Developers, experts, students, data wranglers, data journalists, data enthusiasts, makers, artists – you are invited to join the meteorologists, scientists and engineers of ECMWF at our #OpenDataHack on 4 and 5 March 2017.
As part of our activities, including the recently-added EU-funded Copernicus services on climate and atmospheric monitoring, we have collected and created vast quantities of global environmental data.

Spend a weekend with us to make and demo prototypes for new services and products.
Make practical apps for travellers or farmers, or build educational and playful tools for the young and young at heart. We want to see you do amazing things with ECMWF open data.

The hackathon is part of the International Open Data Day on 4 March 2017, which aims to promote the benefits and potential of open data worldwide.

HACKATHON CHALLENGES

What can you do with our data? Here are some example challenges to spark your imagination:

The "GET OUT" challenge

Create beautiful and shiny applications to bring our data to the day-to-day lives of everyone. Ideas might be - but are not limited to:

• An automated twitter feed to suggest holiday destinations based on our seasonal forecasts
• Visualize the fine dust concentration for your area
• Estimate air traffic delays based on historical delays and existing weather predictions
  

The "GET CREATIVE" challenge

Inspire and inform with our data - unleash the beauty in our data and combine our data with art, storytelling or any other domain we might not even have thought of. Ideas might be - but are not limited to:

• What's the sound of an extreme event? Convert time series of weather variables into music!
• Data can talk! Help us to communicate the importance of climate change based on our climate data
• Map extreme weather event occurrences versus mortality rates around the world - are droughts more dangerous than tornadoes?
  

The "GET GEEKY" challenge

We ourselves tend to be quite geeky with our data and cannot think of anything better than a true challenge for all the geeks among us. We have some ideas we wished to have some more time for. These are just suggestions and you can also completely ignore them:

• Forecast our forecasts with the help of machine learning
• create a nice web GUI for ERA-interim data requests from our MARS archive
• Automate the publishing of ECMWF data and visualisations to Amazon Cloud / ArcGIS Online / Carto / MapBox
  

And last, but by no means least-

The "GET FUN" challenge

We'll provide you with some weather related objects ready to be hacked in any possible way. Give your creativity full scope and be ready to hack:

• an umbrella, or
• a rubber duck.
• or - well there might be a surpise or two

DATA

Access the open data service catalogue to get a sneak peek on the data that is available for the weekend.

WHO IS THE #OPENDATAHACK FOR?

The hackathon is open to everyone interested in the use of weather and climate data. We are looking for a mix of people with diverse backgrounds. Innovative applications require ideas from a multi-disciplinary team. This is why we are looking for developers, (geo-)data experts, data users, scientists but also data journalists and people interested in data visualisation.  Come with your friends, or on your own, and form a team - it's more fun that way.

WHY PARTICIPATE

There are many reasons to be part of #OpenDataHack @ECMWF. Just to name a few very good ones:

• learn about freely available weather and climate data
• explore various ways how to access large volumes of environmental data
• get to know more about the Copernicus programme and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts
• experience ECMWF's supercomputing facility, one of the largest in Europe
• be part of the International Open Data Day and promote the benefits and potential of open data

LOGISTICS AND AGENDA

The Hackathon will take place at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) on 4-5 March 2017 from 9:00 (Saturday) to 18:00 (Sunday).

Food will be provided. On Saturday breakfast, lunch and dinner. On Sunday breakfast and lunch. Coffe, tea and soft drinks will be available throughout. We will cater for vegetarians. If you have any dietary requirements, please let us know and we'll try to accommodate you. In exceptional cases we might have to ask you to bring your own food.

You will have the opportunity to visit the centre's supercomputer facility, one of the largest of its type in Europe.

Bring along your own laptop and other devices you want to work on as well as any necessary cables, chargers, adapters and other accessories. Power sockets and WiFi access will be provided.

There is also the opportunity to stay overnight. If you want to do so, please bring your own sleeping bag, roll mat, tooth brush, earplugs, pyjamas and anything else to make you comfortable during the night. To help us planning, please notify us if you'd like to spend the night at the venue.

HASHTAGS TO USE AND FOLLOW DURING THE WEEKEND

• #OpenDataHack @ECMWF
• #OpenDataDay

HACKATHON RULES

#OpenDataHack's Code of Conduct and Terms and Conditions

ELIGIBILITY

Participants are individuals that form interdisciplinary teams of 3-5 people. Optimally the teams are a mix of various backgrounds. You can register as a team or you can find your team on the day. Participation is fully voluntary and participants are not entitled to any form of compensation.

HOW TO ENTER

Register and save your ticket for the #OpenDataHack @ECMWF (no need to print the ticket). Can't make it for the entire weekend? Join us for the Show & Tell on Sunday to see what the teams came up with!

JUDGES

• Florence Rabier (Director General - European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts)
  
• Juan Garces de Marcilla (Director of the ECMWF Copernicus Services)
• Emma Mulqueeny (Founder of Rewired State)
• Helen Turvey (CEO Shuttleworth Foundation)
• Denise McKenzie (Executive Director - Communication and Outreach | Open Geospatial Consortium)
• Tony Pettit (Chief Finance and Information Officer | Reading Buses)

JUDGING CRITERIA

• Creativity
• Use of data
• Impact and usefulness
• "wow factor"

 We are looking forward to welcoming you at the #OpenDataHack @ECMWF on 4-5 March 2017!