Hack The Bay: Calling Data Scientists, Developers, Designers And ...

In celebration of the 50-year anniversary of Earth Day, Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc. (Booz Allen) has partnered with the Chesapeake Monitoring Cooperative (CMC) to host a social good hackathon to explore data monitoring the health of the watershed. From August 3rd to September 20th, we invite data scientists, developers, designers, problem solvers, and storytellers to explore CMC’s data and create solutions to address some of their core challenges. By exploring the Bay’s chemical and wildlife observations and their intersection with other geospatial, temporal, environmental and demographic data, we hope to further empower decision-making and inspire action for watershed restoration.

Why This Issue? Why Now?

The CMC is leading the first federally-supported citizen science water quality data initiative and supported by four partner organizations, the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay (Alliance), the Izaak Walton League of America (IWLA), Dickinson College's Alliance for Aquatic Resource Monitoring (ALLARM), and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES). The CMC is at its next big steppingstone where it seeks assistance in demonstrating and leveraging the value of the data they have collected (made available in the Chesapeake Data Explorer). To support these goals, we are asking hackathon participants to develop their own open source solutions in one of the four hackathon tracks:

Challenge 1: Develop a Restoration Case Study (Time Series / Visualization Challenge)

Using data from CMC, the Chesapeake Bay Program, and supplementary sources, tell a story about how water quality has changed over time in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

Challenge 2: Identify Data Gaps (GIS / Mapping Challenge)

With one or more visualizations, demonstrate how and where CMC’s data fills the gaps in the Chesapeake Bay Program’s database, and where data gaps in the watershed still exist. Provide an analysis that recommends locations and parameters that CMC should prioritize for new data collection, and why.

Challenge 3: Model Water Pollution (Machine Learning / Modeling Challenge)

CMC’s water quality indicators can be linked to types of pollution in the tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay. Analyze potential causes and/or build a predictive model for pollution in a section of the Bay using CMC, CBP, and supplementary geospatial datasets.

Challenge 4: Design a Water Quality Report Card (Design / Web Dev Challenge)

Design a local or regional version of the Chesapeake Bay report card that ties water quality to the values of communities living in the watershed.

Timeline:

Submission Period: August 3, 2020 (12:00pm ET) - September 20, 2020 (08:00am ET)

Judging Period: September 20, 2020 (9:00am ET) - September 25, 2020 (5:00pm ET)

Winners Announced: Winners will ne notified by September 25, and winners given the opportunity to present their solutions on Tuesday, September 29. (Details on winner presentations coming.)

In addition, Hack the Bay has teamed up with additional social-good focused speakers that will be sharing their knowledge of water and environmental justice. Keep an eye out for those announcements as the Hackathon begins!