Explore.org Streaming Wildlife Network

Explore.org connects millions of viewers with live animal cams and educational storytelling. I led the front-end modernization effort, moving from legacy jQuery templates to a React/Apollo experience that supports real-time interaction and accessibility.
The new platform handles high-traffic events like bear migrations while giving the editorial team better tools to curate, annotate, and share conservation stories.

Deliver a modern, accessible streaming experience for audiences and moderators worldwide.

• Legacy stack made it difficult to support real-time chat, annotations, and interactive layers
• Editorial team needed a faster workflow to showcase new cameras and storylines
• Platform had to cope with surges of concurrent viewers during headline events

A modular React front end with GraphQL data orchestration and streaming optimizations.

• Introduced Apollo-powered data layer for real-time updates and caching
• Rebuilt video player shell with adaptive bitrates, live captions, and DVR-style controls
• Created authoring tools for moderators to schedule events and surface curated playlists

Explore.org can now scale mission-driven storytelling without sacrificing performance.

• Audience engagement jumped as fans stayed longer and participated in live chat
• New camera deployments went from weeks to days thanks to reusable templates
• Editorial insights inform conservation partners through improved analytics