Space Apps Ottawa would like to congratulate all of our participants on their ingenuity, creativity, and hard work! We had a lot of great projects and presentations, in fact our judges remarked on how impressive all the project were, and how much was accomplished in just 2 days.
CSA Award Nominee Team Peri Peri
RCM Challenge - built a user friendly interface to access and display modelled RCM data
Ali Salaheddin
Judy Chang
James Neal (not pictured)
Hesham Alshaebi (not pictured)
NASA Global Award Nominee Ramrod
Space Jockey Challenge - Developed a tool that shows EO satellites in orbit and allows user to "see what the satellite sees"
Samantha Larson
Jonathan Kendrick
David Petrasovic
Adam Steinbok (Not pictured)
NASA Global Award & People's Choice Award Nominee Bird Watchers
Migratory Travel and Travel Stories Challenge. Built a machine learning artificial intelligence that allowed users to identify animals by taking a picture, the app logged the sighting and location to add to the database for that animal.
William Wang
Michael Dysart
Ahmed Abdulwahaab
Vikram Bombhi
The NASA International Space Apps Challenge is an intense 48-hour global weekend hackathon for developers, designers, engineers, entrepreneurs, astronomers and enthusiasts. Along with nearly 200 cities around the world, Ottawa teams will form and build products and prototypes against NASA-designed challenges that leverage spacecraft, celestial and science data.
Developed by NASA and the European Space Agency, challenges focus on real-world design challenges, and on making our planet and universe accessible, visual, and fun to explore. The theme of this year's event is "Earth" (Earth Science). The Canadian Space Agency has released two Challenges for the Canadian Space Apps events. The categories are:
Check them out here:
| 6:00 pm | Registration opens |
|---|---|
| 7:00 pm | Kick-off and Opening Remarks |
| 7:15 to 10:00 pm | Team formation/review challenges |
| 10:00 pm | Doors close for the night |
| 8:00 am | Doors re-open |
|---|---|
| 8:00 am to 10:00 pm | Hacking and building! |
| 10:00 pm | Doors close for the night |
| 8:00 am | Doors re-open |
|---|---|
| 12:00 to 3:00 pm | Presentation Prep |
| 3:00 to 5:00 pm | Presentations and judging |
| 5:00 to 6:00 pm | Final awards and wrap-up |
| 6:00 pm | Doors close, event finished. |
Ryan Anderson
I'm a space and satellite consultant for government and commercial clients. A ten year veteran of the satellite communications and earth observation industries, I've had the privilege of working on some of Canada's most innovative and critical satellite programs.
As Vice President of the Canadian Space Society in 2017, I'll be leading more events like the SpaceAppsChallenge and the Canadian Space Summit and providing advice to the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space Canada.
Nicholas Kellett
I am the Founder and CEO of Deploy Solutions, a Canadian software company specializing in reducing software project failure rates.
I am a software technologist, speaker, instructor, and blogger with twenty years of professional consulting experience in a wide variety of industries.
I also like to blog about space exploration, scuba diving, and travel.
Arthur Ruff
I'm the CEO and founder of ISRU Tech Inc. which builds technology to reduce the cost of space exploration and development through the use of resources found in space. I began my career in Mission Control on the Space Station program in 1996. In 2015 I won NASA's "Space Pioneering - Achieving Earth Independence" competition with the design of a Martian habitat made from reinforced ice.
Chad English
Chad English is an aerospace engineer, business advisor, professor, rock climber, and exhausted father of three boys who also love space, rockets, and LEGO™. His PhD from Carleton University focused on dynamics of nonlinear systems with research applied to robotics and biomechanics. Chad worked in the space industry from 1999 to 2012, including assembling the International Space Station, inspecting space shuttles on orbit, and building automated rendezvous & docking systems, culminating as Director of Research & Development at Neptec Design Group. He now leads the national Aerospace Sector Team at the National Research Council’s Industrial Research Assistance Program, with a focus on space markets and Beyond Visual Line of Sight UAVs. Chad also discovered a 25th hour of the day and uses it to teach a graduate aerospace engineering course at Carleton University.
Eva-Jane Lark
Eva-Jane Lark is a Vice-President and Wealth Advisor with BMO Nesbitt Burns, one of Canada's largest full-service investment firms. For over 25 years, she has provided expert advice to her clients on a wide variety of investment and wealth management issues.
