Sofia Tech Park is a co-organizer of the online Copernicus Hackathon Sofia 2020

08 April 2020

On 24th – 26th April an online Copernicus Hackathon Sofia 2020 is going to be held with main topic Space Hacking of COVID-19. The event is part of the International Space Week and is organized by the Risk Space Transfer – Technology Transfer Office (RST-TTO), a member of the Copernicus Relay network.

Sofia Tech Park is co-organizer of the online hackathon, which was originally planned to be held in the Science and Technology Park. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has proven the importance of research and emerging technologies in crisis situations. Therefore, the ambition of the organizers is, despite the difficulties and unusual situation, to contribute to overcoming the crisis by “hacking COVID-19 through space technology”. The purpose of the hackathon will be through the knowledge and skills of Bulgarian specialists in the field of information technology, physics, mathematics, earth sciences and more, to contribute by developing new ideas, products or services focused on the main strands of the Copernicus program.

Sofia Technical Park will be activly involved in the organization of online event, by providing digital solutions for maximum interaction with the audience and participants. All of them will have the opportunity to follow and participate in the event by the dedicated video channel with many interactive features, through which the organizers will coordinate the event. Experts from the Science and Technology Park will join the Hackathon as team mentors. Sofia Tech Park will also have a representative in the jury, who will evaluate the ideas and projects.

In addition to the three initially identified challenges of the teams, three new topics related to the impact of the pandemic and the use of Earth observation technologies are added:
Smart cities
– projects and developments helping decision making process allowing informed and right decisions to be taken for safe, stable and sustainable urban centers;
– Monitoring of changes in air pollution during the COVID19 epidemic using SENTINEL 5.

Danube and Black Sea Monitoring
– projects and developments aiming at better management of river basins, the Black Sea coast, environmental protection and biodiversity, risk management, sustainable development of their resources, etc.

– Assessment of water quality (basic biological parameters) of the Danube and Black Sea during the COVID19 epidemic, using SENTINEL 2 & 3.

Electronic management through satellite data and artificial intelligence
– projects and developments related to improving the accessibility, transparency and efficiency of public services and the provision of better e-services to citizens in areas such as awareness and situation assessment, regional planning and resource monitoring. Earth observation data and artificial intelligence algorithms can be used to develop special software that supports automatic and semi-automatic interpretation of areas affected by natural disasters and accidents;
– The use of satellite information (SENTINEL) to evaluate the geographical spread of COVID19 using artificial intelligence algorithms nationally and globally.

Participants can also suggest their own theme.

Interesting prizes will be provided for the winners in Hakaton. The first place winner will receive one year of training at Copernicus Accelerator. In addition to this grand prize, additional prizes from the sponsors will be awarded, such as a visit to the European Space Agency, a subscription to cloud services through the DIAS Satellite Data Centers, as well as promotional prizes and cash prizes.

The online Hackathon will take place through the Slack and Zoom platforms.

An Info session will be held on April 15th. The lecturers will hold an online video conference (webinar) where potential participants will have the opportunity to receive additional information about the upcoming goals and objectives of the Copernicus program, access to Sentinel satellite data.

Dear friends, we invite you to take part actively in the virtual Copernicus Hackathon Sofia 2020.

For more information and registration : https://hackathon.rst-tto.com/

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/CopernicusRelaysBAS/

Twitter – https://twitter.com/CopernicusBG

LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/copernicusrelays-bas/

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