Application Deadline:23.00hrs CET on 30 September 2018.
Hackathon for Environmental Sensors (Hardware) and IoT for Climate Services
Date: 19-23 November 2018 @ KNUST Kumasi Business Incubator, Kumasi
Background
TWIGA is a 4-year project (2019 – 2023) under EU Horizon2020 aimed to transform weather water data into value-added information services. It is made up of a consortium of 18 partners – 8 from Africa and 10 from Europe.
At the moment the products and services being considered some of which have been tested by TWIGA partners are in the Agriculture, Water, Energy, Disaster Response and Management and Insurance sectors. For these products and services to be successful on the Africa market, often they need to be bundled and may require public-private partnerships (Bellagio-African-PPP-for-Climate-services 2017).
For Agriculture, the following products are being considered: agriculture knowledge and information systems, crop monitoring (health and yield), site evaluation for crops, crop selection and calendar, weather forecasting, fertilizer advice, Pest and disease management, sowing and planting advise, water use and irrigation advice, soil moisture assessment and modeling, soil nutrients assessment, salinity assessment, flood risk assessment, flood early warning system, drought risk assessment, drought monitoring, Extreme weather risk assessment, Extreme weather early warning, disaster monitoring and impact assessment, agricultural (index) insurance, market access assessment and market information, climate change modeling and monitoring, pasture and water bodies identification and monitoring, forest and bushfire warning and monitoring, agricultural control and compliance monitoring (Noort, 2018).
Objectives of the Hackathon
To foster involvement by young scientists and entrepreneurs, TWIGA will organize five hackathons; three on development of geo-services at Strathmore (Kenya), TU Delft (Netherlands) and SAWS (South Africa), and two on sensor development at KNUST (Ghana) and TU Delft (Netherlands).
Because the hackathon will be partly funded by TWIGA, there has to be a realistic outlook towards a service. Therefore the objective of the hackathon in Kumasi will be to develop a viable product (environmental sensor and/or service) in 5 days in line with the TWIGA products and services outlined above.
Prizes
- 5 Teams of not more than 3 people per team will be invited if they meet all the set requirements. There are prizes of €1500, €1000, and €500 for number one, two and three.. These three finalists will be supported to take their ideas from conceptualization to full prototype ready to be tested on the market within 2 years.
- The intellectual property rights of the winning prototypes developed during the course of the 5 days Hackathon will be shared between the developers and the TWIGA project.
Requirements and Application Procedure
- The call is open to only teams from Ghana. Similar hackathons will be organized in other parts of Africa later.
- The teams could be formed by individual persons, students, start-ups, companies, NGOs or government organizations.
- Teams should have expertise in software and hardware development. All teams need to be physically present during the 5-day Hackathon in Kumasi.
All interested teams should send their application (2 –page concept note, and the resume or CV of all proposed team members) on the environmental sensor(s) and/or IoT for climate service they intend to develop to [email protected] with the words [TWIGA Hackathon in Kumasi] in the subject line of the email. The application should be submitted by 23.00hrs CET on 30 September 2018.
Start-ups that provided letters of support for the TWIGA project proposal are highly encouraged to apply as well as teams with women.
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