A guide for organizing an Impact Driven Hackathon

This is a story of the organization of an Impact Driven Hackathon. It all started at the beginning of 2019 when I met Dietrich Van der Weken from G-STIC, who wanted to include an immersive, less orchestrated approach in the next conference he was organizing in Brussels between 20 and 22 November 2019. 

I had a particular interest in contributing to G-STIC given its focus on innovative technologies to tackle Sustainable Development Goals. I wanted to contribute by bringing solutions that actually hit the 3Ps (people, planet and prosperity).

And so it all began. 

During our first meeting Dietrich made it clear he had no budget, so I had to think about creative ways to bring in sponsors. This is when I recalled a series of presentations held by a group of EIT Raw Materials experts working with Copernicus earth observation data. And I made the connection: we could tackle Sustainable Development Goals using Earth Observation data. Looking deeper into the Copernicus program I found their funding scheme for organizing hackathons and realized nobody had ever got this grant in Belgium. After some conversations, along with Dietrich and people from Verhaert we organized a small consortium, I submitted a project proposal and in July 2019 we got the Copernicus Hackathon support to organize the event along with G-STIC 2019.

The project was to organize an Impact-Driven Hackathon that would tackle 3 Sustainable Development Goals using Earth Observation data from the Copernicus program.

Looking retrospectively the organization of an Impact-Driven hackathon has a fish bone structure: a head, a spine and a tail.

1. The Head

·     A well-defined challenge and challenge owner. The key differentiator from a good to a great hackathon is - in my opinion - how well the challenge is structured. Well-designed challenges contain 3 key distinctive elements: first – an inspiring subject, second – a focused problem description and third – a clear connection between the problem and the expected technology(ies) to solve them.

We were very fortunate to recruit hackathon partners that were ready to support us in this phase. VITO’s and the Fiocruz Foundation’s remote sensing teams and the EIT Raw Material’s RawMatCop program provided us with the right thematic experts in Earth Observation along with Food, Health and Raw Materials challenges. 

Even though we had the right support, it took us weeks before we got challenges that met the three criteria above.

The trickiest challenge to design was the one related to Raw Materials. Elsy Ibrahim, from the RawMatCop program, worked long hours contacting companies and academia in Belgium and in Europe dealing with geological related issues… unfortunately none could provide challenges we could solve with Copernicus data. 

Eventually, Elsy found Professor Thorkild Rasmussen and Dr. Mehdi Abdolmaleki at the Lulea Technical University (LTU) that could perform the job. 

I must say the three challenges we co-designed along with our challenge owners were compelling, attracted interest from participants and their technical solutions met the expectations.

Our key challenges 

You can browse our challenges here.

Challenge Owners

Fiocruz Challenge:

o  Dr. Christovam Barcellos, Geographer, Public Health specialist, PhD in Geosciences, Senior researcher at the Health Information and Communication Institute (ICICT - Fiocruz Foundation, Brazil), was the brain behind this very complex socio-economic challenge.

o  Dr. Raphael Saldanha, PhD candidate (Fiocruz Foundation, Brazil), was present in person as Fiocruz challenge owner during the hackathon.

Vito Challenge:

o  Mr. Jurgen Everaerts, Business Developer and Remote sensing specialist (VITO, Belgium) was the architect of this challenge and was the in-person Vito challenge owner during the hackathon.

Lulea Challenge:

o  Prof. Thorkild Rasmussen, and Dr. Mehdi Abdolmaleki Exploration Geophysists at LTU were the architects of this challenge.

o  Dr. Mehdi Abdolmaleki was the on-line Lulea challenge owner during the hackathon.

*Recommendation (what I would do different next time): start as soon as possible looking for challenge owners in the industry or in academia.

·     The right partners to attract skilled solvers. Our partners did a great job recruiting skilled solvers (80% had strong GIS or geographic information system skills). 

EIT Raw Materials was very active, directly sponsoring a team of 6 from their RawMatCop program (2nd winner: Acid Mine Team) and indirectly helping to attract 6 more from their SINREM program (spread in various teams). Irene Benitez, leading the RawMatCop program, was key in enabling a smooth collaboration. 

Partners also contributed with providing access to Earth Observation data from Copernicus (Terrascope, Onda, Sobloo) and other sources (Airbus, Planet).

Finally, partners secured the connection with the local innovation ecosystem through Copernicus Relays in Belgium and Esa Space Solutions (Verhaert).

Our Partners

2. The Spine

·     Well-designed Experience. The hackathon experience was a hybrid between on-line and in-presence activities. 

This experience started with a series of 4 webinars that equipped participants with relevant information and tips to start exploring the problem. We also took advantage of this interaction to engage with a broad audience and attract new registrations.

Webinars also helped motivating participants to start forming teams online via SLACK, a collaborative platform.

This online interaction enabled us to reduce the typical in-presence hackathon time by half (from 3 to 1,5 days).

         Webinars

       link

      Program

The hackathon program was designed by bringing together ideas imported from events we had previously organized/participated in. The result was a 1,5 days hackathon with 3 main phases:

o  Inspiration (pink dots)

o  Ideation (blue dot)

o  Implementation (red dots)

To increase productivity during the hackathon teams were split into GIS/data experts and Product/Biz experts. Product/Biz experts were responsible for building the business case and preparing the pitch while GIS/Data experts focused on getting the coded solution ready.

Copernicus Data Coding Experience

Key elements

Rapid Prototyping Canvas[1].Allowed participants to quickly explore the problem, bring ideas to solve it and converge to an MVP they could test; all this within 1h30. This approach gave a quick overall picture of each team’s situation, and was enriched with notes and post-it’s during the hackathon.

