We are building an AI-native operating system for sustainable and resilient futures. Footwear is where we start. The architecture is designed to go everywhere.
Alpha Now Live · MassTech AI Innovation Grant #23231
Scroll
We are building an AI-native operating system for sustainable and resilient futures. Footwear is where we start. The architecture is designed to go everywhere.
What It Is
EarthDNA is a Boston-based climate tech nonprofit on a mission to put Earth's data into action. Project S.H.O.E.S. is our first production deployment — and the proof that AI can make material waste legible, valuable, and routable at scale.
The platform uses three proprietary AI models to identify any shoe, assess its condition, estimate its resale value, and route it to the highest-impact next destination: resale, repair, donation, or recycling. Point your phone at a shoe. In seconds, you know what it is worth, what it is made of, and where it belongs next.
Footwear is one of the most materially complex, globally scaled, and chronically mismanaged waste streams on Earth. We prove the architecture here because if it works here, it works anywhere.
The Platform
Project S.H.O.E.S. is not a shoe app. It is a composable AI platform designed to make any manufactured physical object legible to the systems that can extend its life. We prove the architecture in footwear — one of the most materially complex, globally scaled, and chronically mismanaged waste streams on Earth — because if it works here, it works anywhere.
Every model runs in concert. Every scan makes all three smarter. The platform is designed from day one to extend into apparel, electronics, and beyond.
Computer Vision · Identification
ShoeDNA reads a shoe the way a forensic lab reads evidence. It identifies brand, model, colorway, construction, material composition, and wear state from a single photo. No barcodes. No manual entry. The model targets 95% identification accuracy across all footwear categories, running on-device to protect your data.
Predictive Analytics · Market Valuation
ValueLens connects real-time resale market signals, condition assessment, and demand forecasting to give you an honest price range. It monitors live marketplace data across resale platforms and adjusts dynamically as trends shift. You see what your shoe is actually worth today, not six months ago.
Pathway Routing · Material Recovery
CircularSort solves the routing problem. Current systems miss 73% of optimal material recovery pathways. CircularSort analyzes material composition, geographic proximity, and partner network capacity to direct each shoe to the right destination — automatically connecting people to the nearest resale partner, repair shop, or certified recycler.
Impact Targets
Every metric below is a 10-year target tied to a real-world output, auditable, and reported publicly each year. These are commitments, not projections.
Impact metrics are forward-looking 10-year targets, not current achievements. Figures assume full platform deployment across Massachusetts and successive state partnerships. Baselines, methodology, and year-over-year progress will be published in EarthDNA's annual impact report.
Who It Is For
The circular economy needs people who can see what AI cannot yet see on its own: material context, community trust, and the judgment that makes a good data point out of a real-world scan. These are learnable skills. They are also valuable ones.
Every scan you submit trains three AI models simultaneously. You are not using a product. You are building infrastructure. The ability to collect clean, structured, real-world AI training data is one of the most in-demand skills in the next economy.
ShoeDNA gets smarter with every correction. When you identify a brand, confirm a model, or flag an error, you are doing the high-value work that machine learning depends on. Annotation is a skill. Precision earns.
You want your choices to generate real outcomes, not virtue signals. Every scan you submit is a verified data point that the platform publishes publicly each quarter. You see your impact measured in pairs rescued, materials recovered, and policies informed.
You already think about shoes as more than footwear. ValueLens gives you live market data on every pair in your rotation. ShoeDNA confirms identity and condition with a precision no manual lookup can match. Your knowledge of the market is an asset to the model.
The S.H.O.E.S. app is available now as an invite-only Alpha on Android. Apple iOS access is available via TestFlight now, with direct App Store access opening in May. Join the waitlist for priority access at launch.
iOS: Open TestFlight on your iPhone, tap the invite link, and install. Takes under two minutes. Android: tap the link above to download the APK directly. Enable "Install from unknown sources" in your device settings if prompted.
Investors · Donors · Foundations
EarthDNA is a 501(c)(3) climate technology nonprofit. Project S.H.O.E.S. is funded by a MassTech AI Models Innovation Challenge grant — and we are actively building the capital stack required to take this platform to scale.
We welcome investment and philanthropic support from aligned donors, DAFs, family foundations, and impact investors who understand that AI infrastructure for material recovery is one of the highest-leverage bets in climate tech. Every dollar funds models that generate real, auditable outcomes. We measure success in tons diverted, jobs created, and materials recovered. Not reports.
Giving Tiers
Named in the annual impact report. Quarterly briefing with program leadership. Your contribution directly funds model training infrastructure.
Co-branded activation opportunity. Access to real-time impact dashboards. Invitation to annual EarthDNA Summit. Priority access to research outputs.
Seat at the advisory table. Named partnership in platform and press materials. Custom impact reporting tied to your ESG commitments. Co-design of Phase 2 platform expansion.
All gifts are tax-deductible. We accept DAF grants and work with program officers on milestone-based restricted giving.
Support the Mission
EarthDNA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Every dollar funds the models, the infrastructure, and the people building the circular economy. Not reports. Not decks. Tons diverted. Materials recovered. Skills earned.
We welcome donors, DAFs, family foundations, and mission-aligned investors. All gifts are tax-deductible. We work with program officers on milestone-based restricted giving.
EarthDNA is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit.
All donations are tax-deductible.
Program Leadership
Our team is built for collective action. We bring together seasoned experts in AI, data science, mobile development, design, and sustainability, each with a proven track record of innovation and technical excellence.
Trust & Transparency
EarthDNA is a nonprofit. We do not sell your data. We do not use your scans for advertising. Every design and policy decision is governed by our published privacy and data principles. Read them. Hold us to them.
Your images are processed on-device by ShoeDNA. Scan data contributed to the training corpus is anonymized before it leaves your phone. You control what you share. You can delete your contribution at any time.
Read Privacy PolicyWe use federated learning and confidential autoencoders so that model training happens without centralizing personally identifiable information. No resale market data is linked to individual users. Audit logs are retained and available for grant review.
View Data PracticesIndustry Partnerships
Project S.H.O.E.S. is not a consumer app alone. It is the data rail that will connect every manufacturer, retailer, resale platform, repair network, and recycler into one coordinated system. If you move shoes, this platform is built for you.