What better way to save the planet and outer space from the potential harms and challenges that are increasing as we speak, than a hackathon? NASA Space Apps Cairo and IEEE Young Professionals Egypt Section organized the NASA Space Apps Challenges last weekend, at the American University in Cairo to do just that.
The event’s fifth edition brought together more than 100 teams made up of fresh, young minds to compete against each other to reach common goals: providing solutions, achieving technological advancement and sustainability. The hackathon lasted for two days and five teams secured a share of the 50,000 EGP prize, yet a huge number of the participants were satisfied they got selected for the competition and gained invaluable experience.
Around 550 teams applied for the hackathon, and after a well detailed filtration process, only 120 teams made it to the competition, as they aimed to battle the obstacles we face through 6 challenges, Earth’s Ocean, Planets Near And Far, Our Moon, To The Stars, Living In Our World, and finally a challenge the participants invented.
“We filtered the applicants based on the abstracts that we received, there were online and offline participants who applied, but we chose our competitors based on the quality of their ideas and it’s relationship to the challenges,” Space Apps Cairo 19 Chairman, Ahmed Abdelkader stated.
The filtration committee evaluated the ideas on how applicable they would be as solutions, and based on the experience of the committee members, they set a criteria to ensure that participants are qualified to join, he added.
Age in this hackathon was literally just a number, as the competition had children, teens and adults who had different roles in their teams. Some teams relied on the creativity of their young team members, as they might think out of the box and lead them to a better innovative direction.
“Three weeks before the event, we provided the participants with a data boot camp to inform them about the challenges and help them learn some technologies to aid them in the competition. Also, we conducted a survey before the boot camp to see their level of knowledge and we helped the participants who didn’t have a team to form one, as it is really good for the teams to have a diverse age range and expertise,” Space Apps Cairo co-founder, Dina Tantawy said.
The participants received advice from mentors to help them develop their prototypes, and the organizers tried to help competitors grasp a solid idea on what they are going to work on, to help them produce the optimum output in the limited time they had, Tantawy added.
The efforts of the innovative contestants where recognized by the event’s sponsors, and Egyptian-American scientist, Farouk El Baz who surprised the attendees by coming in person, to support and encourage the upcoming talents.
