The NERC COVID-19 Hackathons
Our 2020 COVID-19 Series Hackathon events are now concluded. We will leave these pages up as a record of the activities. Please have a look at the many entries for the events on our COVID-19 Digital Sprint Github page, and see the winners for each event on the webpage for each of the specific events.
We’re calling for environmental researchers, health and social science experts and data specialists to join an urgent Natural Environment Research Council (NERC, part of UK Research and Innovation) – funded Digital Sprint in June 2020. Entrants will work together or individually to draw from key NERC digital assets and datasets to consider the environmental impacts and consequences of COVID-19 and create a wealth of open, digital, environmental solutions to the pandemic.
We are offering awards of up to £3000 for the solutions that best help us understand and address COVID-19 impact.
We will run four successive virtual hackathons, each over one week and each with a different focus as described below. Due to its complexity, our final challenge event will run over four weeks.
The Digital Sprint will address the environmental impacts and consequence of COVID-19 and overall will consider two focal areas:
(i) Using the environment to generate a better understanding of the interplay between the environment and the epidemiological and health related aspects of the COVID-19 epidemic, and,
(ii) Understanding how the effects of such large-scale manipulation of the planet, cessation of travel, new consumption behaviours etc. relate to tackling the crisis. NERC national capability and research funding can be deployed to seize this.
In the Hackathons, we are seeking to create a wealth of open digital solutions to the pressing needs of society. However, to provide further incentive, all four Hackathons will all have awards offered to the best ‘environmental digital solution’ that helps us understand and address the COVID-19 impact.
The Awards
For each Hackathon:
- First place award £3,000
- Second place award £1,500
- Third place award £500
Awards are made to the team, to be shared out amongst team members.
Welcome!
A community effort in the environmental sciences
The Digital Sprint will leverage cutting-edge technology to support environmental solutions, drawing from key NERC digital assets and datasets, benefitting from the capabilities of the NERC community of environmental scientists bringing to bear the expertise of the environmental community in support of solutions to the COVID-19 crisis, interfacing with key experts and datasets from health and social science disciplines. The activities described will help develop and inform NERC’s programmatic response to the COVID-19 challenges within the digital environment framework. The activities will develop bridges to comparable programmes and initiatives.
In the Hackathon events, we will provide delegates with access to data within the NERC Environmental Data Service. This data encapsulates a unique body of insightful knowledge describing environmental themes such as levels of atmospheric pollution, ecological impacts, soil and water quality. It is the juxtaposition of these data with the societal, epidemiological and omics information emerging from the COVID-19 crisis that will provide the insights we seek.
Hackathon Topics
We will run three successive virtual hackathons, each over one week and each with a different focus as described described below, as well as a longer subsequent final Hackathon event which will run for four weeks. These activities are open to all-comers. Find out more by clicking on the links below:
How to enter a Hackathon
The competitions are open to all comers, and although we anticipate entrants with expertise in the environmental sciences, we also anticipate those joining from other disciplines – including engineering, the humanities, medicine and bioinformatics, and computer and data science.
We encourage the formation of teams for entering the hackathon and encourage these teams to adopt a multi-disciplinary approach. Individuals are also welcome to enter and all entrants are encouraged to compete in more than one event. Events are independent.
Entrants are encouraged to compete in more than one of the events.
Each entrant must provide themselves with a team name and single email point of contact.
To register, please use the form below:
How the Hackathons will work, making an entry
The three Hackathons will each operate over a period of one week. Dates are indicated above.
The challenge focus for each Hackathon, set here in advance, is a guiding high-level theme designed to permit each team a free hand with their approach.
The means of addressing and undertaking the challenges and selecting the datasets for use and analysis will remain the decision of each team.
Some KEY advice for participants is to ensure your entry includes a narrative explaining what you did and the methods and outcomes you reached. You will significantly uplift the judging panel’s view of your work if you can show how you have drawn from the NERC data centre resources.
Teams will be provided with open access to the NERC environmental data centre holdings and will have further signposting to the emerging bodies of open COVID-19-related data now becoming available.
Over the period of the week, the team will firm their aim and objectives, source the datasets required to address these, undertake data preparations, select appropriate developmental and presentational software technologies, and develop a practical ‘digital solution’.
On completion of the Hackathons you will have developed one (or more) prototype digital solution that showcases your approach to the challenge, and you will present to the judging panel a public web presence for the entry, together with web links as appropriate to public code repositories. You entry may include other publicly accessible materials to aid an understanding of the solution – this may include a summary report/description (no more than 5 pages please!) or a publicly available summary video.
