Timisoara

WELCOME TO NASA SPACE APPS CHALLENGE 2021 IN TIMISOARA!

For the fifth year in a row, Timisoara will take part in the largest global hackathon!
Join us on October 2-3th for the 2021 International Space Apps Challenge, virtual edition!

What is NASA Space Apps Challenge?

Now in its 10th year, NASA’s International Space Apps Challenge (otherwise known as Space Apps) is the largest worldwide hackathon.

On October 2-3, NASA is inviting coders, entrepreneurs, scientists, designers, storytellers, makers, builders, artists, and technologists to come together in a global, virtual hackathon.
During the weekend, participants from around the world will come together to create virtual teams and solve challenges using NASA’s open-source data.

The theme for this year’s event -- “The Power of Ten” -- is a critical reminder that you can make a difference, even from the comfort and safety of home.
Read more about our theme this year here.

Who can participate in the hackathon?

Space Apps is for everyone! This includes those who have never “hacked’ before! All passionate problem solvers are encouraged to join - students, experts, engineers, makers, artists, and storytellers. While some of our challenges are technical, others ask you to use your artistic skills, your business acumen, and your historical imaginations! In other words, you do not need to be a coder or data expert to be part of Space Apps.

Space Apps 2021 is completely virtual, with no in-person events taking place.

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic and in the interest of our global community’s health and safety, this year’s hackathon will be an all-virtual event. In other words, all local events will be moved online. In this unprecedented time, the Space Apps community exists as a reminder that we have the tools and talents to tackle the challenges that face our planet, as well as the ability to unite across boundaries and borders of all kinds.

In fact, the most diverse teams are often the most successful. The event is free and open to the public. Participation is limited to a number of 100 participants.

During the weekend you will work together to develop an innovative solution to your challenge (be it a website, a mobile app, a concept or a hardware prototype). Your team will present the solution to a jury of experts. The best solutions will then compete on a global level!

Come join in this collaborative, problem-solving, open innovation competition!

Follow us on our national Facebook, or join our national Facebook group.
For more on who should participate in Space Apps and why NASA holds Space Apps, click here.

Become part of the team: contact us if you want to volunteer or to support us as a partner or sponsor. You are more than welcome to join us.

How are we going to challenge you this year?

The challenges will be published on the website in mid-September.
When the challenges are released, we will send a message to all registered participants.

Agenda

Click here to see a draft agenda.
But stay tuned, more to be announced.

Our partners & supporters

Organizer:
ROTSA

Co-organizers:
ClujHub
Difine PR

Partners & Sponsors:

Vodafone

Endava

Bosch

Profi

Thales

Google

Tradesilvania

Cloud Software Development

Media partners & communities:
BCR-InnovX

Magurele Science Park
Stiinta si Tehnica

ROSA

Cluj Business

Logiscool

Simplon

Top Minds

Octogon

Scoala Informală IT

Digital Stack

Codette

ThinkUP Academy

Fab Lab Iasi

EDISON Clubs

Sandler Training

2space.ro

BEST Brasov

OSUT

Jury members:

• Cristian ROMÂN is a senior editor of the Stiinta&Tehnica Magazine, where he started in 1992. He is a graduate of the Aerospace Engineering faculty. Between 2008 and 2012 he produced programs targeting the science fans at TVRM. In 2003, respectively 2006 he received the UNESCO Romania CNR Prize for Science Journalism, in the written press section. He published the book The Universe - the last adventure. In 2019 he received the Romanian Academy Award "Petre Sergescu" (History of Science and Technology).
  
• Ulpia BOTEZATU is a researcher with the Romanian Space Agency since 2014. Since 2007 she has been active in research and education as a university assistant and research assistant both in Romania and in the United States of America, Germany and the United Kingdom. Her main positions were related to critical infrastructure protection at urban, national and European level. Currently, she is juggling with few projects in her area of research interest, also representing Romania to European Union Space Surveillance and Tracking Consortium and other intergovernmental agencies in the field of Space Situational Awareness and critical space infrastructure protection.

• Fabiola Cazan is a SR. manager IT at Vodafone.

• Gabriel Preda is a principal data scientist at Endava

• Bogdan Niculae is a engineering manager at Thales with a strong background in Software Development and Configuration Management. Responsible for the Thales Alenia Space Engineering Business Unit in Thales Systems Romania.

• Cristian Dascalu is the project initiator who brought in Romania the NASA Space Apps Challenge, 6 years ago, in four main cities: Bucharest, Cluj, Iasi, Timisoara. Cristian is also a Partner in GapMinder VC Fund & the CoFounder of Techcelerator - investing & accelerating startups in Romania and Eastern Europe. As an entrepreneur, Cristian founded or co-founded several businesses and major projects aimed at the development of tech startups and digital innovation areas such as GapMinder VC, Techcelerator, ROTSA - Romanian Tech Startups Association, and others. In 2012, Cristian launched ClujHUB, the second-largest startup hub in Romania, a key contributor to the regional startup community. With a Master in Economics (specialization Management & Marketing) and strong capabilities in investment readiness, go-to-market, management, and business development, Cristian is a creative thinker, strategist, and passionate developer of communities in the innovation and digitalization areas.

• Indira Abdulvoap(Logiscool Romania) managed different companies since 2008 and has extensive experience on business development and customer experience. For some years now, she started also to work in education, managing Logiscool Romania, the ed-tech leader, teaching young kids entrepreneurship in a private school and as Business Mentor at The Entrepreneurship Academy.

• Ana Maria Stancu (Bucharest Robots) has been in the NGO field for more than 20 years, she was the Executive Director of the largest NGO in Romania on human rights, advocacy and public policy, and is currently the CEO of Bucharest Robots, the first Romanian start-up in the field of humanoid and service robots and member of the Board of euRobotics – the European Association for civil robotics and a robotics expert and consultant for different organizations in the field of robotics.

• Tudor Popescu (EDISON - Entrepreneurship and Technology Club) is the national project leader of EDISON - Entrepreneurship and Technology Club, one of the most innovative education projects dedicated to young people in Romania. Tudor has also been working in the university system for over 15 years in the field of international relations and has been involved in European and international education, research and business cooperation projects. With a scientific interest in the area of university entrepreneurship and technological development, developed in his PhD programme at two polytechnic institutes in Portugal and Romania, Tudor is an active member of the European Network for Business Studies and Languages (SPACE), where he was for several years the representative of the Romanian universities in the network.

And more to be announced.

Mentors:

• Alexandru BOGDAN (Alexandervs) is an entrepreneur, founder of Alexyo, a design agency that helps entrepreneurs explain their vision to the world through design.
  
• Costin COSTEA (Vocalio) is passionate tech oriented person. Until now he worked on various and interesting projects from space satellites simulators and biometric solutions to augmented reality smart glasses for the next generation of workers and apps that are facilitating the communication for disabled people. He always love to add some creativity flavours in order to boost 10x better projects into the world.
  
• Wilhelm HETMANN (Hetmann Technologies) is a 10+ years full-stack development and has experience with small to enterprise clients.
  
• Constantin CRACIUN (Zalmotek) has been building electronics for the last 15 years with a focus on Internet of things enabled products. He has been always driven by transhumanism in the hope of improving our bodies and minds with the help of technology.
  
• Diana NITESCU (TOP Minds) has created octo-GO-n.com, the space for science, research, and technology, which joins #NasaSpaceAppsChallenge 2021 to share and multiply technical, scientific solutions and applications in the SGS version (seriously gaming style). For her, to innovate means to divide matter, things, and facts into raw and simple elements and then give them a new force to be infinitely more, better, and more efficient.
  
• Silvia BATORII is passionate about technology and space exploration. In order to combine these passions and because she likes challenges, she became a software system engineer in the field of space applications and is Romania's contact point within the Space Generation Advisory Council, an organization with a UN consultative role. It thus promotes the opportunities offered by space and supports the contribution and active role of young people in international cooperation for the peaceful exploration of outer space. Curious and interested in education, she has been involved in various communities with which she encourages young people in choosing a STEAM career. In the past she was a trainer for robotics workshops and developed STEM-type educational modules for children.

