Community Sourced Space Innovation at Gravity Challenge 04

Young people from across the nation are now invited to participate in the fourth Gravity Challenge - a competition that connects innovators with real-world problems. Participants use space technologies such as satellite data to help solve these issues. Previous winning teams include Ndspace which were chosen by NASA Harvest and used satellite data to better identify crops and Helyx who used geospatial information to better understand whale populations and work towards ocean-based solutions for the climate crisis.   

The Gravity Challenge connects end users, data providers, and innovators with some of the world's most complex and pressing economic, social, and environmental problems. There are seven challenges available to work on in 2022, including improving response times to natural disasters, establishing more sustainable agricultural practices, and minimising vessel strikes on marine wildlife.

The Gravity Challenge started in Australia in 2019 and in 2022 features participants from all over the world. At least one team member must be in a participating country: Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan, Canada, Germany, France, Austria, Luxembourg, Hungary, Romania, Poland, Czech Republic.

Teams will be comprised of three or more people and anyone from start-ups, scale-ups, high growth businesses, academics, university students, and overall space enthusiasts can apply. 

The teams will partake in the steps of the challenge from exploring data, pitching, collaborating with organisations, and preparing business proposals.

The benefits that participants will receive include direct contact with corporate and public sector businesses that provide real use cases and real end customers, mentorship and support from Deloitte and AWS technology and venture building experts, IP ownership of the solution developed during the program, access to commercialisation strategy and incubation support post the challenge to help scale offerings in the market if selected as a winning team, privileged access to current and over 20 years of historic satellite data from AWS, and other satellite data providers.

Applications opened on 20 January and close on 8 February. The challenge will take place from 15 February to 26 May. The winner works to form a commercial arrangement with the intention to roll out a pilot of your solution.

Video credit: Gravity Challenge.