CoAfina returns: The Latin American hackathon focused on open data

posted in: Uncategorized | 0

LA-CoNGA physics announces the call process for the third edition of the Latin American hackathon of science and education -CoAfina 2024- to be held remotely on 19, 20 and 21 July. This initiative proposes a collaborative environment in which university students from the region take on the challenge of solving problems in different areas, with the use of open data, from the perspective of open and citizen science, educational initiatives, shared infrastructure and social impact of science.

The first phase of the call began on 27 May with a call to organisations, research groups or professionals from any area who are interested in proposing problems or ideas on issues such as education, health, agriculture, environment, mobility, tourism, culture, citizenship, public management, among others that have the potential to be solved with the use of open data. The details of CoAfina, the dynamics and registration form to propose a challenge are available on the official website of the hackathon. The call for challenges phase will be open until 27 June.

In previous editions, nearly 150 students from 30 universities in Latin America have proposed solutions to more than a dozen challenges defined by research groups, networks of entrepreneurs and enthusiastic professionals in the use of open data available on the web or that have been proposed for pilot experiences. Some of the topics addressed were: strategies for school use of environmental data; support for agriculture with crop data; automated recognition of animal images for educational purposes; detection of biased messages on scientific topics; visualisation of weather to learn about climate change; open government and informed voting; promotion of Andean tourism with geolocalised data.

The Latin American hackathon on science and education challenges continues to grow and it is hoped that in this edition there will be more proponents who, from their own concerns, will challenge the participating groups of CoAfina with creative ideas to make knowledge, technology and open data a favourable combination for society.

The third edition of CoAfina is co-organised by LA-CoNGA Physics in collaboration with Creative Commons Venezuela, RedCLARA and the Academic Network of Ecuador (CEDIA). This edition is also funded by the Open Research Funders Group (ORFG), INAIT, Software Sustainability Institute (SSI), and Open Life Science (OLS).

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *