OBSERVER: Six editions of CASSINI Hackathons, dozens of winning ideas

With the objective of supporting space entrepreneurship for a digitally sustainable Europe, the European Commission launched the Competitive Space Start-ups for Innovation Initiative (CASSINI) Hackathons in 2021.

These are competitions for students, graduates, researchers and early-stage teams/start-ups across Europe. Participants can unleash their creativity and build digital applications using EU space technology - including satellite imagery and positioning services - to respond to specific challenges. Taking place across ten European cities simultaneously, these hackathons provide the perfect environment to form dynamic teams, learn about space data access, understand customer needs and kick-start the development of innovative digital solutions.

Since the launch of the initiative, six editions of the hackathon have been held, each of them focusing on a different theme. In this week’s Observer, we'll take a trip down memory lane and look at those six editions and some of the ideas they generated.

1st edition: All about green spaces

Back in June 2021, participants were challenged to hack the future of our green spaces using European space technologies. As part of this challenge, teams could address one of three themes: “discover your city”, “stay fit and healthy”, and “protect rural areas”. One of the winning teams, TreeCount&Care, focused on using space data to empower citizens to take care of trees in their communities, tracking individual trees and their water needs to protect them from drought.

The team's model had several layers. First, the model detected trees using the DeepForest algorithm. Second, it assessed the current condition and life cycle of each tree using environmental data such as soil moisture and metrics such as the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), which helps to assess vegetation health. Finally, the collected data was integrated into the 'water me' platform, which informs communities about the water status of individual trees.

The team made most of their project available under open-source licences and sought to offer the service to communities on a pay-per-use basis. The project was implemented on the team's platform.

2nd edition: Icy solutions for an icy landscape

In November 2021, during the second edition, participants focused on the challenge of connecting the Arctic with European satellite technologies. The main challenges focused on safe passage at sea, life on land and wildlife management strategies.

The winning team focused on soil erosion in Iceland. The team took up the challenge to help protect the top soil layer in Iceland, which stores up to 80% of carbon. Due to climate change, this top layer is being eroded away and carbon can be released into the atmosphere. There are ways to prevent this erosion, but first we need to know where it is most likely to happen. So, the team developed a tool to map erosion risk remotely using satellite data. They combined satellite imagery with local weather and land data such as vegetation cover and average rainfall to calculate various vegetation and soil indices. By combining these indices with statistical analysis, the team was able to assess the risk of soil erosion in specific areas and help land owners better manage the erosion risk.

3rd edition: Time to hit the road - a focus on tourism

The third CASSINI Hackathon in May 2022 focused on preserving destinations across Europe and how we access them. Participants were challenged to work on ideas that support sustainable travel, improve experiences in local cities and cultures and promote thoughtful exploration of nature in Europe.

The winning project Mind the Path, built an application that would let users find and share unmapped hiking trails in rural areas. The team employed a combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and data from Copernicus satellites. The AI's neural network architecture, originally developed for medical applications, played a pivotal role in the mapping process. It could segment individual images in a specific way, identifying structures such as hidden paths and tracks. The algorithm was trained on a small amount of Copernicus data and was then able to find hidden pathways in a much larger dataset. These AI generated maps were then verified by hikers using smartphones. The resulting application identifies uncharted hiking trails, providing key information about climate conditions and the user's location. 

4th edition: Space for the financial world

The fourth CASSINI Hackathon took place in November of 2022 and challenged participants to imagine the future of finance, insurance and investments with the help of European space technologies. They were presented with the challenges of enabling green and sustainable investments, innovating financial tools and technologies or advancing global financial intelligence.

One of the winning teams, Cropernicus (and no, that’s not a typo) presented an innovative solution that uses satellite data to forecast crop production, providing stakeholders independent and real-time predictions of future yields in a user-friendly format. This application aimed at assisting farmers and the broader agricultural industry in making informed decisions related to finance, strategy, risk management, sustainable investments, and social impact.

5th edition: An eye on defence and security 

The fifth edition took place in early 2023, in March, and challenged participants to help secure and strengthen Europe's defence by developing viable solutions which improve the EU's defence and security capabilities.

The teams were presented with three challenges: enabling off-road mobility, making the seas safer and protecting the EU's critical infrastructure.

The first place winner was Hiris Guider, a team which demonstrated how Copernicus data can be used by defence forces, emergency response teams and humanitarian organisations. The team combined Copernicus data on multiple assets like land cover, vegetation, humidity, and forests with data on population density to create a platform for evaluating evacuation plans and scenarios, allowing users to locate high-risk areas and take mitigation measures in advance.

6th edition: International development and humanitarian aid

Last but not least, the 6th edition of the CASSINI Hackathons took place in early November 2023. The theme of this edition was "Space for International Development and Humanitarian Aid". Participants had to develop solutions to three overarching challenges: how space technologies could help support sustainable infrastructure development, improve food security and access to clean water, and understand and predict forced migration.

The winning team, Upstream, focused on improving aquaculture. In a warming world, parasites can thrive in aquaculture farms, threatening production. One way to combat this is through biosecurity planning, which is required by both the EU and local authorities. This is often done through marine spatial planning but can be challenging due to conflicting interests and the dynamic nature of the sea. Upstream used several data sets from Copernicus, such as ocean currents, ocean salinity and temperatures, to develop a tool to help with biosecurity planning for aquaculture sites. The solution can simulate the spread of harmful particles in aquaculture sites and identify parasite hotspots, helping aquaculture farmers to better understand where sites should and shouldn't be placed to avoid contamination.

Looking to the future, the winning team would like to offer this service through the NextOcean Store, an EU-funded project that aims to provide Earth Observation services for fisheries and aquaculture.

Over the last six editions, more than 1200 participants have participated in the CASSINI hackathons. By providing a competitive environment which allows for support from experts and ample opportunities for cross-pollination of ideas, the hackathon series showcases and enables innovative projects and fosters creativity. Furthermore, by supporting the overall winning projects to accelerate and become profitable, the CASSINI hackathons contribute to building an environment around European space services and making them accessible to everyone.