Leading industry partners such as Equinor, Hafslund E-co, DNV GL, Microsoft and Airbus joined forces to create sustainable solutions for smarter cities by organizing a 24 hour hackathon. The interest was huge resulting in 80 participants from 27 countries signing up to join.
– Creating smarter and sustainable cities is something that affects us all and a problem we need to address together” says Sondre Malde Pedersen, from Startuplab. He has been the driving force for the Future City Satellite Hackathon that will take place on the 20 – 21 September, as a pre-event to Oslo Innovation Week.
It started out with StartupLab, Equnior and ESA BIC Norway wanting to create awareness of utilizing satellite data. They soon found out that inviting more leading actors from the industry would serve this purpose. It didn’t take much time before more companies such as the Norwegian Computing Center, Kjeller Innovasjon, the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, the Norwegian Mapping Authority, the Norwegian Institute for Air Research, the Innovation Effect and the Norwegian Space Agency came onboard.
Within 24 hours, more than 80 students and professionals will work together to solve challenges related to developing the future of smarter cities. The goal is to have participants come up with solutions on how to utilize satellite data to create smarter cities. To do so the industry partners provide the “hackers” with challenges on air pollution, energy, construction and infrastructure. 20 mentors are also available throughout the hackathon to support the teams on their solutions.
Participants from 27 countries coming together
Students and entrepreneurs from all over the world have signed up to participate in the hackathon. Some join with predefined teams, but the majority have signed up solo, allowing them to work in multidisciplinary teams. People from 27 countries have signed up and the age differs from 20 to 71 years.
– It’s a diverse group of people that wants to work on the different challenges and we are extremely excited to see so many keen innovators coming together to find sustainable solutions”, says Malde Pedersen.
Space is the future
The idea for the hackathon evolved during a meeting between the three organizers, StartupLab, Equinor and ESA BIC Norway.
While Future Cities is the subject for this years Oslo Innovation Week, the organizers grabbed the opportunity to use satellite data as the main tool to solve the challenges.
– There are endless amounts of opportunities not yet explored within the field of satellite data, says Kristine Koslung.
– We do not require any previous experience of either hacking or knowledge on the use of satellite data. We hope that this will engage the participants to explore the field further after the event, and that the industry partners will see this as an opportunity to work even closer together than before,” adds Koslung.
Kristine Koslung, the project manager of ESA BIC Norway and the Norwegian ambassador for the European Space Agency explains that this is a great opportunity to learn and to explore.