Reports from the winning challenges to come out of the Kampala Inspire Hackathon have been published on the GODAN f1000 open publishing gateway.

FIRST PLACE - Mapping and Predicting Desert Locust Invasion

The best way to predict locust swarms is to use satellite data to detect and measure impact. Satellite imagery and earth observation data can be used as a proxy to measure the volume of the vegetation on the ground, helping identify areas where urgent help is needed. This approach allows us to estimate the degree of damage likely to result from locust swarms.

Cherenet E, Houel M, Kamou W et al. Mapping and Predicting Desert Locust Invasion [version 1; not peer reviewed]. F1000Research 2020, 9:693 (document) (doi: 10.7490/f1000research.1118028.1)

SECOND PLACE - SmartAfriHub: Agricultural transformation through Digital Innovation Hubs

A technology and innovation hub is a space where technologists, computer scientists, hackers, Web developers and programmers congregate to network, share programs and design to bring their ideas to fruition. In broad terms, they represent a form of co-working office space that can offer a variety of services like community building, pre-incubation, incubation and acceleration. Tech hubs in Africa have grown consistently over recent years, and now number over 100.

This social work space fosters an active and open innovative community that seeks, shares and grows knowledge, learns from each other and explores new opportunities to develop agriculture and agrifood domains.

Plan4All, WIRELESSINFO and Club of Ossiach. SmartAfriHub: Agricultural transformation through Digital Innovation Hubs [version 1; not peer reviewed]. F1000Research 2020, 9:695 (document) (doi: 10.7490/f1000research.1118029.1)

THIRD PLACE - Climate Change Trends for Africa

The aim of Challenge 6: Climate Change Trends for Africa was to provide a proof of scenario in which a user gets information about several climatic variables and their changes over time at a certain locality in Africa.

Hájek P, Valeš J, Jedlička K and Ekwacu S. Climate Change Trends for Africa [version 1; not peer reviewed]. F1000Research 2020, 9:696 (document) (doi: 10.7490/f1000research.1118030.1)

SPECIAL MENTION - Ethical and Legal Aspects of Open Data Affecting Farmers

Open Data offers a great potential for innovations from which the agricultural sector can benefit decisively due to a wide range of possibilities for further use. However, there are many inter-linked issues in the whole data value chain that affect the ability of farmers, especially the poorest and most vulnerable, to access, use and harness the benefits of data and data-driven technologies.
 
There are technical challenges and ethical and legal challenges as well. Of all these challenges, the ethical and legal aspects related to accessing and using data by the farmers and sharing farmers’ data have been less explored.
 
Participants aimed to identify gaps and highlight the often-complex legal issues related to open data in the areas of law (e.g. data ownership, data rights) policies, codes of conduct, data protection, intellectual property rights, licensing contracts and personal privacy.

Zampati F, Addison C, Kamau K et al. Ethical and Legal Aspects of Open Data Affecting Farmers [version 1; not peer reviewed]. F1000Research 2020, 9:694 (document) (doi: 10.7490/f1000research.1118031.1)

Kampala INSPIRE Hackathon

These reports are an output of the Kampala INSPIRE Hackathon 2020. The Hackathon addressed key topics identified by the IST-Africa 2020 conference, such as: Agriculture, environmental sustainability, collaborative open innovation, and ICT-enabled entrepreneurship.

The goal of the event was to continue to build on the efforts of the 2019 Nairobi INSPIRE Hackathon, further strengthening relationships between various EU projects and African communities. It was a successful event, with more than 200 participants representing 26 African countries. The INSPIRE Hackathons are not a competition, rather the main focus is building relationships, making rapid developments, and collecting ideas for future research and innovation.

Organised in the framewok of the IST Africa 2020 Conference, the Hackathon was a collaborative event organised by: Plan4all, Club of Ossiach associations, GODAN, FAO, IST-Africa Conference, Makerere University, AfriGEO, RCMRD and EU projects including EO4Agri, STARGATE, RDA Europe 4.0, SIEUSOIL, DEMETER, SmartAgriHubs, NextGEOSS, EUXDAT, PoliVisu and AFarCloud.

Find out more here: https://www.plan4all.eu/kampala-inspire-hackathon-2020/