Tackling COVID-19 Using Data

Participants from around the world will form virtual teams and use Earth observation data to develop solutions to COVID-19-related issues. Challenges will range from studying the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 and its spread to the impact the disease is having on the Earth system.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has spanned the globe. The virus has negatively impacted people and our planet, leaving the world in need of resilient solutions to the challenges it has created.

Since founding the International Space Apps Challenge with NASA in 2012, our team at SecondMuse has worked with a global community of nearly 100,000 problem-solvers in about 100 countries to address complex problems defined by NASA experts. In light of COVID-19, it’s no wonder that the Space Apps community is coming to the table to be the source of local and global solutions.

On May 30-31, NASA, along with the European Space Agency (ESA), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), and the National Centre for Space Studies (CNES), is inviting coders, entrepreneurs, scientists, designers, storytellers, makers, builders, artists, and technologists to participate in a virtual hackathon, the NASA Space Apps COVID-19 Challenge. Over 48 hours, participants from around the world will form virtual teams and use Earth observation data to develop solutions to COVID-19-related issues. This NASA-led initiative is organized in collaboration with Booz Allen Hamilton, Mindgrub and SecondMuse.

Since 2012, we’ve seen unconventional approaches lend fresh insight, inspiration, and solutions to difficult problems through Space Apps and widespread hackathons such as Random Hacks of Kindness and the National Day of Civic Hacking. At SecondMuse, we see these hackathons as a unique opportunity for the world to engage in collective efforts to solve global problems, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

We want participants and people around the world to see that we need to come together and think together as one global human family. If we don’t, we won't be able to understand, let alone solve, some of the biggest problems affecting humanity.

The Space Apps COVID-19 Challenge is bringing together more than 10,000 people from all around the globe to lend their diverse perspectives to out-of-this-world problem-solving. It’s an important opportunity to come to the table to solve a problem that is affecting all of us with NASA, ESA, JAXA, CSA, and CNES data at our fingertips.

What is Space Apps?

Now in its 9th year, Space Apps is an international hackathon for coders, scientists, designers, storytellers, makers, builders, technologists, and others in cities around the world, where teams engage with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s free and open data to address real-world problems on Earth and in space. Space Apps 2019 included over 29,000 participants at 225 events in 71 countries. Space Apps is a NASA-led initiative organized in collaboration with Booz Allen Hamilton, Mindgrub, and SecondMuse.

Space Apps 2020 will still take place on October 2-4, 2020. You can apply to host a local event by clicking the link here.