Today, a huge amount of data is being collected and analyzed using geolocation data. This data is being used by both citizens and businesses to make lasting investments. SPOTTED will ensure system functionality, interoperability, and cross-border at no cost available to both public administrations and private companies. SPOTTED hereby aims to provide a framework for monitoring and planning green areas in cities, based on the integration and customized processing of massive Open Data collections, including Earth Observation (EO) data.

Objectives of the Hackathon

The objective of the specific challenge proposed was to collect ideas on how High-Value Datasets and open data coming from different data sources (in particular satellite data) could be integrated and exploited to support the decision-makers in the green area management starting from the three pilot areas (Milan, Helsinki, and Naples) under the SPOTTED project. SPOTTED aims to provide an innovative solution based on the integration and customized processing of massive open data collections, including Earth Observation data to monitor and support decision-makers in the field of urban Green Areas management.

In particular, the applicants were asked to address one of the following topics.

1. Starting from SPOTTED Digital Services, already identified by pilot cities, look for data needed to run the same service in different cities;
2. Starting from the already existing data or new data found by the applicants, propose a new Digital Service and draw its related Processing Block, for the cities already involved in the SPOTTED;
3. Propose a new Digital Service and draw its related Processing Block, for the cities already involved in the SPOTTED Project, in different thematic areas (e.g. tourism for Naples), as suggested by the pilot cities;
4. Revise the already existing Processing Blocks and, in case, re-engineer them, providing better solutions.

The solutions needed to leverage the Building Blocks promoted by the CEF Project: primarily Context Broker.

The CEF Virtual Hackathon was open to all, including startups, university students, researchers, professionals, operators, citizens, and associations. In addition to receiving a cash prize, the winners have the opportunity to pilot their application in Milan (Italy), Naples (Italy), and Helsinki (Finland).

The Winners of the Hackathon

The Hackathon closed with a total of 8 participating teams. On 3 February, participants from Italy, Luxembourg, Romania, Slovenia, and Spain got the opportunity to pitch their ideas to representatives from Milan and Naples (Italy), and Helsinki (Finland). Each team presented a 3-minute pitch with 3 slides, which was followed by another 3 minutes of questions coming from city representatives. The winners of the SPOTTED Challenge are:

• WEO‘s “GreenMonitor solution”, which gives access to near real-time info on the coverage, health, and impact of green spaces and parks on climate risks;
• WiseTown‘s “Collective Monitoring”, which combines indexes and data with a tool for citizen reports or statistics, giving a trustworthy picture of what is actually happening in the city;
• xD Twin‘s “Satellite images for construction progress monitoring”, a solution to implement satellite image import into xD Twin for the built environment.

Impression from the cities where the solutions will be potentially implemented:

“The satellite topic is really timely. From the city’s point of view, all the awarded proposals offered new and interesting ideas, even though they were still at the idea level. It would be great if we could combine the needs of the city with such creative solutions. Fortunately, we will be able to continue discussing these and other possibilities of satellite data in support of other remote sensing methods via the SPOTTED project.” – Petteri Huuska, innovation agent (City of Helsinki)

“All three awarded proposals promote the use of satellite data for the management in different fields of the urban complex context (from construction sites to green areas). The ideas presented are robust and compelling! We now look forward to the implementation phase and to put productive collaboration into action within the SPOTTED project.” – Marcella Bonanomi, Project Manager SPOTTED, (City of Milan)