We will ask you to share your work after the Hackathon, and we will gather up all entries and where possible link to them from this website as a permanent record of the entries made.
Software choices
We do not seek to impose a particular software technology on entrants – you may develop code in a popular language such as ‘R’ or Python, you may develop a GIS-or remote sensing based application, equally you may develop a mobile phone app. The software choice is up to you – but the purpose of the digital solution is clear – to address the theme of the challenge in an effective way and make the results publicly available.
Data sources
Data used in your digital solution can derive from many sources. There are now a large number of public data repositories with COVID-19-related data which can be openly accessed and consulted. The NERC Environmental Data Service (EDS) will also make available to entrants data resources on request. See this webpage, (or download this document) for instructions and advice on sources of data for the events.
Making your entry
Development teams may already have their own code repositories which is fine, but if not a GitHub organisation portal has been established online and each final solution can be uploaded, together with a ‘README’ mark-up page outlining the specific challenge aims and objectives, the methods followed, and the solution produced. In addition to source code, outputs are encouraged that highlight the solution in action – for example videos and animations. You can join the GitHub ‘organisation’ with an individual account and collectively create and join a ‘team’.
The GitHub site is https://github.com/NERC-COVID19-DigitalEnvironmentSprint – but note that if you have your own repository that is fine as long as it is made publicly available.
All entries (for example code repositories) must identify clearly the Team, the Hackathon Challenge and the solution name (e.g. ‘GreenTeam_NERCHackathonOne_AtmosphericDust’). Please use this naming convention to aid management of and access to the materials. All source code produced must be made open access to encourage the widest uptake of any solutions put forward.
How we will judge the Hackathon entries
In running the Hackathon, we seek to create a body of excellent open access ‘digital solutions’ addressing the pressing issues pertaining to COVID-19. However, each Hackathon is also a competition, with financial awards for first, second and third place offered as a further incentive.
A judging panel to be appointed by NERC will review all the entries for each of the Hackathons and will determine the winning entries, who will be contacted to receive their team award. Teams will receive comments from the panel relating to their entry.
Depending on the number of entries, it is our intention that judging will take two weeks from the completion of each hackathon event.
The criteria for the judging will involve a consideration of (a) the Specific Fit of the solution to the challenge focus, (b) the practical Measurability of the outcome, (c) the Achievability of the solution, (d) the Relevance of the approach put forward and addressed in (e) the Timebound period of the Hackathon – in effect a ‘SMART’ approach. To detail further, we will assess all entries according to the following criteria:
‘S’ (specific) = Does the solution you deliver match with the specific challenge of the Hackathon? Is it clear enough from your entry for the judges to assess you have completed a solution?
‘M’ (measurable) = Does the digital solution you put forward permit a ‘measurable outcome’? Does your entry meet expectations?
‘A’ (achievable) = Is the digital solution put forward sensible and practical? Was the solution achieved within the time frame, opportunity and resources?
‘R’ (relevant) = Does the digital solution put forward have scientific merit (in NERC remit), with relevance to the overall Hackathon theme? Does the digital solution have the desired impact?
‘T’ (timebound) = Has the topic been adequately addressed satisfactorily within the allocated week?
Please note the judging panel’s decision will be final.
The legacy of the Hackathons
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to profound changes in our society, with consequent worldwide impacts – both positive and negative – on the natural environment. As we seek to understand fully the consequences of these impacts, there is a pressing need for tools and solutions to help us characterise and understand what has happened. This will aid our ability to determine the possibility of resurgence from a residual population of the virus, and to see how future pandemics can be planned for and better mitigated. We also have in fact a unique opportunity by which to see the impact our society normally exerts on our environment, and as we move towards a planned net carbon zero future there are also opportunities to understand how best we may reconfigure our activities to achieve this.
NERC, as part of UK Research and Innovation, undertake support of extensive research and development in environmental science, and our research spans biomes across the globe in all environments from the deep oceans to the Antarctic, from the jungles to the high mountains and from the changing atmosphere to the environment of our own British Isles. Our research support in these areas is informed by the pressing needs of society. The COVID-19 pandemic will lead to both short- and long-term responses by NERC. The hackathons will enable us a potential lens through which to plan and direct future support actions, so it is important there is a legacy arising from this activity. As part of our wider ‘Constructing a Digital Environment’ programme, described on this wider website, another key legacy is in providing future environmental researchers with a body of excellent digital solutions to help future researchers identify best practices.
Contacting us
Please contact us with any questions digitalsolutions@nerc.ukri.org.
Discussions during the Hackathons
Please post any general queries to the public discussion forum on this website and we will endeavour to respond as swiftly as possible.