Calling all space enthusiasts: NASA competition is returning to Copenhagen
For the second year in a row, the IT University of Copenhagen will host NASA's Space Apps Challenge, one of the world's largest hackathons, inviting creative and technical minds to develop ideas using data collected by NASA. This year's challenges zoom in on our home, Planet Earth.
Eventsstudent life
Written 24 April, 2017 11:40 by Vibeke Arildsen
If you have always dreamed of stars, satellites and astronauts, now is your big chance. On April 28-30, NASA's global hackathon, Space Apps Challenge, is coming to Denmark for the second time. The event is a 48-hour idea competition where people all around the globe collaborate on challenges posed by NASA using the space organization's open source data.
Words like 'hackathon' and 'data' should not deter anyone, as programming skills are not required in order to participate, says Gergana Romanova, co-organizer and Research Assistant at ITU:
"NASA focuses on diversity and interdisciplinarity, and the event is for everyone - men, women, young and old, from storytellers to entrepreneurs, business people and tech specialists. The beautiful thing about Space Apps Challenge is that people with different skills come together to solve challenges on our planet," she says.
Challenges on Earth
Participants will choose between 24 challenges, all related to this year's theme, Earth. The possibilities are far-reaching. With NASA's satellite data, participants can choose to develop a tool that can help fire authorities detect wildfires or visualize water resources in a particular area for the benefit of local farmers.
They can also choose to develop interactive 3D tools that present NASA-collected Earth data. Or perhaps design a comfortable habitat for researchers living in isolation in Hawaii while training for Mars missions.
The winner goes on
Space Apps Challenge launches on Friday, April 28 with a boot camp, where participants can participate in workshops and hear presentations by Danish space researchers Anja C. Andersen and Tina Ibsen, among others.
Participants will then begin hacking away until Sunday afternoon, where they will pitch their ideas to a panel of judges. The panel and audience favorites will go on to the global competition where the winner will be invited to view a rocket launch at NASA's Florida headquarters.
The hackathon has space for 120 participants, and joining the event is free.
Vibeke Arildsen, Press Officer, phone 2555 0447, email viar@itu.dk