The Kampala INSPIRE Hackathon 2020 will be presented as an example of Capacity Development for Agriculture during the INTEREST GROUP ON AGRICULTURAL DATA (IGAD) Online Meeting by Suchith Anand (GODAN,  on Wednesday, 27th May at 10:20 AM CEST.

Open Earth Observations and Open Geospatial Information are key in supporting and achieving the 2030 agenda for Global Food Security. Hackathons provide an excellent opportunity for bringing together people from different disciplinary backgrounds to form teams around a problem or idea, and collaboratively co-create a unique solution to the problem from scratch. The outputs generally take shape in the form of websites, webinars, applications, tools, policy papers, or processes. Traditionally hackathons are organized as on-site events with different groups working on different challenges which are then judged on diverse pre-agreed parameters. Though physical hackathons are considered to be more productive, they are also expensive to participants (with costs including travel, accommodation, venue costs, etc), which tend to exclude many potential participants. To obviate this challenge, virtual Hackathons are preferred as a good way of promoting inclusiveness and digital participative collaboration. In this presentation, we share experiences and lessons learned from a  fully Virtual Hackathon. This enables anyone, from anywhere, to join and contribute to the Hackathon, thereby reducing the barriers to participation (esp. for people from low-income countries). 

You are cordially invited to join this session at https://fao.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwpc-Ctpj4jHN2aUsyLuGWEHixvTrsYKoU2