• Serghei Hmeli (Endava) is a software developer and he is passionate about innovations and the hackathon is a perfect place for him to join in.

• Nicolae Chiorescu(Endava) is a visual designer and he is passionate about technology, human centric design (and any other kind of design in general) and management. He wants to help others learn and learn from others because life is a do it yourself project.

• Cristian Plop (Endava) is a creative lead with 6 years of experience and over the years he had the pleasure to work with many amazing clients on various projects — branding, product design, art direction, motion, design strategy.

• Borislav Bliznatchki (Endava) is a mentor responsible for the user experience design.

• Loredana Ionela (THALES) is a java developer driven by her curiosity, helping her to try new challenges and motivates her to go beyond the limits. Also, she is a teaching assistant at Faculty of Automatic and Computer Science.

• Ciprian Barbu(THALES) is a software developer who loves to explore diverse hobbies and activities, mostly out of curiosity. He is generally passionate about technology, computers, electronics, sci-fi, music and others. He enjoys doing all sorts of DIY in his spare time, whether it's about fixing things, implementing basic applications or reverse-engineering and repurposing things he finds around. His professional background is centered primarily around Linux, virtualization, NFV and embedded to mention a few.

• Romeo Milea (Vodafone) is a director, network development.

• Florin Oltean (Vodafone) is an IT director.

• Vlad Dumitru (Vodafone) is a chapter lead integration development.

And more to be announced.

Moderator:

• Vlad Conovaru is a producer at Radio TANANANA. He is a media passionate, in all its forms - written, audio, video, and online. Radio is his first love, but television has fulfilled it, and the online adventure has shown him what freedom to create really means. Music is one of his passions and he just loves to find a soundtrack for any type of activity. When he's not doing this, he likes to talk about it and introduce it to those he hasn't reached yet - that's one of his missions as a radio host. He believes that natural, honest communication is the key to reach the soul of the public.

Rewards and prizes:

• Astronomical telescopes from our sponsor Vodafone;
• Gift cards from our sponsor PROFI;
• 3 individual mentoring sessions from our sponsor Sandler Training Romania;
• 3 interactive entrepreneurship sessions to sustain the ideas that have the potential to became start-ups from the organizer, ROTSA Digital Hub;
• 5 Google Home Assistant and 10 earphones On-ear JBL Wireless from our sponsor Thales;

Stay tuned for more, to be announced.

Past editions at national level

Here is to show you the unique experience the events bring.
Check out the mentors, jurors, partners and the magnitude of the previous events.

Click here for Timisoara, 2018
Click here for Timisoara, 2017
Click here for Cluj, 2020
Click here for Cluj, 2019
Click here for Cluj, 2018
Click here for Cluj, 2017
Click here for Cluj, 2016
Click here for Bucharest, 2020
Click here for Bucharest, 2019
Click here for Bucharest, 2018
Click here for Bucharest, 2017
Click here for Craiova, 2019
Click here for Craiova, 2018
Click here for Iasi, 2018

GDPR Agreement

Even if our goals are intergalactic, we must obey earthly laws. Enrolling in the competition also implies the agreement for the organizers to use your personal data (as per this document). If you do not want to do this, please contact the organizers.
Due to the same earthly rules, children under 14 must be registered by an adult.

Our values

Space Apps is a place where every person feels they belong, where they are comfortable being authentic, and where they are empowered to contribute to their fullest. If you experience or witness discrimination, harassment, or any form of bullying during the Space Apps Challenge, or have any other concerns, please contact your Local Lead and/or the Space Apps Global Organizing Team at conduct@spaceappschallenge.org.

About NASA:

Hashtags: #SpaceApps

Twitter: @SpaceApps

Facebook: @SpaceAppsChallenge

Instagram: nasa_spaceapps

YouTube: NASA Space Apps Challenge

Website: spaceappschalenge.org