The CASSINI Hackathons is the flagship action of the European Commission’s Competitive Space Start-ups for Innovation Initiative (CASSINI). Its goal is to stimulate the spur-of-the-moment development of innovative initiatives based on data and information from Copernicus satellite images and Galileo & EGNOS positioning signals.

This year, the 4^th edition of the Cassini Hackathon was held in ten European countries. In Barcelona, the Hackathon was hosted by the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya and co-organised by the Fundació Privada Knowledge Innovation Market, the Chamber of Commerce of Barcelona, and the Eurisy newest Member, the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia – IEEC.

The winners will get access to 100 hours of tutoring to strengthen their technical, marketing and sectorial skills and bring their ideas to the market.

Participants were asked to imagine and develop solutions based on data and signals from the Copernicus and Galileo satellite constellations to contribute to finance, insurance and investment practices that support sustainable development and help solving global challenges.

The first prize was awarded to the FarmSat:Space team, composed by Federico Lozano, Maria Álvarez, Carmen Álvarez, Francisco Muro, Juan Antonio Pedreira, José Pulido and Alejandro Trenado. The team proposed to develop a product using Copernicus images to monitor gas emissions in macro farms, a model that is taking over Spain with alarming environmental impacts.

The team participants, who travelled to Barcelona from Malaga, are part of the K-Projects programme of the University of Malaga, which aims at gathering students with different backgrounds to provide them with the soft skills needed to develop products that respond to today’s challenges. The product with which the team won the Cassini Hackathon Spain has been conceived based on the work they did within the “K-SAT: Space & Entrepreneurship Lab” project, that focuses on projects integrating satellite technologies.

© Knowledge Innovation Market (KIM)

The second winning team, Gapfik, included Giuseppe Facciorusso, Georgi Gevorgyan, Lorenzo Montaruli, Giovanni Pardini, Janninger Hofmann, Kuba Glowacz, Lara Bertin and Hamad Alrakhis. The team developed a dashboard that includes satellite data to provide information on companies’ environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks in real time and with a very easy user experience.

In addition to these teams, the Jury also wanted to recognise the work of other participants who came up with particularly interesting ideas.

A special mention of environmental awareness for future generations was awarded to the Space Tools team, including Guillem Águila, Javier Ramírez, Albert Sáez, Marc Ferré, Daniel García, Ángel Franco, Mireia Rico and Oriol Paricio. The team developed the idea of a platform relying on EO data to identify the sustainability index of a crop according to its specific location.

A special mention in green impact went to the Choose your space team, including Carla Salas, Ricard Rodríguez, Fran Asensio, and Pavel Fedotov. They imagined a home search tool taking into account sustainability indexes, pollution and weather data that would serve as an intermediary for sales or rental platforms.

Finally, a special mention in business experience was recognised to the Byetech team, including Laura Domenech, Jonathan Domenech, Xavier Liso, Johan Oreel, and Dulguun Ganbold. Their idea consisted of a social media network that embraces the world of sustainability to analyse companies.

As a partner of the Hackahton, and having supported the event with communications and mentoring, Eurisy wishes to congratulate the FarmSat:Space team and all the participants that contribute with their ideas to bringing space closer to society!

The post Cassini Hackathon Barcelona: Meet the winners! appeared first on Eurisy.

In the weeks before the official Kick-off of the Hackathon, excitement was mounting as registrants started to join the online dedicated workspace. From the start, the event promised to be very diverse and multidisciplinary. Participants with different backgrounds ranging from students, entrepreneurs, start-ups, coders, researchers, scientists, and Earth observation specialists shared their passion about space and the development of innovative applications.

Although the audience was not able to brainstorm and exchange their ideas face to face, and no Irish beers were shared at the end of the competition, the online event allowed for the digital participation of professionals that might not have been able to travel to Cork. Moreover, the virtual Hackathon attracted a very international audience, giving participants from across Europe the opportunity to be involved in the preservation of Irish heritage.

Four challenges were presented to the participants, who were asked to come up with innovative ideas based on the use of Copernicus and Galileo data to safeguard Irish cultural and natural heritage, to monitor the effects of costal changes on cultural heritage, and to respond to the threats of COVID-19 (a challenge that the European Commission fostered for all Copernicus Hackathons implemented during these difficult times).

