NASA launches second International Space Apps Challenge

In 2013, developers will once again boldly contribute code to projects where their code has never gone before.

From April 20 to April 21, on Earth Day, the second international Space Apps Challenge will invite developers on all seven continents to the bridge to contribute code to NASA projects.

space app challenge

Given longstanding concerns about the sustainability of apps contests, I was curious about NASA’s thinking behind launching this challenge. When I asked NASA’s open government team about the work, I immediately heard back from Nick Skytland (@Skytland), who heads up NASA’s open innovation team.

“The International Space Apps Challenge was a different approach from other federal government ‘app contests’ held before,” replied Skytland, via email.

“Instead of incentivizing technology development through open data and a prize purse, we sought to create a unique platform for international technological cooperation though a weekend-long event hosted in multiple locations across the world. We didn’t just focus on developing software apps, but actually included open hardware, citizen science, and data visualization as well.”

Aspects of that answer will please many open data advocates, like Clay Johnson or David Eaves. When Eaves recently looked at apps contests, in the context of his work on Open Data Day (coming up on February 23rd), he emphasized the importance of events that build community and applications that meet the needs of citizens or respond to business demand.

The rest of my email interview with Skytland follows.

Why is the International Space Apps Challenge worth doing again?

Nick Skytland: We see the International Space Apps Challenge event as a valuable platform for the Agency because it:

  • Creates new technologies and approaches that can solve some of the key challenges of space exploration, as well as making current efforts more cost-effective.
  • Uses open data and technology to address global needs to improve life on Earth and in space.
  • Demonstrates our commitment to the principles of the Open Government Partnership in a concrete way.

What were the results from the first challenge?

Nick Skytland: More than 100 unique open-source solutions were developed in less then 48 hours.

There were 6 winning apps, but the real “results” of the challenge was a 2,000+ person community engaged in and excited about space exploration, ready to apply that experience to challenges identified by the agency at relatively low cost and on a short timeline.

How does this challenge contribute to NASA’s mission?

Nick Skytland: There were many direct benefits. The first International Space Apps Challenge offered seven challenges specific to satellite hardware and payloads, including submissions from at least two commercial organizations. These challenges received multiple solutions in the areas of satellite tracking, suborbital payloads, command and control systems, and leveraging commercial smartphone technology for orbital remote sensing.

Additionally, a large focus of the Space Apps Challenge is on citizen innovation in the commercial space sector, lowering the cost and barriers to space so that it becomes easier to enter the market. By focusing on citizen entrepreneurship, Space Apps enables NASA to be deeply involved with the quickly emerging space startup culture. The event was extremely helpful in encouraging the collection and dissemination of space-derived data.

As you know, we have amazing open data. Space Apps is a key opportunity for us to continue to open new data sources and invite citizens to use them. Space Apps also encouraged the development of new technologies and new industries, like the space-based 3D printing industry and open-source ROV (remote submersibles for underwater exploration.)

How much of the code from more than 200 “solutions” is still in use?

Nick Skytland: We didn’t track this last time around, but almost all (if not all) of the code is still available online, many of the projects continued on well after the event, and some teams continue to work on their projects today. The best example of this is the Pineapple Project, which participated in numerous other hackathons after the 2012 International Space Apps Challenge and just recently was accepted into the Geeks Without Borders accelerator program.

Of the 71 challenges that were offered last year, a low percentage were NASA challenges — about 13, if I recall correctly. There are many reasons for this, mostly that cultural adoption of open government philosophies within government is just slow. What last year did for us is lay the groundwork. Now we have much more buy-in and interest in what can be done. This year, our challenges from NASA are much more mission-focused and relevant to needs program managers have within the agency.

Additionally, many of the externally submitted challenges we have come from other agencies who are interested in using space apps as a platform to address needs they have. Most notably, we recently worked with the Peace Corps on the Innovation Challenge they offered at RHoK in December 2012, with great results.

The International Space Apps Challenge was a way for us not only to move forward technology development, drawing on the talents and initiative of bright-minded developers, engineers, and technologists, but also a platform to actually engage people who have a passion and desire to make an immediate impact on the world.

What’s new in 2013?

Nick Skytland: Our goal for this year is to improve the platform, create an even better engagement experience, and focus the collective talents of people around the world on develop technological solutions that are relevant and immediately useful.

We have a high level of internal buy-in at NASA and a lot of participation outside NASA, from both other government organizations and local leads in many new locations. Fortunately, this means we can focus our efforts on making this an meaningful event and we are well ahead of the curve in terms of planning to do this.

To date, 44 locations have confirmed their participation and we have six spots remaining, although four of these are reserved as placeholders for cities we are pursuing. We have 50 challenge ideas already drafted for the event, 25 of which come directly from NASA. We will be releasing the entire list of challenges around March 15th on spaceappschallenge.org.

We have 55 organizations so far that are supporting the event, including seven other U.S. government organizations, and international agencies. Embassies or consulates are either directly leading or hosting the events in Monterrey, Krakow, Sofia, Jakarta, Santa Cruz, Rome, London and Auckland.

 

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