Nairobi INSPIRE Hackathon 2019

The Nairobi INSPIRE Hackathon 2019 was a pioneering event held from March 19 to May 10, 2019, culminating in a workshop at the IST-Africa 2019 Conference in Nairobi, Kenya. This hackathon focused on leveraging open data, Earth observation, and citizen science to address challenges in agriculture, environmental sustainability, and urban development across Africa.

🎯 Objectives

• Promote Open Data and VGI: Encourage the use and development of open data and volunteered geographic information to support environmental and spatial planning initiatives.
• Foster Collaboration: Bring together experts from EU projects to share knowledge, experiences, and best practices in the application of geospatial technologies.
• Demonstrate Technological Capabilities: Showcase the power of modern technologies and common standards originating from initiatives like INSPIRE, Copernicus, and GEOSS.
• Engage the Community: Involve citizens and stakeholders in the co-creation of solutions addressing real-world environmental challenges.

🧩 Challenges and Teams

The hackathon featured nine thematic teams, each led by experienced mentors:

1. Team 1: Food Security in Relation to Earth Observation
   
   • Mentor: Karel Charvat
     
   • Focus: Utilizing Earth observation data to support agriculture in Africa at regional and local levels.
     
     

1. Team 2: Climatic Services for Africa
   
   • Mentor: Karel Jedlička
     
   • Focus: Accessing and properly using weather and climate-related data to improve agricultural practices.
     
     

1. Team 3: Open Land Use for Africa (OLU4Africa)
   
   • Mentor: Dmitrij Kozuch
     
   • Focus: Exploring open data sources to build and extend the Open Land Use map for Africa.
     
     

1. Team 4: IoT Technologies for Africa
   
   • Mentor: Michal Kepka
     
   • Focus: Researching available IoT networks and data sources, and implementing connectors to sensor data storage systems.
     
     

1. Team 5: Agriculture Innovation Hub for Africa
   
   • Mentors: Karel Charvat, Tuula Löytty
     
   • Focus: Developing a social space for the African agriculture community to share knowledge and experiences.
     
     

1. Team 6: Open Data and Data Sharing in Agri-Food Chains in Africa
   
   • Mentor: Raul Palma
     
   • Focus: Exploring data sharing practices among stakeholders in the agri-food chain.
     
     

1. Team 7: Smart Points of Interest – Publication of Open Data in Africa as 5-star Linked Open Data
   
   • Mentors: Otakar Čerba, Karel Charvat, Raul Palma
     
   • Focus: Publishing spatial open data from Africa as 5-star Linked Open Data.
     
     

1. Team 8: Citizen Science in Africa to Ground Truth & Exploit Earth Observation Data
   
   • Mentors: Uta Wehn, Raitis Berzins, Simon Leitgeb
     
   • Focus: Exploring the potential of citizen scientists to validate and utilize satellite observations.
     
     

1. Team 9: Open Transport Map (OTM) Applications for Africa
   
   • Mentor: Dan Beran
     
   • Focus: Demonstrating how interactive traffic modeling applications can improve traffic situations in African cities.
     
     

🧑‍🏫 Webinars

As part of the hackathon, a series of webinars were conducted to provide participants with insights into various topics related to the challenges. These webinars facilitated knowledge sharing and collaboration among participants and mentors.

• April 4, 2019:
  
  • 1:00 PM CEST: Team 2 – Climatic Services for Africa (Mentor: Karel Jedlička)
    
  • 2:00 PM CEST: Team 6 – Open Data and Data Sharing in Agri-Food Chains in Africa (Mentor: Raul Palma)
    
  • 3:00 PM CEST: Team 4 – IoT Technologies for Africa (Mentor: Michal Kepka)
    
  • 4:00 PM CEST: Team 3 – Open Land Use for Africa (Mentor: Dmitrij Kozuch)
    
• April 5, 2019:
  
  • 10:00 AM CEST: Team 7 – Smart Points of Interest (Mentor: Otakar Čerba)
    
  • 12:00 PM CEST: Team 9 – Open Transport Map Applications for Africa (Mentor: Dan Beran)
    
• April 8, 2019:
  
  • 2:00 PM CEST: Team 5 – Agriculture Innovation Hub for Africa (Mentor: Karel Charvat)
    
  • 3:00 PM CEST: Team 1 – Food Security in Relation to Earth Observation (Mentor: Karel Charvat)
    
  • 4:00 PM CEST: Team 8 – Citizen Science in Africa (Mentor: Uta Wehn)
    

These webinars provided overviews of the planned work, discussed initial ideas, and facilitated brainstorming sessions among team members and mentors.

📈 Progress Reports

Throughout the hackathon, teams submitted progress reports to document their developments and findings. These reports provided updates on the teams' work, challenges faced, and solutions devised. For instance, Team 5 focused on developing a social space for the African agriculture community, while Team 8 explored the potential of citizen scientists to validate and utilise satellite observations.

🏆 Results

The Nairobi INSPIRE Hackathon 2019 concluded with presentations from each team, showcasing their innovative solutions and contributions to sustainable development in Africa. While specific outcomes and winning projects from the 2019 event are not detailed in the available sources, the success of this hackathon contributed to the continuation and expansion of the INSPIRE Hackathon series in subsequent years.

🏢 Organisers

• Plan4all: A non-profit association dedicated to sustaining and enhancing the results of multiple research and innovation projects, focusing on open data related to planning activities in various specialisms such as transport, spatial and city planning, environment, and tourism.
• Club of Ossiach: An international group comprising agriculturists, agribusiness managers, agriculture and forestry technologists, environmentalists, and agricultural ICT specialists.
• EO4Agri: A project aiming to catalyse the evolution of the European capacity for improving operational agriculture monitoring from local to global levels based on information derived from Copernicus satellite observation data and associated geospatial and socio-economic information services.
• DataBio: A project focused on deploying a state-of-the-art big data platform to support the bioeconomy sector, involving continuous cooperation between end-user and technology provider companies, bioeconomy and technology research institutes, and other partners.
• NextGEOSS: A project implementing a federated data hub for access and exploitation of Earth Observation data, including user-friendly tools for data mining, discovery, access, and exploitation, supported by strong community engagement.
• EUXDAT: An e-Infrastructure project addressing agriculture, land monitoring, and energy efficiency for sustainable development, providing an advanced frontend for users to develop applications on top of an infrastructure based on HPC and Cloud.
• PoliVisu: A research and innovation project designed to evolve the traditional public policy-making cycle using big data, enhancing digital tools to leverage data for more democratic decision-making through impact visualisation and stakeholder engagement.
• AfriAlliance: A project aiming to better prepare Africa for future climate change challenges by having African and European stakeholders work together in water innovation, research, policy, and capacity development, including improving water and climate monitoring and forecasting processes and tools in Africa.
• CSEOL (Citizen Science Earth Observation Lab): An initiative exploring the potential of using Citizen Science approaches and new digital technologies in a suitable setting for experimenting and generating new Earth Observation products and services.

These organisations collaboratively contributed to the success of the Nairobi INSPIRE Hackathon 2019, fostering innovation and sustainable development through open data and geospatial technologies.