NASA-GODAN Local Farming Challenge 2017

Bringing GeoInnovation for solving Zero Hunger! This NASA-GODAN competition was  launched by André Laperrière (Executive Director, GODAN) during his keynote on 24th January, 2017 at Geospatial World Forum, in Hyderabad, India. GODAN encourages all interested parties to participate in this challenge. Registration begins now! Challenge due date: August 8, 2017GODAN  also invites all interested parties to join the GODAN Capacity development Working Group

Nearly 800 million people struggle with debilitating hunger and malnutrition in every corner of the globe. That’s one in every nine people, with the majority being women and children.  We are convinced that the solution to Zero Hunger lies within existing, but often unavailable, agriculture and nutrition data” (GODAN : Global Open Data for Agriculture & Nutrition).

The GODAN global initiative supports the proactive sharing of Open Data to make information about agriculture and nutrition available, accessible and usable to deal with the urgent challenge of ensuring world food security.

Local Farming is an important aspect in sustainability and hence GODAN is launching the NASA-GODAN Challenge welcoming students and researchers worldwide to come up with  innovative ideas (around a collaboration on agriculture and nutrition data openness) like:

  • mapping  for optimal  linking of local farming community directly with potential customers
  • tools for visualizing spatio-temporal aspects of local farming
  • tools for helping reducing wastage (for example linking with local food banks)  etc.

for helping reduce wastage and find solutions to Zero Hunger aim.

It is nearly a decade since the initial ideas for Open Geospatial Science were propounded. They build upon the proposition of Open Science which promotes the idea that scientific knowledge of all kinds develops more rapidly and productively if openly shared (as early as is practical in the discovery process). The key ingredients that make Open Geospatial Science possible are enshrined in Open Principles, i.e.: Open Source geospatial software, Open data, Open standards ,Open educational resources, and Open access to research publications. 

The NASA Europa Challenge is a World Challenge, though GODAN uses the wisdom of  Europe's INSPIRE Directive to guide project development. OpenCitySmart is an initiative of Geo for All that aims to develop a suite of tools for city-related infrastructure management (utilities, traffic, services, etc.). Its purpose will be to continually refine and add functionality that not only streamlines operational efficiency but also considers the need for sustainability and quality of urban life.

OpenCitySmart employs Open solutions to build richer toolboxes that empower organisations and individuals to handle spatial (and non-spatial) data. This will create innovation opportunities both globally and locally. The Europe Challenge is asking the world's *best and brightest* to deliver solutions serving city needs. Almost every city needs the same data management tools as every other city.

How can we help cities work together to be more sustainable, more liveable and more resilient? If cities were able to share their solutions with each other, this would multiply their investment by the number of cities participating. Each city could develop different functionalities and then 'share' these with each other, massively increasing our planet's collective productivity.  

The challenge is to get students globally to come forward to build a great application that serves some aspect of the OpenCitySmart design and uses NASA's open source virtual globe technology, WebWorldWind. By doing this we will advance a platform that allows every city to win. This challenge is open to all on our home planet.

GODAN looks forward to active participation for all interested parties for the "The GODAN  Local Farming Challenge 2017 – Bringing geoinnovation for solving Zero Hunger"!

Learn more:

Last but not least ...

Dr. Suchith Anand (GODAN) presented keynote on 25th January 2017 on "Why Openness and capacity building are key for harnessing the potential of GeoAgri" and invited all interested to join the GODAN Capacity development Working Group and expand AgriGIS opportunities for all.

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Related contents:

Apply to the WFP Global Impact Challenge # ZEROHUNGER 

“As the world changes, innovation is critical to enable the World Food Programme (WFP) to meet global needs and to deliver on its mandate to end hunger”  (World Food Programme)