Breakthrough solutions created for green spaces in the Netherlands

1

 

[PRESSWIRE] 02 July, 2021 — The team finished 1st in the inaugural CASSINI Hackathon, where hackers created innovative solutions to Digitise Green Spaces in the Netherlands using EU Space data & signals.

 

The 1st CASSINI Hackathon connected hundreds of hackers with geospatial information from Copernicus Earth observation data and its services and/or positioning technologies from Galileo & EGNOS. The event took place from 18-20 June across 10 European countries with the aim to develop innovative solutions that sustainably improve our green spaces in urban and rural areas. The CASSINI Hackathon Netherlands was organised by EscherCloud, a sustainable data centre integrated within an AI Hub! Artificial Intelligence (AI) will have a dominant impact on economic development and EscherCloud believes that by combining Earth observation data and AI, solutions to the challenges of Digitising Green Spaces will be accelerated. 

 

It can be difficult to participate in outdoor sports due to unpredictable environments and pollution. ‘SportCasts’ was the winning solution in the Netherlands and is an innovative solution to solve this challenge. ‘SportsCasts’ aims to “take the hassle out of the outdoors” and provide real-time environmental information for people participating in outdoor activities. Thanks to this, residents will be able to better plan their time outdoors and companies can leverage the data to improve services.

 

Not only have the team behind ‘SportCasts’ created a great solution to Digitise Green Spaces, but they have also won a showcase space at EscherCloud AI Lab and access to NVIDIA Inception, and acceleration platform for AI, data science and HPC start-ups. The future of green spaces in the Netherlands looks bright!

 

After winning the CASSINI Hackathon Netherlands, the ‘SportCasts’ team joined the other 9 winners from each location, and on 24 June, they pitched their solution live to a jury of experts who engaged the winners in question-and-answer sessions before evaluating each team. The team won first place and picked up an additional 100 hours of expert mentoring to support them with the development of their idea!

 

Here is the list of the overall winners:

 

1st Place: ‘Sportcasts’ from the Netherlands – an app that provides real-time environmental data so residents can better plan their outdoor activities.

 

2nd Place: ‘Tree Count & Care’ from the Czech Republic – a service that identifies the current condition of all trees in a city so they can be taken care of more efficiently.

 

3rd Place: ‘Sandless’ from France – a tool that analyses past satellite images of other cities to assist in the protection of rural areas for expanding cities.

 

Johanna Braun, Innovation Consultant and CASSINI Hackathon jury member, congratulated all the teams who pitched at the award ceremony. “It was fantastic to hear from so many budding entrepreneurs passionate about digitising green spaces. Hackathons are a unique opportunity to create innovative solutions in a very short time period, bringing together a diverse collection of people looking to solve important problems – and the teams clearly stepped up to the challenge! I have seen some real potential among these winners to create sustainable, commercially viable space-based products and services. Congratulations to all the teams”.

 

This is just the first step for CASSINI Hackathons. The next edition will take place from 5-7 November and will connect the Arctic with EU space technologies. More information will be available here: https://hackathons.cassini.eu

 

Contact:

 

Oliviana Bailey

Community & Ecosystem Lead EscherCloud

o.bailey@eschercloud.com

+31 636 30 7902; www.eschercloud.com

 

ENDS