Apply for European Space Agency Digital Twin Earth Challenge

Deadline: 19-Jul-21

Applications are now open for the European Space Agency Digital Twin Earth Challenge (ESA DTE Challenge) seeks to stimulate entries that can help visualise, monitor and forecast natural, societal, economic and industrial activities and trends on the planet, paving the way for the carbon neutral economy and reinforcing Europe’s commitment to the Green Deal.

A digital twin is a virtual replica or a simulation of a physical system or system components. The ESA Digital Twin Earth Challenge (ESA DTE Challenge) aims to stimulate applications that can demonstrate how to derive granular and reliable information about past, present and future changes in the Earth system using Earth observation data in combination with state-of-the-art technologies such as Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things, Blockchain, and Cloud Computing.

Submissions are welcome addressing key societal challenges, including:

Resilient Blue & Green Infrastructures
Food Security
Climate Adaptation
Health and Well Being
Pollution Monitoring and Prevention

Rewards

Cash Prize: The winner will receive a cash prize worth EUR 10,000.
Satellite Data: Possibility to access EUR 10,000 worth of commercial datasets from the Copernicus Contributing Missions in the Copernicus Data Warehouse (financial support by the European Commission).

Eligibility Criteria

All innovators – individuals of minimum 18 years of age, consortia or legal entities. Universities, start-ups, SMEs and bigger companies, research organisations and associates from all around the globe are invited to join.
Enterprises, scientific institutions, and individuals of legal adult age are entitled to participate in the Copernicus Masters 2021. Applications will be accepted from anywhere in the world, except for the Copernicus Master European Commission (COM) Challenges and the Copernicus Prizes. To participate in those, any applicant must be a natural or a legal person of an EU Member State or EEA, ENP, South/East countries or other countries with which the EU has space dialogues and cooperation: USA, Canada, Latin America, Africa, Gulf Cooperation Countries, Kazakhstan, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand.

Evaluation Criteria

Submissions to the ESA Copernicus Digital Twin Earth Challenge will be assessed against the following criteria:

Innovation: Is the idea innovative with respect to the market offer? Does it improve current products or services? Or does it deliver “breakthrough” innovation, combining new technologies, new trends, behaviours and new business models?
Copernicus Relevance: What is the role of Copernicus data? What is the connection to the existing Copernicus Services (in line? evolution? expansion?)?
Technical Feasibility: Is it technically sound and implementable at scale? Is the engineering approach credible?
Market Viability Index: Does the solution have real market potential? How many users can be reached?
Impact Index: What is the significance and potentially transformative contribution to the Digital Twin Earth Concept? How well are the key policy priority areas addressed?

For more information, visit https://copernicus-masters.com/challenges/esa-challenge/