Progress reviews. These were 10’ reviews with representative of GIS/Data and Prod/Biz mentors and provided teams with clear attention points to focus on. Reviews were performed twice, just after the ideation step on DAY 1 and in the morning of DAY 2.

Pitching Clinic. Consisted of a 20’ workshop on how to pitch along with an 8’ dry-run pitching and a 10’ feedback session with each team. After this session teams had time to improve their presentations before the final pitch in front of investors.

·     Facilitators & Jury

We had the chance to get great support from a diverse team of specialists:

GIS/Data

·      Jurgen Everaerts, Erwin Wolters, Mehrdad Moshtaghi from VITO with strong remote sensing background.

Prod/Biz

·      Elzbieta Jablonska (Ardito Consulting), Thomas Tanghe (SpaceTech), 3 Verhaert consultants and Jean Paul Gueneau de Mussy (yours truly) with strong product/business background.

Jury

·      Thomas Tanghe (SpaceTech https://www.spacetec.partners), with his strong experience running business consultancy projects for big corporates and governments in Europe looked deep into market assumptions and business models.

·      Jurgen Everaerts (Vito Remote Sensing https://remotesensing.vito.be), with his expertise in remote sensing applications evaluated the technical solutions.

·      Veronique Boudaud (Digitize2Grow https://digitize2grow.com), having a strong expertise in the digital start up world as an investor and strategy consultant looked in detail at the value proposition from an investor’s perspective.

3. The Tail

·     Connection to Acceleration & Innovation initiatives. After the final pitch and announcement of the winners comes the real test. Will the team and the idea survive during the next days and months after the hackathon? 

The solutions

1stWinner – ExaMine – Online App

2ndWinner – Acid Mine – Online App

3rdWinner - CopTerra

Most hackathons end with plenty of post-its and very nice ideas that nobody actually implements into concrete actions. To avoid this depressing situation, teams were informed on the following paths/options:

o  Copernicus acceleration program (managed by SpaceTech Partners)

o  Astropreneurs accelerator program (managed by Verhaert for Belgium)

o  Copernicus incubation program (managed by Verhaert for Belgium)

o  Parsec accelerator program (managed by EvenFlow, Belgium)

·     The beginning of the innovation journey. The hackathon is the beginning not the end of the innovation journey. It facilitates the creation of teams that together bring an idea to the next level and convince a jury that it is worthwhile pushing it further. 

·     Organization balance. Hackathons are a great opportunity to network, meet entrepreneurial and technological minds, flex innovation muscles, recruit talent, scout ideas... Nevertheless, organizing a hackathon takes time and energy. To make sense hackathons must bring a clear return to the organizers. In our case the expected return is to make a true impact in the 3Ps (People, Planet and Prosperity), meaning we want to see solutions implemented in the market that make sense for society, the environment and the business. After the first edition, we are very far from this goal.

·      I personally believe that a true impact can be reached by:

o  iterating regularly

o  focusing on a niche

o  using on-line approaches to simplify the process and reduce costs

o  organize during the week-end to increase attendance

·      This should result in:

o  reaching a growing community of solvers (entrepreneurs, startups, …), 

o  reaching a growing community of investors looking for startups

o  connecting with the challenge owners that actually implement the solutions and see this process as a way to source technological solutions that don’t exist in the market

·     Tasks Breakdown

Acknowledgements

First of all, to the Copernicus Program, sponsor of this hackathon, to Tomas Jonsson (EC) that introduced the event and shared with us during the first day, and the support of Maximilian Heiser (AZO) during the whole process.

To all our partners that helped shaping this hackathon event, in particular to Elsy Ibrahim, who supported this initiative from early 2019 and continued behind the scenes even few days before becoming mother for the first time. To Irene Benitez, who took an active role in on-boarding a whole team and pushing the EIT Raw Materialss communication team to spread the news. 

To our wonderful challenge owners. To Dr. Christovam Barcellos (also a Webinar presenter) and Raphael Saldanha (Fiocruz Foundation) Brazil. Thanks Raphael for showing up in-person at the event even if it was during 1,5 days. To Jurgen Everaerts (Vito Remote Sensing) Belgium who also prepared and delivered one of the Webinars. To Prof. Thorkild Rasmussen, and Dr. Mehdi Abdolmaleki (LTU) Sweden.

To our Webinar exclusive presenters: Dr. Ignacio Marzan (CSIC) Spain, Kevin Ramirez (EIT Climate) UK, Robin Expert (Airbus Defense & Space) France, Mario D’Alessio (Onda DIAS) Italy, Reinier Oost (Sensar.nl) NL, Federico Faugno (3Bee.it) Italy and Hans van ’t Houd (Blackshore) NL.

To all our GIS/Data and Prod/Biz facilitators that devoted their time and energy during the event in Brussels. Particular thanks to Elzebieta Jablonska and Thomas Tanghe who volunteered to join in-person during the two days even though they are based in The Netherlands and Germany respectively.

To the co-organizers that spent long hours supporting the preparatory work. In particular, to Sam Waes and Zane Smilga that prepared and delivered one of the 4 webinars and kindly provided insights to co-develop a nice program and workshops during the event. Last but not least, to Vito and in particular to the G-STIC team that took a leading role helping with the communication and the practicalities of the venue. A big high-five to Luc Meulewaeter who was always available on-demand via Slack to solve any technical matters related to the CopHack website, for fighting the haunted registration form that decided to shut down on its own on several occasions :) 

[1]Canvas adapted from NL Space accelerator.