The team with the best idea presented a solution for Heritage Surveillance and Monitoring using advanced remote sensing techniques to detect ground deformation and to monitor subsidence at archaeological sites, monuments and historic urban centres, and relying on algorithms to detect different types of surface changes caused by erosion, floods, vegetation or human actions. Their presentation, together with the presentations of all teams that were awarded a prize is available here.

The Office of Public Works (OPW) of the Republic of Ireland, consulted by Eurisy prior to the Hackathon, proposed the challenge on monitoring the effects of costal changes on cultural heritage. The OPW also offered part of the prize awarded to the team with the best idea on this topic. The OPW showed its commitment and interest in finding a suitable solution for this critical issue by taking the time, before and during the hackathon, to mentor participants on how climate change threatens cultural sites and popular tourist destinations along the Irish coastline, with negative impacts on the economy of local communities.

To give an example, in 2019 the heavy storms hitting the West coast of Ireland caused the Dunbeg Fort in Dingle, a promontory fort built in the Iron Age, to partially collapse. The team with the best idea on this topic presented a solution called MAYA (Monitoring Coastal Erosion Anywhere), relying on Sentinel-2 data to study the effects of coastal erosion on sites situated around the Irish coast, using Dunbeg Fort as a case study.

In the end, a total of nine teams pitched their projects online to the jury and the other participants. Apart from the team tackling the COVID-19 challenge, all other teams decided to address the challenges related to monitoring the effects of coastal changes and to safeguarding Irish cultural heritage. This underlines the potential for Copernicus to effectively contribute to preserve Cultural Heritage in Europe and around the world. It also indicates that cultural heritage matters to the young European professionals working with Earth Observation data.

Indeed, the effects of climate change and human activities on cultural heritage have been widely acknowledged. Yet, heritage managers have little cost-effective tools to efficiently monitor the threats to cultural heritage and to hence target their adaptation measures. The Hackathon has set an important wave of ideas and projects in motion that could meet these pressing needs.

To find out more about the hackathon, please visit the event website. The recording of the Pitching and Awarding Day is also accessible here.

The post Heritage matters and EO can do wonders to safeguard it appeared first on Eurisy.

After the opening session on the 24th of April, participants started teaming up. The next day, the Copernicus programme was introduced to the participants with a presentation followed by a workshop and technical mentorship. The teams worked remotely on their projects during the next couple of days. For this week, the particpants are free to join a daily webinar. On Tuesday 28 April, Weronika Borejko from EARSC presented Project PARSEC-H2020, and a Eurisy presentation on the topic of smart cities is planned for today. Starting from next week, on Monday 4th of May, the teams will be reviewed by their mentors. On Friday 8th of May, during the last day of the hackathon, the teams will present their results and the jury will select the winners.

Eurisy Secretary-General, Jean-Jacques Tortora, will be part of the jury evaluating the participating teams. On April 24, during the event kick-off, Jean-Jacques Tortora was invited to give an opening speech. If you missed the opening remarks by the organisers and official guests, you can watch all the introductory remarks below.

I would like to congratulate the organisers, not only for having proven to be so flexible in coming up with this new organisation online, but also for having a renewed focus on the challenges posed by the coronavirus, which is a historical challenge posed to all societies around the world and definitely Copernicus has a role to play in our response to this crisis.

Jean-Jacques Tortora emphasised the wide range of opportunities offered by space data and concluded:

Copernicus is a source of vast social economic benefits. One of the key factors to that is the free and open data policy which enables and encourages private actors and start-ups to create innovative services and applications. It is quite clear that global challenges require global solutions. This is what space is good at, and to some extent, something that only space can do. Pandemic crises is one of them, but next to that we also have climate change and the Green Deal, as well as the digital agenda. Copernicus contributes to the modernisation of the public sector, delivering more efficient public services. I look forward to a successful, fruitful and constructive hackathon despite the difficult circumstances. I would like to really congratulate and encourage all the teams to come up with fresh and innovative ideas and I look forward to further discuss them with all of you.

Eurisy will continue to support the hackathon with a webinar on the topic of smart cities. The webinar, scheduled on 29 April between 15:30 and 16:00 (CET), will be freely available via livestream.

For the full programme see: https://hackathon.rst-tto.com/programme/en.

The post The Copernicus Hackathon Sofia 2020 appeared first on Eurisy.