Since reviving her childhood passion for seeing humanity live and thrive beyond Earth, Eva has researched the state of the space industry, presenting papers at space conferences starting with the “Investment Financing of Exploration”. She has been an invited judge (for several NewSpace Business Plan Competitions) and keynote speaker, a moderator, panelist and speaker discussing topics including: financing for new space companies and markets; business case issues facing Space-Based Solar Power as a future energy source, and ISRU/space mining; and for her insights as a keen observer of the emerging new space industries. She was among the contributors to the NSSO's (National Security Space Office) Space-Based Solar Power Architecture Study in 2007, with her work featured as the study's central business case analysis. She is also an active investor in publicly-traded space companies and an angel investor in the private space industry.
John Phillips
John Phillips is, through Klister Credit Corp., a private equity investor focusing on early stage companies and, for many investments, a corporate director. He has been angel investing for 15 years and is no longer welcoming new opportunities. His current active board and advisor responsibilities include:
- Canopy Labs Inc. (www.canopylabs.com) of Toronto;
- commonsku inc. (www.commonsku.com) of Toronto;
- LookBookHQ Inc. (http://lookbookhq.com) of Toronto;
- Sequence Bioinformatics Inc. (www.sequencebio.co) of St. John's, NL;
- Virtual Marine Technology Inc. (www.vmtechnology.ca) of St. John’s, NL;
- WatrHub Inc. (www.watrhub.com) of Toronto; and
- White Pine Pictures Inc. (www.whitepinepictures.com) of Toronto;
He currently also serves as a director of Shopify Inc. (NYSE:SHOP) www.shopify.com of Ottawa, ON, and as a member of the LP Advisory Committee of Venture Newfoundland and Labrador. He has completed service as a director of and remains a keen supporter of The LORAN Scholars Foundation www.loranscholar.ca of Toronto and of Redknee Solutions Inc. (TSX: RKN) www.redknee.com of Mississauga ON.
John joined Clearnet Communications Inc. in December 1994 after working with Blake, Cassels & Graydon for 20 years, where he practised business law (including corporate & project finance) and became a partner in 1982. John served as Executive Vice President, Carrier Relations and General Counsel at Clearnet and then TELUS Mobility until December 2001. He has served as Chair and Vice-Chair of the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association. John received his B.A. from Trinity College, University of Toronto in 1971 and his law degree from the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto in 1974. He and his wife, Cathy, live in Toronto ON and Flatrock NL.
It's completely free to participate. We're working with sponsors to make the event free of charge.
Absolutely! If you're interested in helping out at the event, email us here.
Start by taking a good look through the challenges and select a few that interest you. Two weeks before the event, all registrants will receive login information to an online collaboration place, where prospective team members can find each other and start strategizing. Of course, you can also just show up to the venue on Friday the 28th and form a team there too.
Networking is important here. To put a great team together, you’ll have to walk around and talk to people. There will be a system at the event for identifying people with certains skills, but you’ll need to talk to people to find out exactly what they can offer.
While this is the first time Ottawa has hosted the Space Apps Challenge, Toronto hosts the event every year, and there was a NASA International Space Apps Challenge 2016. Check out the site to see last year's teams and prototypes!
Try to arrive at 6:00pm to register early, and so you have a chance to start networking with other attendees.
The event is being hosted at "Cody's Cafe" on the 6th floor of Shopify's headquarters, on 150 Elgin street. Google directions are here.
There is free weekend parking at World Exchange Plaza, just a couple of blocks away. You may need to get a parking stub and validate it on the way out, at one of the machines. There is also lots of street parking nearby which may or may not be free depending on the location and time of day.
Yes, make sure you bring a computer. Laptops are preferred of course but bring what you need to get the job done. Your computer will need to connect to wireless internet networks at the venue.
Mostly. You’ll need to bring any components and supplies you’ll need to build your prototype. We’ll have tool stations set up for common use, and will list them here well before the event.
A notebook for designing stuff! And if you have an extra extension cord and/or power strip that’s always helpful.
The NASA International Space Apps Challenge is a free event, and we depend on sponsorship to provide amenities like food to participants. At the moment, the plan is to provide only snacks, but we’re working on changing that. The event is within easy walking distance of many great food options on Elgin street, and others nearby.
If you tweet about this event, please use the #SpaceApps and #SpaceAppsOttawa hashtags so we can include you in any awesome displays, and to make it easier for others to connect with you. Please follow the official Space Apps Ottawa feed (https://twitter.com/SpaceAppsOttawa) to stay up-to-date on the event.
Ottawa is one of nearly 200 cities participating in the NASA International Space Apps Challenge. While we definitely want to earn some bragging rights for our city, there will also be opportunities to build multi-city teams with team members working across more than one city.
Once local winners are announced (incl. multi-city teams) on Sunday evening, NASA will select a number of best-of apps over different categories.
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