Launch of the WeObserve Open Data Challenge (ODC)

With the acceleration of climate change, addressing environmental challenges has never been more urgent. More people now than ever before have direct experience of the increased pressure on our planet. They are calling for better protection for local issues that have an impact in their lives, from extreme events such as flooding and wild-fires to pollution. At the same time, people have to global concerns related to the wise use and regeneration of natural assets, biodiversity loss and risks such as food security.

Environmental data can help to address these issues. As a result of citizens coming together with scientists and other stakeholders there is a growing amount of high-quality and open data to apply to these challenges. There are opportunities to merge open datasets from local governments and data from these Citizen Science projects to produce new and exciting data products.

As such, the WeObserve Open Data Challenge (ODC) launched on Friday 15th May. The ODC​'s ultimate goal is to find new approaches and solutions to respond to environmental challenges through open datasets, as well as to produce applications and services and showcase citizen science data for public benefit. ​The ODC will focus on the following seven challenge themes:

1. Ecosystem monitoring: Phenology, biodiversity and land cover;
2. Public infrastructure management – Soil Moisture and Drainage, Flood Mapping;
3. Community-Based Disaster Management: Flood, Fire, Drought, Heatwave Services, Landslide;
4. Regenerative food growing: yields, sustainable practices and natural pest control;
5. Pollution monitoring and health: Water quality, air quality;
6. Engaging young people on open data and climate: Education;
7. Other: Innovative applications of WeObserve data e.g. COVID19;

On 15th of May the first phase of ODC kicks off. Participants can register here. Registration will be open up to 15 of June 2020. ​Participants will be allocated a mentor who will guide them and support them throughout the challenge.

In the second phase, which will last up to 17 of July 2020, all participants will be invited to submit their demos. After the evaluation, on August, the winning teams will be contacted. The two winning ​individuals/teams will be awarded with €5,000 cash each. The evaluation criteria can be found here. The winning individuals/teams will also have the opportunity to demonstrate their solutions during the WeObserve Conference on October 2020.

Complete the form and register in the WeOberve ODC!