One year more, Copernicus Hackathon 2020 in Athens finished successfully, with a high level of the participants. NEANIAS project has been fully involved with the event, since the innovation and the search for technological solutions to today's challenges in our environment is part of our essence. The teams have carried out an outstanding work, and that is the best result for us.
The Challenges
Copernicus Hackathon in Athens 2020 presented 4 challenges:
- Maritime Challenge #1
- Maritime Challenge #2
- COVID-19 Challenge #1
- Gaming Challenge #1
There were also some combinations between the existing challenges (Maritime #1 & #2, Covid-19 & Gaming).
Maritime Challenge #1
Wind, waves, currents and sea ice cover are crucial factors in choosing a route at sea. Advanced routing systems are being introduced in sailing and shipping, one result being that the captain/skipper on board makes the crucial decisions about the route. Avoiding rough weather and utilization of the best possible advance route planning, can minimize exposure dangers and/or damages while keeping the time of arrival on target. Predicting and choosing the optimum route among weather “obstacles” also reduces fuel consumption.
Additionally, the above concept will be evaluated alternatively at the yachting trips, where the optimization of a sea route plan is essential not only for the minimization of the fuel consumption but also for the ambience and comfort travel of the yachters.
Maritime Challenge #2
70% of the world’s coastal seafloor yet remains unmapped and not well identified. The mapping of the coastal shallow water zone can be a very promising and challenging process using freely products of Copernicus data instead of highly cost swath surveys. Satellite-Derived-Bathymetry (SDB), is a non-invasive methodology without negative impact on environment, health and safety.
The challenge is to design/develop an application / framework based on SDB in order to retrieve bathymetry data in shallow depths adjacent to the coastal zone and identify the main geomorphological features of interest.
COVID-19 Challenge #1
COVID-19, caused by the recently emerged virus SARS-CoV2, has led to unprecedented measures of social distancing and lockdown in order to prevent its spread among countries, areas, the general and the vulnerable population. Weather and climate are suspected to be major parameters that can affect the virus spread. Although there is no definite evidence yet supporting this hypothesis, infectious-disease epidemiologists suggest that we should not “let perfect be the enemy of convincing”, and consequently weather changes currently influence the intensity and type of the measures to be undertaken.
Still, applications/tools that employ global climate data and that can be used by the WHO, centers of disease control and governments to assess and identify correlations between weather/climate/demographics data and the virus spread are lacking.
The aim of this challenge is to develop a tool/application that can identify correlations between the SARS-CoV2 spread risk around the globe and the climate, atmosphere conditions and demographics of the corresponding regions being studied.
Gaming Challenge #1
Many game stories are based in real-life or realistic worlds, while others utilize specific aspects of a real-life environment, such as gravity or atmospheric characteristics. Utilizing familiar environments, such as downtown Paris or New York or historically accurate representations, such as ancient Athens, establishes rapport with the players, especially if well connected with the game narrative, as well.
Besides maps, games can benefit from elevation data, Natura 2000 data (to provide protected areas, thus not accessible to players), potential flood prone areas (areas would flood in case a dam should break in the game), or even biocapacity (would help choose where to set up the player’s farm). The information chosen should not just be reflected visually, but play an important role in the narrative of the game (cf. the examples above).
Organization and teams
Copernicus Hackathon initiated with 15 Teams participating and 4 Challenges at their choice pool. The following teams was presented:
- Decode Apocalypse
- TBA
- SeaDreamers (Compass)
- Ocean's 6
- UoP (University of Patras)
- TBA
- AFROS
- TBA
- TBA
- G.V.
- Covid6gang
- Copernicusses
- Bertha
- Gallenvi
- Satorama
On the Hackathon Demo Day, Friday 5/6/2020, 9 teams submitted their final work.
After the Closing Ceremony, pitching of the ideas and questions from the jury followed the process.
During the Live Raffle Session, in each team was allocated 15’, which was divided to:
- 5’ Preparation (Checking sound, screen, presentation, etc.)
- 5’ Presentation
- 5’ Questions from the Jury
Presentation order and slot for Friday’s Demo Day:
- Gallenvi (Team 14)
- Covid6gang (Team 11)
- Copernicusses (Team 12)
- SeaTrip (Team 03)
- UoP - University of Patras (Team 05)
- Ocean’s 6 (Team 04)
- AFROS (Team 07)
The results and the prizes
Although the competition was high, the winners have to be the best three. The results and the prizes are the following.
1st Place: SeaTrip - Team 03
The basic idea was the design and implementation of an application for a real time integrated Investigation solution for recreational sea routing using Copernicus Sentinel data.
The prize awarded was as follows:
- 2500€ worth travel vouchers by Bodossaki Foundation.
- Online Training by GEO Premium Account for 1 year with certification by Geo University.
- IMAGINE Professional licenses for 100 days and mentoring on these licenses by GeoSystems Hellas.
- 1 Laptop by NEANIAS Project.
2nd Place: Covid6gang - Team 11
Track the virus | A web app that collects climate data and provides useful information about virus transmission.
The prize awarded was as follows:
- 1500€ worth travel vouchers by Bodossaki Foundation.
- IMAGINE Professional licenses for 100 days and mentoring on these licenses by GeoSystems Hellas.
- 1 Laptop by NEANIAS Project.
3rd Place: UoP - University of Patras - Team 05
The idea was around the COVID-19 and an efficient combination of atmospheric models and current disease data for a production of an efficient prediction model.
The prize awarded was as follows:
- 1000€ worth travel vouchers by Bodossaki Foundation.
- IMAGINE Professional licenses for 100 days and mentoring on these licenses by GeoSystems Hellas.
- 1 Laptop by NEANIAS Project.
Congratulations to all. NEANIAS team is proud to support this Hackathon. Thank you very much to all who have participated and collaborated in its organization. We count on you all in the next Hackathon, there are still many interesting ideas and new challenges to face!
June 2020.