"Last week we saw fishermen coming out of a restricted area. You know it's happening, but the area we have to protect is big. You don't know where and when boats enter. That lack of insight is the problem."— Ranger Robin Maatman, Biesbosch National Park, 23/03/2026
Hydro-Guard's novel insight is simple: boats are the shared infrastructure of almost all illegal exploitation — poaching, fishing, illegal logging and unauthorized tourism — in water-dominated parks. Detect the boat at the entrance, and you stop everything that follows.
Not a replacement of the rangers. An extra set of ears where nature needs it the most.
Illegal boat activity detected
Hydro-Guard develops AI-powered microphones that detect motorboats in real-time and alert rangers through a user-friendly dashboard. By strategically placing devices, we monitor parks continuously, passively, and without requiring a ranger to be present.
No ranger needed on-site. Monitors 24/7 in any weather, at any hour, without interruption.
Rangers receive instant push notifications when boats enter restricted zones — enabling early interception.
Traffic patterns enable smarter enforcement, resource allocation, and evidence-based conservation policy.
In Development — Field Test: Biesbosch Mar 2026
// Hung on tree or pole adjacent to water surface
In Development — Following Dry V1.0
// Submerged underwater at central monitoring points
Devices placed strategically in and around restricted waters based on park topology
AI continuously monitors for motor sounds across the acoustic spectrum, 24/7
Neural network classifies motorboat signatures with 97% accuracy
Rangers receive real-time push notification with location and timestamp
No random blind patrols — targeted, evidence-based intervention exactly where it matters
Our field visit to the Biesbosch — validating the problem, understanding the terrain, and building the relationships that make real conservation technology possible.
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Phase 01 — R&D
Feb – Jun 2026
23 devices deployed in Biesbosch. Working toward 75% maturity target. Acoustic model training on real-world boat signatures. Ranger workflow integration and dashboard development.
Phase 02 — Pilot
Jun – Sep 2026
System stabilization and performance benchmarking. Securing 3 European inland water park partnerships. Ranger training and dashboard refinement based on live field feedback.
Phase 03 — Expansion
Sep 2026 – Jan 2027
Dry + Wet versions complete. First official commercial product launch. Securing institutional partnerships and conservation NGO integrations across European inland water ecosystems.
Phase 04 — Global Scale
2027 and beyond
Scaling to deltas, wetlands, tropical and marine parks across three continents. First international deployment: Burgas Lakes, Bulgaria. Building a global ranger alert and acoustic intelligence network.
Thijmen de Vries
Founder & Project Lead
Joost den Hoedt
Business & Operations Lead
Marlo Poelstra
Industrial / Mechanical Design Lead
Lorenzo Piralla
Neural Network Engineer
Robert Melika
Embedded Systems & Hardware Integration Engineer
Diego Viero
Development Coordination & Frontend Engineer
Luca Pirovano
AI Acoustic Engineer
Master's engineering students from TU Delft and University of Milan — combining industrial design, AI, embedded systems, and business development, united by a shared conviction that technology should protect what matters most.
Supported by the WWF INNO Student Challenge 2026 — WWF's initiative to fund and accelerate the most promising student-led conservation technology projects across Europe.
Field partner: Dutch National Forest Service. Marco Meeling (Senior Policy Advisor) confirmed the Delta waters — Haringvliet, Hollands Diep, Biesbosch — as open test locations for Phase 01.
Primary validation site for Phase 01. Active collaboration with rangers providing real-world acoustic data, deployment feedback, and ground-truth validation of our AI detection models.
Illegal boat activity — Biesbosch Zone A3
HG-DRY-007 · 14:23:07 UTC · 97% CONFIDENCE