Solar Boats in the Amazon: A Cloud Data Warehouse Solution

Electric transportation has risen due to concerns about global warming and recent changes toward sustainable transportation. However, it is not easy to measure the actual sustainability of electric vehicle transportation. Kara Solar is a non-profit organization that builds solar-powered boats in the Amazon rainforest, providing clean transportation for Indigenous communities. These solar-powered boats contribute to sustainable transportation in the Amazon rainforest and might prevent deforestation. Typically, sustainability is represented by social, environmental, and economic. It is important for Kara Solar to be able to measure its impact on these three pillars. Therefore, there is an intrinsic need to make sense of its data by collecting, storing, and analyzing it. The main objective of this project is to develop an artifact for the collection, storage, and analysis of Kara Solar’s data to measure its impact via proxy variables to at least one of these sustainability pillars. The artifact provides a cloud-native data warehousing solution that is scalable to process big data generated by IoT devices. The artifact features a Data Warehouse architecture based on the Kimball approach with modern components such as a Data Lake, ELT process, and transformations with a data build tool. The artifact proved useful for collecting, storing, transforming, and analyzing Kara Solar’s data from multiple sources, showcasing to stakeholders the impact within the Social Impact of Sustainability.