A global hackathon bringing together enthusiasts from different fields
The NASA International Space Apps Challenge was held in Vaasa, Finland, for the seventh time during the autumn weekend of October 5–6, 2024.
This event is a global hackathon that brings together enthusiasts from various fields — students, entrepreneurs, and other innovative individuals. This year, there were over 93 500 registered participants from 163 countries/territories. In the Interreg Aurora region, the NASA Space Apps events were only hosted in Vaasa, Finland, and Luleå, Sweden.
The two-day event aims to solve space-related and Earth-based challenges using free and open data provided by NASA and its partner space agencies.
The Space Apps Vaasa event started on Saturday morning, October 5, with registration and a kick-off session. Project Manager at Design Centre MUOVA‘s growth incubator, Jari Ratilainen, welcomed the participants and introduced the day’s agenda. After that, teams, which had been formed both online and on-site, settled into the brand-new StartUp Factory to work on their Space Apps projects.
New facilities support focus and innovation
The hackathon is held simultaneously in hundreds of locations worldwide—on-site, virtually, or as a hybrid event. In Finland, the hackathon took place on-site only in Vaasa, attracting participants from all over the country.
Hosting the event at StartUp Factory offers new opportunities in terms of space, as teams now have more room to work and a quieter environment. The new facilities support concentration on the project, says Jari Ratilainen.
Collaborative Learning Plays a Key Role
Ratilainen mentions that participation numbers have slightly increased every year, with 63 participants this time, forming nine teams. Participants came from both local areas and cities such as Oulu, Tampere, and Helsinki. International students have traditionally been active participants. You can read more about the teams and their chosen topics here.
It’s exciting to see so many people come together. The event attracts both undergraduate and graduate students, as well as professionals already in the working life. By bringing them together at Space Apps, they can also learn from each other, says Ratilainen.
A Wide Range of Challenges for Different Skill Levels
This year’s NASA Space Apps Challenge’s theme was “The Sun Touches Everything”, featuring 20 different challenges and allowing teams to choose the ones that best suited their skills and expertise.
The challenges ranged from developing a game to improve astronauts’ well-being and cohesion during long space missions, creating educational materials on exoplanets for students, developing an interactive web application for observing celestial bodies, to designing tools for farmers to deal with natural challenges such as floods. Teams could also create a visual presentation based on images from the James Webb Space Telescope, accompanied by music, and much more. The challenges cater to a wide range of talents for those ready to tackle them. You can read more about the 2024 challenges here.
Space Apps offers students a great opportunity to apply their skills within the space industry.Jari Ratilainen, the organizer of NASA Space Apps in Vaasa
What motivated you to join Space Apps?
I asked Tapio and Lyza, participants in the hackathon, why did they decide to join the hackathon.
Who are you? Tapio Luukkonen.
What motivated you to join Space Apps? Tradition! This is my fifth time participating. It’s a great opportunity to meet other innovative people in an inspiring atmosphere. The space industry is the business of the future, and Vaasa has created a great foundation for it.
Who are you? Yelyzaveta “Lyza” Pervysheva, PhD student at the University of Tampere.
What motivated you to join Space Apps? I took part in the Space Apps event in Ukraine four or five years ago, and I have a background in GIS (Geographic Information Systems). There was an interesting challenge this year called ‘community mapping’, and that’s what I wanted to do. I didn’t have a team, so I posted a request on the local NASA Space Apps Challenge event page and found a team with participants from different backgrounds and countries. I’m excited about the challenge, and the StartUp Factory venue looks really nice with its different spaces!
Thank you to everyone who joined us for the 2024 NASA Space Apps Challenge!
Global Nominees will be announced on October 29 and after that expert judges from NASA and the Space Agency Partners will decide the top teams as the Global Finalists on November 19.
The event’s business partners included NinjaLABO and Huld. Hiroshi Doyu from NinjaLABO presented the company’s operations remotely for the participants.
The Space Apps Vaasa event was organized as part of the EU Interreg Aurora project, AuroraSpace – Boosting Space Business, and in collaboration with West Coast Startup, Vaasa University of Applied Sciences’ Design Centre MUOVA, University of Vaasa, NinjaLABO, ESA BIC Finland, and Kvarken Space Center.
