List of hackathons organized by md5 in 2019

Join MD5 for our continuing series of hackathons where you can test your innovation skills and tackle big national security challenges! We’re looking for students, developers, designers, and hackers from the academic, military, and start-up communities to come together for a weekend to explore non-traditional, innovative concepts for tactical computing capabilities in austere environments. MD5 will provide up to $90,000 in total awards to winning teams to further develop their concepts! Challenge Overview In "Off the Grid", we're working with US Army Special Operations Forces (SOF) to help them develop new capabilities for operating at the edge. SOF operate in austere environments, often training and conducting missions with local counterparts and living with the same limited access to resources and communication infrastructure. Furthermore, the technological advantage that SOF operators enjoy is quickly eroding as adversaries rapidly develop new capabilities. Operational Constraints: This austere operating environment imposes several technological constraints on operations: Weight: Only what they can carry in on their backs. The weight of power sources and electronics hardware is a limiting constraint on how much processing and communication capability a team can have in the field. Energy efficient solutions, high energy-density power sources, and an innovative combination of both can increase these capabilities. Connectivity: Limited traditional satellite, radio, or other connectivity. SOF must be able to operate independently wherever they are deployed without any assumption of support from back home or from allies. Security: Mobile systems must be hardened against hostile intrusions and communications must be encrypted. Focus Areas: Despite this challenging environment and daunting operational constraints, SOF operators must be able to perform many critical functions. This hackathon will address two challenges of properly equipping operators with the tools necessary to accomplish their missions: Edge Processing: Computer processing currently relies on bulky and heavy hardware and power sources. How can we improve the ability to perform complex, analytical tasks (e.g., computer vision, natural language processing), in the field, without access to cloud computing? Data Transmission: Operators often have requirements to transmit large amounts of data to command elements when there is little or no communications infrastructure available. For example, they may be required to stream high definition, full-motion, real-time video or store up to 32 hours’ worth of data for later transmission. What innovative capabilities can be developed to collect, manage, and transmit data in austere environments? Ideal solutions should be platform agnostic and minimize the size and weight of hardware and power sources. MD5 will provide up to $90,000 in total awards to winning teams to further develop their concepts! Can you Hack it? We think you can!

Evacuating people from an area threatened or struck by a natural or manmade disaster is extraordinarily hard. The challenge is compounded when the number of people to be evacuated is large and communication and transportation infrastructure damaged or inoperable. Hurricanes like Sandy or Katrina, earthquakes, tsunamis, terrorist attacks, war—when natural or manmade disasters occur the U.S. military plays a vital role in helping people reach safety. On 9/11 hundreds of thousands of people trapped south of the Twin Towers had to be evacuated on foot over bridges and by boat with support from the National Guard and Coast Guard. This revealed the extraordinary challenges of coordinating and executing massive evacuations. Despite routine civilian and military planning and exercises for massive evacuations, significant challenges remain for first-responders, emergency managers, and the military. MD5, in collaboration with the New York National Guard, Joint Task Force Empire Shield, Columbia University, New York University, and Galvanize, will host Escape from New York: A Massive Evacuation Hackathon, at Galvanize in New York, NY from February 22-24, 2019. This hackathon will focus on developing technical solutions to support the following: Communicate – Current alert and notification systems provide one-way communication of general information. How can we target communications to provide people with relevant and compelling information specific to their location, status, or other factors? How can we interact with the disabled, elderly, homeless, and other at-risk populations? How can we best support those who refuse to evacuate?  Track – Real-time, end-to-end tracking of evacuees is critical to managing evacuation efforts. What tools can we develop to better account for individuals and families; locate individuals who are unaccounted for; and confirm the identity and track the status of people throughout the evacuation process? How do we connect families with relatives impacted by the disaster? How can we track patients throughout the process, ensuring access to medical records and a continuum of care? Transport – Managing the movement of people out of the disaster area while simultaneously coordinating the in-flow of supplies and equipment (both bulk commodities and donations) is challenging under dynamic conditions where critical infrastructure may be pushed beyond capacity or damaged. What tools can we develop to better select collection and staging areas; coordinate and schedule transportation modes and routes; and manage the flow of personnel and resources? How can we leverage analytics and data sources (e.g., drones, social media, geographic information systems) to optimize operations and manage risk? Up to three teams can each win up to a $15,000 contract award to further develop their concept in collaboration with MD5! Agenda Friday Feb 22 -  4:00 PM  Registration opens 6:00 PM  Dinner 6:30 PM  Challenge brief, orientation 7:30 PM  Team formation 9:00 PM  Hacking begins 11:00 PM  Facility closes   Saturday Feb 23  8:00 AM  Facility opens, breakfast Hacking Continues Mentoring by challenge and technical experts 12:00 PM  Lunch Hacking Continues Mentoring by challenge and technical experts 6:00 PM  Dinner Hacking Continues 11:00 PM  Facility Closes   Sunday Feb 24 8:00  AM    Facility opens, breakfast Hacking continues Mentoring by pitch, presentation, and business experts 9:30 AM   Concepts submitted Judging Begins 12:00 PM  Lunch, Top 5 teams announced 1:00 PM  Top 5 teams present 2:00 PM  Final judging 2:30 PM  Award ceremony 3:00 PM  Hackathon concludes About MD5 MD5 is the Department of Defense's National Security Technology Accelerator. Our mission is to provide a platform to cultivate the people and ideas necessary to build technology-based ventures that align national economic, security and social objectives for the good of the nation. To learn more about MD5, visit www.MD5.net or send us an email at info@md5.net