The Team in Canberra - (G)EOHack19

HOW IT WORKS:

Identifying Challenges

A series of regional hackathons in various Indigenous communities ranging from the Arctic to Amazon will identify challenges that can be solved or addressed using open Earth observation (EO) data, including satellite imagery, remote sensing and in situ data.

They will co-develop approaches to address locally relevant challenges by combining traditional knowledge and science across cultural and generational lines. The hackathons encourage innovative EO-based applications that are locally relevant and that enhance community learning.

Co-creating Solutions

The participating communities will select a winning idea to propose as a challenge for GEO Hack 2019 that will take place from November 2-4 in Canberra, Australia. Hack teams will spend 2 days developing their proposed solutions towards one of these challenges.

The hack teams will present their challenges and solutions to the Earth observations community at GEO Week, 4-9 November.

Who?

Students and youth will be mentored and guided by representatives from Indigenous communities, Earth observation experts from the fields of Geosciences, Space and Satellite, as well Open Data Cubes to co-create solutions to the challenges identified by the communities.

How to register?

To register for GEOHACK19 in Canberra or remotely please click here.

Where?

The hack will be located at The Sciences Teaching Building- Building 136 ANU Campus, in Canberra, Australia.More information about the venue is available here.

Why?

The project strategy will build on the successful GEOSS HACK 2018 competition. As our first hackathon co-designed with the European Space Agency (ESA), it identified real community needs for the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It will use a format successfully triailed at the Arctic Citizen Science hack at Iliasagvik college, in Utqiagvik, Alaska in 2014.

The primary goals of this project are to:

• Promote the use of open EO data among indigenous youth, for example Sentinel data from EC, ESA's 3rd Party Missions, ESA's Earth Explorers (e.g. Cryosat, Swarm, Aeolus, Smos);
• Enhance local capacity among indigenous communities to support local efforts towards building resilience;
• Explore innovative uses of combined data products (both from space and in situ sources), notably looking at Open Data Cubes;
• Provide the GEO community with novel and innovative approaches to utilizing EO data to solve United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at a local scale;
• Build a community of ‘hackers’ that the GEO community can work with for future challenges;
• Build a community of new data providers among indigenous youth, that could feed in situ data to the GEO Knowledge Hub;
• Explore how the new proposed applications and combined data products could also feed into the GEOSS Platform;
• Understand barriers to the access and use of EO data among the non-scientific community;
• Understand the current challenges in integrating EO data with local/traditional knowledge;
• Increase cross-cultural communication among local communities, scientists and data providers; and 
• Maintain and strengthen indigenous/local culture through the use of EO data. 

Programme

Saturday 2 / Sunday 3 November 2019

Hackathon - day 1

Hackathon - day 2

Contact

More information will be available in the coming weeks, so check the website for updates.

If you are interested in becoming a mentor for the participants, please send your short bio and picture to Diana Mastracci (diana.mastracci@gtc.ox.ac.uk).