NGA’s Expedition: Hackathon | Chicago

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nga’s expedition: hackathon:

By all indications, the future sees population increasing and densifying within urban areas, and growth halting elsewhere. Whether we face a future where technologies increasingly reduce cities’ dependence on the hinterlands for food, water and energy, or whether we face a future where the ecological stress on the hinterlands continues to grow, we are faced with hard choices about the places and resources that we want to preserve as a global society. 

At the same time, climate change will impact species distribution, abundance, and ecological interactions across the globe.

We Like:

  • The Art of the Unknown
  • GIS Powered by Imagination
  • Integrating the Real World
  • Cutting Edge Data Discovery


Challenges

These data mountains are seldom traversed. The data sits and lies dormant, waiting for someone to explore and study their findings, and to tell their stories to the world.

NGA’s Expedition: Hackathon is looking for the best data explorers and developer storytellers in the US to finally find stories lying in disparate databases all over.

Develop the next generation of engaging stories in time and space (geospatially) using the heaping piles of data we’ll give you, that educates and demonstrates data exploration at its finest!

So you’re a master? Can you develop the same data exploration hacks, if the end user only has 128k download speed for the Low bandwidth Challenge and capture $1000? Let’s see it!



Ideas to consider:


Can your data discovery and visualization tell a story?

Will your visualization educate in more than 2 dimensions?

Are trends in current conservation addressed?

Is your hack interactive or possess the ability to be updated live?


Prizes

Grand Prize: $4000 + Round trip Air and hotel 3 day/2nights to DC to meet NGA Executives and Sr Tech leaders.
1st Runner Up: Custom Trophy (it wont be faux gold) 
Low Bandwidth Challenge $1000 


Schedule

Saturday September 10
9:00 AM Doors Open, Breakfast Served
10:00 AM Opening Ceremony, with Welcome Remarks from AngelHack
10:30 AM Hacking Begins
11:00 AM Lunch
1:30 PM Technology Breakout Sessions
6:00 PM Dinner Served
8:00 PM Pitch Workshop
11:30 PM Midnight Snack
12:00 AM – 8:00 AM Hack through the night!


Sunday September 11
8:00 AM Breakfast
11:00 AM Lunch
2:00 PM Code Freeze/Hacking Ends!
3:00 PM Live Demos Begin!
Upon completion, will have a casual social to cap the event and allow people to socialize about their ideas.


Sunday Afternoon Presentations

  • Each participant and/or participant team will present their product or solution to the group on Sunday afternoon.
  • Presentations will be 2 minutes long with 1 min of questions from judges. Representatives from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Adobe, MapBox, Dan Solutions, and others will be the primary audience for the presentations.
  • No formal presentation is required. Demos of your product or solution will follow this general outline: introduce yourself/teammate, introduce your concept, identify what tools you used, explain (loosely) how you derived your solution and what problem you are solving.
  • Presentations require direct connect from your laptop to the projection system. USB sticks are permitted for presentation purposes.


National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency will have subject matter experts on hand for the entirety of the event to answer content related questions and to give context to the datasets as needed.

Sponsors will be marketing this event heavily. Don’t be surprised if a news crew shows up along the way.


Rules & Information

  • Teams: only 1 person needs to register on behalf of all participants.
  • All participants must be in the building during the event. No remote hacking will be permitted.
  • All code must be fresh.
  • Participants must provide their own laptops, and mobile/tablet devices for use during the event.
  • Seats are limited to 100 workstations.
  • Come on your own or create a team. We also want to encourage collaboration among attendees so if you find a team or person with a valuable asset to support your idea/concept, feel free to team up when you arrive.
  • External hard drives are permitted for the hacking event itself. If you want a Power strip bring it!
  • As much as we appreciate people’s interest, no one will be allowed inside the event other than participants, sponsor representatives, subject matter experts and invited media. No spectators please!


Judging Criteria

Projects will be judged based on the following criteria:

Impact: How impactful will this solution be for it’s target audience? Is it scalable?
Creativity: How original is this solution?
Design: How well designed is this solution, from front end through to UI/UX?
Execution: How well executed is this solution from start to finish?


Tools, Data, and IP Rights

Participants are allowed to use the open source tools provided by NGA’s GitHub site (github.com/ngageoint) in addition to other commercially known open source tools. If you do not yet have a GitHub account you can sign up upon registration. Participants are also encouraged to use their own proprietary solutions to develop creative and efficient products. If you are representing a company, your company’s proprietary software assets are also allowed to be used with the appropriate permission within your organization. Please reference the Terms and Conditions data to confirm that all IP rights remain with the participant and/or the organization they are representing.


All participants must agree to the terms and conditions

Location


Chicago, United States

Dates

From 10th September 2016 - 09:00 AM
to 11th September 2016 - 06:00 PM

Prizes

First Prize - $4000 + A trip to DC to meet NGA Leaders
Second Prize - custom trophy
Low Bandwith Winner - $1000