Daan Eeltink wasn’t just interested in drones and coding. He was trying to understand something deeper: how technology could move beyond the classroom and into the real world, where it becomes complex, unpredictable, and meaningful.

At Montevia Sky Ranch, students and teachers build and fly drones while connecting technology to conservation. Hands-on learning meets nature, sparking curiosity, creativity, and real-world problem-solving.

Founded in 2008, Kashmir World Foundation (KwF) has grown into a hub where education, technology, and wildlife conservation intersect. Now based at Montevia Sky Ranch in the Ouachita Mountains, KwF brings together learners, scientists, and engineers to protect wildlife while exploring the frontiers of innovation.

The Shaman I system is tackling the most critical challenge in rainforest conservation: real-time threat detection. Daan Eeltink, Director of AI Operations at KwF and a student at Leiden University in the Netherlands, oversees the integration of AI technology, mesh networking, hardware, software, and NLP processing into a cohesive, functional system.

“This system we're developing has the potential to process a wide range of information from sound and vision to temperature, moisture, and weather variations in real time,” she explains. In doing so, Shaman I can detect and analyze threats much like a person might—pausing, retreating, or fleeing when something feels wrong.