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Earth Observation and space innovation-driven entrepreneurs and enterprises in Ireland encouraged to participate in Hackathon led by ICHEC founded at NUI Galway

The Irish Centre for High End Computing (ICHEC), has announced Ireland’s first Copernicus Hackathon, aimed at promoting the Earth Observation (EO) services sector across the country. The event takes place throughout the IT building at NUI Galway from 10-12 May 2019.

The themes for the Hackathon contest represent areas where there is already significant expertise in Ireland, or significant need. These include digital agriculture, marine environment and security, unmanned aerial vehicles, energy and power, air quality and sustainable/ rural/socially responsible development.

Hackathon participants will be challenged to come up with solutions for real-world problems using Copernicus satellite data (Copernicus is the European Earth Observation programme), and will compete for a range of awards, including cash prizes. The winners will be offered a place in the Copernicus Accelerator which offers a customised business development scheme for 50 visionary start-ups and entrepreneurs from Copernicus Participating Countries, the EU, Norway and Iceland, every year. A 30-day residency to develop solutions in the European Space Agency’s innovation-focused Phi Lab in Frascati, Italy is another of the prizes on offer.

According to Dr Jenny Hanafin, Senior Earth Observation Scientist at ICHEC, founded at NUI Galway: “The space and Earth Observation ecosystem in Ireland has been developing rapidly in recent years and the first National Space Strategy is about to be published, acknowledging that this field has grown significantly. The strategy also establishes the means to support it with further growth. In Ireland there is a small but growing Earth Observation services sector.

“ICHEC has recently launched its *SPÉir platform which aims to make satellite data easily accessible for Irish users, and promotes the use and application of Earth Observation and Copernicus data on a national basis. It’s clear that Ireland has a high level of the skills required to further develop this sector and our aim is that the proposed Hackathon event will help to achieve this.”

Dr John Breslin, a Principal Investigator at the Confirm SFI Research Centre for Smart Manufacturing and Senior Lecturer at NUI Galway, says: “Hackathon is an ideal confluence point to bring together those with complementary skills – IT developers and designers, entrepreneurs and domain experts - to create exciting new applications based on Copernicus Earth Observation data and services. Ultimately, post event, we want to see more EO and space innovation-driven enterprises in Ireland, both hardware and software, with application areas ranging from smart manufacturing of new EO/space devices to systems tackling climate change or natural disasters.”

According to Breslin, throughout the Hackathon the teams will get the opportunity to test out their initial innovative ideas on others, refine those innovations through a prototype, put a plan in place to take those ideas into a viable commercial proposition, and pitch the entire package to judges.

Dr Breslin, added: “It’s important that people who are interested in different aspects of Earth Observation and space entrepreneurship attend the event, including those who like to hack or make things, like developers and designers, those who like to hustle and drive business, sales and growth, and those who bring the much-needed topic-specific expertise and know-how in Earth Observation and space. Remember that a technology innovation is nothing without a customer who wants to pay for it, so it must be a needs-led innovation.”

The overall aims of the Hackathon are to raise awareness of commercial opportunities and to generate potential start-up, spawn-out or spinout ideas, and where possible provide support pathways to pre-commercial level for successful participants. A more general aim is to highlight the relevance of Copernicus data beyond the Space and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sectors, through the publicity generated by the event.

Dr Hanafin, added: “To achieve these aims, we have invited a number of organisations to join us as partners for the event. These partners will allow us to leverage a range of skills that will be important in organising a successful, exciting event, promoting it to the relevant people, and supporting successful participants to take their hackathon ideas to the next level.

“We are aiming for 50-60 participants to take part, with skills in Earth Observation, Geographic Information Systems, thematic areas like agriculture, marine, drones, data analysis, data visualisation, app development, web service development, graphic design, programming, project management, entrepreneurship and business development. We encourage anyone with any of these skills to register and take part, as it will be an exciting and fulfilling event.”

Alongside ICHEC the event partners include TechInnovate at NUI Galway, Baily Labs, UCC Dept. of Geography, the National Centre for Geocomputation at MU, The National Centre for Marine and Renewable Energy (MaREI), the OPW, Teagasc, ESA Phi-Lab, ESA Space Solutions Centre Ireland, Icon Group, GEO University, Údarás na Gaeltachta and The National Digital Research Centre (NDRC).

Register at http://tinyurl.com/cophackie and for further information email cophackie@ichec.ie, check out the Copernicus Hackathon Ireland Facebook event page or follow on twitter @CopHackIE.

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