Young IT specialists will turn their hand to battling the forest fires that have ravaged Russia in recent summers by gathering this weekend for a hackathon aimed at developing technology to monitor their outbreak.
An emergency worker battling a blaze in Russia, where wildfires are a common occurrence in the summer. Photo: Wikipedia.
The event, titled FiresHack2016, will take place simultaneously in Moscow and Ulan-Ude - the capital of Russia’s republic of Buryatia - on Saturday and Sunday, with a video link connecting the two venues. Its aim is to find ways to use data obtained from satellites in space to register fires soon after they break out and also to identify areas at risk of forest fire, as well as to coordinate a response to the fires. It is expected to result in prototypes of ecology apps for monitoring fires that could be used by regional authorities as well as the general public.
FiresHack2016 is organised by Kosmosnimki Ru, a resident of the Skolkovo Foundation’s space cluster that provides access to satellite images of Earth taken from space, with the support of Scanex, an earth remote sensing company that is a partner of the foundation. The hackathon's partners include a volunteer firefighting organization and the environmental NGO Greenpeace, and participation is free of charge.
"Every year, tens of thousands of forest fires break out across Russia, primarily in Siberia and the Zabaikal region," the organisers wrote in a press release. Last year, dozens of people died in the republic of Khakassia and in Zabaikal, hundreds of others were injured, and thousands of people were left homeless when wildfires raged.
“We invite anyone who is prepared to apply their knowledge and ideas in IT and technology projects to fighting fires,” the organisers wrote. “We invite representatives of local communities concerned by the problem, as well as IT specialists who wish to try writing an app that will use open data on fires received from satellites, and journalists who are interested in getting an assessment of the fire situation from official and independent sources.”
In recent years, Greenpeace activists have accused the government of downplaying the scale of the problem and of not doing enough to prevent the fires.
“Hackathons for services based on satellite data is a relatively new format for Russia, but is certainly interesting for the development of the [innovations] ecosystem,” said Ivan Kosenkov, an analyst at Skolkovo’s space cluster.
“Among space startups, the lowest threshold for entering the market is for those working on geo-informational services. In essence, it’s an IT business using data received via space. Accordingly, these kind of events act as a stimulus for the emergence of new teams, businesses and products,” he said.
“We’re glad that our startups and partners are actively forming the ecosystem, paving the way for the appearance of new space startups,” Kosenkov added.
Those interested in taking part in the hackathon can register to do so on the event’s website.