the sweat from his brow,

he described what he saw beneath him.

He saw rising from the dense rainforest foliage

this incredible interlocking maze of structures

built of granite,

beautifully put together.

What's amazing about this project

is that it was the first funded by National Geographic,

and it graced the front cover of its magazine in 1912.

This professor used state-of-the-art photography equipment

to record the site,

forever changing the face of exploration.

The site was Machu Picchu,

discovered and explored by Hiram Bingham.

When he saw the site, he asked,

"This is an impossible dream.

What could it be?"

So today,

100 years later,

I invite you all on an incredible journey with me,

a 37-year-old Yale graduate and professor.

(Cheers)

We will do nothing less than use state-of-the-art technology

to map an entire country.

This is a dream started by Hiram Bingham,

but we are expanding it to the world,

making archaeological exploration more open, inclusive,

and at a scale simply not previously possible.

This is why I am so excited

to share with you all today

that we will begin the 2016 TED Prize platform

in Latin America,

more specifically Peru.

(Applause)

Thank you.

We will be taking Hiram Bingham's impossible dream

and turning it into an amazing future

that we can all share in together.

So Peru doesn't just have Machu Picchu.

It has absolutely stunning jewelry,

like what you can see here.

It has amazing Moche pottery of human figures.

It has the Nazca Lines

and amazing textiles.

So as part of the TED Prize platform,

we are going to partnering with some incredible organizations,

first of all with DigitalGlobe, the world's largest provider

of high-resolution commercial satellite imagery.

They're going to be helping us build out

this amazing crowdsourcing platform they have.

Maybe some of you used it

with the MH370 crash and search for the airplane.

Of course, they'll also be providing us with the satellite imagery.

National Geographic will be helping us with education and of course exploration.

As well, they'll be providing us with rich content for the platform,

including some of the archival imagery like you saw at the beginning of this talk

and some of their documentary footage.

We've already begun to build and plan the platform,

and I'm just so excited.

So here's the cool part.

My team, headed up by Chase Childs,

is already beginning to look at some of the satellite imagery.

Of course, what you can see here is 0.3-meter data.

This is site called Chan Chan in northern Peru.

It dates to 850 AD.

It's a really amazing city, but let's zoom in.

This is the type and quality of data that you all will get to see.

You can see individual structures, individual buildings.

And we've already begun to find previously unknown sites.

What we can say already is that as part of the platform,

you will all help discover thousands of previously unknown sites,

like this one here,

and this potentially large one here.

Unfortunately, we've also begun to uncover large-scale looting at sites,

like what you see here.

So many sites in Peru are threatened,

but the great part is that all of this data

is going to be shared with archaeologists on the front lines

of protecting these sites.

So I was just in Peru, meeting with their Minister of Culture

as well as UNESCO.

We'll be collaborating closely with them.

Just so you all know,

the site is going to be in both English and Spanish,

which is absolutely essential to make sure

that people in Peru and across Latin America can participate.

Our main project coprincipal investigator is the gentleman you see here,

Dr. Luis Jaime Castillo,

professor at Catholic University.

As a respected Peruvian archaeologist and former vice-minister,

Dr. Castillo will be helping us coordinate and share the data with archaeologists

so they can explore these sites on the ground.

He also runs this amazing drone mapping program,

some of the images of which you can see behind me here and here.

And this data will be incorporated into the platform,

and also he'll be helping to image some of the new sites you help find.

Our on-the-ground partner

who will be helping us with education, outreach,

as well as site preservation components,

is the Sustainable Preservation Initiative,

led by Dr. Larry Coben.

Some of you may not be aware

that some of the world's poorest communities

coexist with some of the world's most well-known archaeological sites.

What SPI does

is it helps to empower these communities,

in particular women,

with new economic approaches and business training.

So it helps to teach them to create beautiful handicrafts

which are then sold on to tourists.

This empowers the women to treasure their cultural heritage

and take ownership of it.

I had the opportunity to spend some time with 24 of these women

at a well-known archaeological site called Pachacamac, just outside Lima.

These women were unbelievably inspiring,

and what's great is that SPI will help us transform communities

near some of the sites that you help to discover.

Peru is just the beginning.

We're going to be expanding this platform to the world,

but already I've gotten thousands of emails

from people all across the world -- professors, educators, students,

and other archaeologists -- who are so excited to help participate.

In fact, they're already suggesting amazing places for us to help discover,

including Atlantis.

I don't know if we're going to be looking for Atlantis,

but you never know.

So I'm just so excited to launch this platform.

It's going to be launched formally by the end of the year.

And I have to say,

if what my team has already discovered in the past few weeks are any indication,

what the world discovers is just going to be beyond imagination.

Make sure to hold on to your alpacas.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)

Thank you.

(Applause)