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#OpenDataHack @ECMWF – Beyond weather: explore creative uses of open data

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Date/Time
Date(s) - 04/03/2017 - 05/03/2017
9:00 am - 5:00 pm

Location
Reading Shinfield Park

Categories


Developers, experts, students, data wranglers, data journalists, data enthusiasts, makers, artists – you are invited to join the meteorologists, scientists and engineers of ECMWF at our #OpenDataHack on 4 and 5 March 2017.
As part of our activities, including the recently-added EU-funded Copernicus services on climate and atmospheric monitoring, we have collected and created vast quantities of global environmental data.

Spend a weekend with us to make and demo prototypes for new services and products.
Make practical apps for travellers or growers, or build educational and playful tools for the young and young at heart. We want to see you do amazing things with ECMWF open data.

The hackathon is part of the International Open Data Day on 4 March 2017, which aims to promote the benefits and potential of open data worldwide.

HACKATHON CHALLENGES

What can you do with our data? Here are some example challenges to spark your imagination:

The “GET OUT” challenge

Create beautiful and shiny applications to bring our data to the day-to-day lives of everyone. Some ideas might be – but are not limited to:

  • An automated twitter feed to suggest holiday destinations based on our seasonal forecasts
  • Visualize the fine dust concentration for your area
  • Estimate air traffic delays based on historical delays and existing weather predictions

The “GET CREATIVE” challenge

Inspire and inform with our data – unleash the beauty in our data and combine our data with art, storytelling or any other domain we could even not think of. Some ideas might be – but are not limited to:

  • What’s the sound of an extreme event? Convert time series of weather variables into music!
  • Data can talk! Help us to communicate the importance of climate change based on our climate data
  • Map extreme weather event occurrences versus mortality rates around the world – are droughts more dangerous than tornadoes?

The “GET GEEKY” challenge

We ourselves tend to be quite geeky with our data and cannot think of anything better than a true challenge for all the geeks among us. We have some ideas we wished to have some more time for. These are just suggestions and you can also completely ignore them:

  • Forecast our forecasts with the help of machine learning
  • create a nice web GUI for ERA-interim data requests from our MARS archive
  • Automate the publishing of ECMWF data and visualisations to Amazon Cloud / ArcGIS Online / Carto / MapBox

And last, but by no means least-

The “GET FUN” challenge

We’ll provide with some weather related objects ready to be hacked in any possible way. Give your creativity full scope and be ready to hack:

  • an umbrella, or
  • a rubber duck.
  • or – well there might be a surpise or two

 

DATA

A data catalog will be made available a couple of weeks before the hackathon.

 

WHO IS THE #OPENDATAHACK FOR?

The hackathon is open for everyone interested in the use of weather and climate data. We are looking for a mix of people with diverse backgrounds. Innovative applications require ideas from a multi-disciplinary team. This is why we are looking for developers, (geo-)data experts, data users, scientists but also data journalists and people interested in data visualisation.  Come with your friends, or own your own, and form a team – it’s more fun that way.

 

WHY PARTICIPATE

There are many reasons to be part of the #OpenDataHack @ECMWF. Just to name a few very good ones:

  • learn about freely available weather and climate data
  • explore various ways how to access large volumes of environmental data
  • get to know more about the Copernicus programme and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts
  • experience ECMWF’s supercomputing facility, one of the largest in Europe
  • be part of the International Open Data Day and promote the benefits and potential of open data

 

LOGISTICS

The Hackathon will take place at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) on 4-5 March 2017 from 9:00 (Saturday) to 18:00 (Sunday).

Food will be provided. On Saturday breakfast, lunch and dinner. On Sunday breakfast and lunch.

On Sunday, you will have the opportunity to visit the centre’s supercomputer facility, one of the largest of its type in Europe.

Bring along your own laptop and other devices you want to work on as well as necessary cables, chargers and other accessories. Power sockets and WIFI access will be provided.

There is also the opportunity to stay overnight. If you want to do so, please bring your own sleeping bag and notify us. This helps us in planning.

Hashtags to be used:

  • #OpenDataHack @ECMWF
  • #opendataday

 

ELIGIBILITY

Participants are individuals that form interdisciplinary teams of 3-5 people. Optimally the teams are a mix of various backgrounds. You can register as a team or you can find your team on the day. Participation is fully voluntary and participants are not entitled to any form of compensation.

HOW TO ENTER

Get registered and save your ticket for the #OpenDataHack @ECMWF (no need to print the ticket). You can register as a team or as an individual person.

A couple of weeks before the hackathon, you will already get an opportunity to see what data will be available for the hackathon.

 

JUDGES

More detailed information will follow soon.

Submissions will be judged upon following criteria

  • Creativity
  • Use of data
  • Impact and usefulness
  • “wow factor”

 

We are looking forward to welcoming you at the #OpenDataHack @ECMWF.

Register via Eventbrite