This year’s NASA Space Apps Challenge Hackathon is expected to be the space agency’s largest ever, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said yesterday, encouraging local teams to vie for the opportunity to compete on the global stage.
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the local competition is to be held virtually in Taipei from Oct. 2 to Oct. 3, the AIT said in a news release yesterday.
The Taipei City Government, the National Space Organization (NSPO) of the National Applied Research Laboratories and g0v Jothon are to cohost the event, it said.
Photo: Screen grab from AIT video
Teams selected from the local competition are to go on to compete in NASA’s global challenge, the AIT said.
As this year marks Space Apps’ 10th anniversary, the theme will be “The Power of Ten,” it said.
“I would like to encourage everyone in Taiwan interested in this to join this global event,” AIT Director Sandra Oudkirk said in a video released yesterday.
“Like during the Tokyo Olympics, Taiwan has a chance to show the world its talents. So use your superpower to save the Earth,” she said, gesturing as if exerting her superpowers to lift a weight in the video.
The top local winner is to receive NT$60,000 from the NSPO, while the second and the third would get NT$30,000 and NT$10,000 respectively, it said.
Microsoft Taiwan will present Xbox Series X sets to two teams that make the best use of Microsoft Azure technology in their project solutions, it said.
MediaTek and The Foundation for Women’s Rights Promotion and Development are to provide additional prizes, it said.
The Space Apps Challenge is an international hackathon for coders, scientists, designers, storytellers, makers, builders, technologists and others in cities around the world, in which teams engage NASA’s free and open data to address real-world problems on Earth and in space, the AIT said.
For one weekend each October, participants from around the world come together over a 48-hour period to solve challenges submitted by NASA personnel, it said.
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