The local edition of the NASA International Space Apps Challenge, the world’s largest hackathon, takes place this weekend, on October the 7th – 8th, with Romania ranking sixth in Europe, with approximately 170 participants.
The mission of the NASA International Space Apps Challenge is to foster collaboration, creativity and critical thinking, encourage interest in Earth and space exploration, raise global awareness of NASA data, and develop the next generation of scientists, engineers, technologists, and designers.
The twelfth edition of the competition will take place in five cities in Romania and in hundreds of other places around the world. The event will take place offline in Bucharest and Cluj-Napoca and online in Timișoara, Iași and Oradea.
Among the speakers of the event are Dumitru Prunariu – the only Romanian who reached Cosmos, Eduard Mititelu – Secretary of State within the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitalization, Kuldeep Kaushik – CEO NN România and Vlad Duțescu, Managing Partner Sandler Romania.
The hackathon has also attracted well-known names in technology, research and business development as mentors and jurors.
Among them are Gerke Witteveen – CEO NN Pensii, Ioan Istrate – Advisor to the Minister of Research, Innovation and Digitization, Ștefan Iorgulescu – Founder and CEO at Control F5 Software, Cătălin Vasile – Chief Sales Officer NN Romania, Alina Vasile-Floroaie – Founder & MD The Climate, Iulia Lățcan – Coach EMCC Romania – European Mentoring and Coaching Council, Victor Dinica – Managing Partner Inventif, Vlad Duțescu – Managing Partner Sandler Romania, Raluca Stavrositu – Head of Value Management Office at NN Asigurări de Viață, Cristina Mâcă – Head of Brand and Communication at NN România, Izabela – Alexandra Oprea – Full-stack developer Control F5 Software, Raluca Ganea – Community Builder Growceanu, Florian M. Pop – Founder and CEO PrimaInvest Capital Management, Mircea Dragotă – iOS Team Lead at X2Mobile and Founder of Stampino, Ciprian Man – Co-Founder of Growceanu (also juror), David Achim – Executive Director of Make IT in Oradea (also juror), Dr. Camelia Avram is an Expert in Data Transmission, Industrial Communication Protocols and Distributed Systems, Constantin Necula – Software developer at Control F5 Software.
Among the jurors of this year’s edition are Cristian Român – Senior Editor of Știință&Tehnică magazine, Ulpia Elena Botezatu – Research Engineer at Romanian Space Agency, Armand Doru Domuța – Founder&Chairman of the Board of Restart Energy, Ciprian Man – Co-founder of Growceanu, David Achim – Executive Director of Make IT in Oradea, Bogdan Niculae – Thales Alenia Space Local Engineering Manager and Cătălin Briciu – Co-founder and CEO within Linnify.
Who can sign up for the hackathon
Entries for the NASA International Space Apps Challenge can be made here until Friday, October the 6th, at the end of the day.
Programmers, scientists, designers, engineers, technology enthusiasts, storytelling specialists from all over the world can participate in the hackathon.
Participants can register for the event organized by any of the five cities, regardless of where they come from in Romania. Persons under the age of 18 who wish to participate must be registered by a parent/legal guardian and be accompanied to the event by the parent/legal guardian.
For each of the five cities in Romania, one or two winning teams will be chosen to participate in the global competition where they will compete with over 3,000 teams from around the world.
“At each edition of the NASA hackathon, we see a lot of technology specialists who come up with ideas that most of the time can be implemented and proudly compete in the higher phases of the competition. But NASA’s hackathon isn’t just for techies. It is a hackathon in which adults, but also children who are passionate about storytelling, design, geography, ecology, astronomy, physics can sign up to. It’s a hackathon for anyone who wants to help find solutions to various problems we have on Earth and in space”, said Tudor Pasc, Project Manager NASA Space Apps Challenge &Incubation Director ROTSA.
“Our lives, everyone’s lives, are getting better through innovation and digitalization. Innovation means a lot of research, both individually but also in teams and organizations, and people with different backgrounds develop ideas and initiatives together with a common goal of making the world better. We just have seen this during this week when we found out the winners of the Nobel Prizes, and we will see it again this weekend at the NASA International Space Apps Challenge hackathon. For NN, innovation is fundamental to our mission to provide customers with solutions that protect what matters most to them, and to create great experiences. We know that we need to continuously evolve to be there for people as they need us to be and this is why we are building a culture of innovation and we are digitizing all aspects of our business”, said Kuldeep Kaushik, CEO NN Romania.
“Cosmic institutions like NASA are a landmark for all life, whether we’re talking about Earth or space. These organizations have changed the lives of everyone, not just those passionate about research, technology or the solar system. I believe that a hackathon like the NASA Space Apps Challenge can help popularize science at a time when we increasingly need solutions to the many problems we face. And the fact that this event is also aimed at those with less technical knowledge, for example, those who know how to tell stories or are talented in graphics, is a fundamental step to bring ordinary people closer to a science that has always seemed very elitist”, said Dumitru Prunariu, the only Romanian to reach the cosmos.
In Romania, the biggest hackathon in the world is organized by ROTSA and DiFine PR. The first edition of the NASA International Space Apps Challenge in Romania took place in 2016.