Northern Nigeria’s oldest and pioneer tech hub, nHub Nigeria will for the second time in a row be the host of NASA’s International Space Apps Challenge. The challenge is NASA’s incubation innovation program that kicked off back in 2012.
“We are once again very excited to be hosting the 2017 Space Apps Challenge right here in the beautiful city of Jos for the second year. NASA Space Apps Challenge is a two-day global hackathon for innovation, engaging citizens to collaboratively and creatively develop solutions for problems related to both earth and space in a 48-hour sprint. We are also happy to announce our local sponsors QiTech Technologies Limited and Smartweb IT Solutions” said the Space Apps Jos 2017 Team.
The challenge entails a 48-hours-long hackathon pitting international coders, scientists, makers, technologists, builders, storytellers, designers, et al., against each other. The hackathon is geared towards building apps and solutions addressing challenges facing both Earth and space exploration. NASA’s massive data on both Earth and space is open the hackers to find solutions.
In last year’s International Space Apps Challenge, a total of ten teams took part in the competition, creation solutions that were in line with the Challenge’s team. For instance, Team Ivory came up with an Asteroid Detector, which uses AI to detect potentially dangerous outer-space bodies that could be on a coalition course with planet Earth. Team Ivory idea won them 1st place winners of the competition.
The Space Apps Challenge will be held from April 29-30 across several locations around the world including nHub Nigeria. For the year 2017, the theme of the competition will be Earth, and it will have five main challenge categories.
Application to the competition will be announced soon. The lucky participants chosen to take part in the hackathon will be expected to bring with them laptops and other necessary hacking tools. The organizers on their part are expected to provide the participants high-speed internet connection.
